Professor Gary Graham, Marine Fisheries Specialist, has served with the Texas Sea Grant/Cooperator Extension Program since 1970.  He began his career in fisheries in 1966 when he entered the commercial shrimp industry to supplement funding for his education at Texas A&M University. 

Mr. Graham graduated with a B.S. in 1969 and continued to fish commercially until his employment with the university.  Since that time, he has been actively involved in research and extension throughout the southeast region of the Gulf of Mexico.  He attained Professor with the Texas A&M Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences in 1996.

He is credited with a number of projects to include introduction of the quad trawl system in the shrimp fisheries, introduction of bottom and pelagic longlines in the Western Gulf, development and introduction of high technological fibers to the trawling industry.  In the past twenty years, Mr. Graham has been actively involved in the introduction and development of turtle excluder devices and bycatch reduction devices in the shrimp industry and has focused much effort on technology transfer of these gears to the shrimp industry.   He also worked cooperatively with the shrimp industry to develop a comprehensive atlas to pinpoint over 12000 bottom trawl obstructions extending from Brownsville to the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Mr. Graham serves on a number of committees that include Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council committees, including the Shrimp Advisory Panel, the Red Snapper Advisory Panel, and Ad Hoc BRD Committee.  He has served on the Sea Turtle Conservation Committee and the Cooperative Research within National Marine Fisheries Service Committee of the National Academy of Sciences.  Mr. Graham chairs the Gulf & South Atlantic Fisheries Foundation Industry/NMFS Committee on gear research.