Highliner Award 1981 - Konrad Uri 
National Fisherman Magazine

The junior member of this year's trio is Konrad Uri of Seattle.  He has "a mere" 30 years of experience as a fisherman -- with bottomfish, salmon, halibut, tuna, shrimp, crab, and blackcod -- but those years have been full of innovation and initiative.  Uri is now distinguished as the owner/operator of the only successful American bottomfish catcher/processor vessel in operation.  

Uri was born of a Norwegian family in Ballard, Wash., and his ancestors were fishermen as far back as he can trace them.  After emigrating from Norway, his father fished draggers from California to British Columbia and caught tuna and shark as well.  Uri was a longliner in the 1960's when the National Marine Fisheries Service took an interest in experimenting with pots for catching blackcod.

He, along with Sig Jaeger, helped NMFS gear specialists design the pot-fishing system that later became the basis for a new industry.  Later, Uri was the owner of a pioneering king crab catcher/processor, and his company -- Trans Pacific Industries, Inc. -- operated two such vessels, the Pengwin and Pavlof.

According the Jim Branson, executive director of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council and one of the two people to nominate Uri for a Highliner award, Konrad is "an active member of the NPFMC advisory panel and of several of its working groups involving the groundfish resource off Alaska."

Captain Uri is perhaps best known as the owner and skipper of the catcher/processor Arctic Trawler which produces cod and pollock fillets, marketed by Transpacific and an affiliated company. 

Dr. Don Bevan, a fisheries professor at the University of Washington and North Pacific Fishery Management Council Member, says in support of his nomination of Uri, "He has done more toward developing the Alaska groundfish industry than anyone else."

"It's an are in which there's been an awful lot of talk and not much action."  Bevan says "Konrad has revamped a vessel that was a white elephant [Seafreeze Atlantic] and that nobody could make work, and he has made it very successful.  They are producing some high quality cod and pollock."  By describing Uri as "very innovative, both in fishing and in business, and that's a great combination."

Uri himself states that achieving his Highliner status takes "a lot of dedication to your profession -- not just to the fishing but to all aspects of it, including the business and the politics.  The paperwork is probably as interesting as the fishing part of it," he says.

Pictured above are Helen, Konrad, and Beth Ann Uri.  Read more about Konrad here:  NWFA Person of the year 2011 

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