Shawn Sears of W. Sears Seafoods, Clark’s Harbour is the new president for the Nova Scotia Seafood Alliance board of directors.
Sears was voted unanimously to the position by the board of directors following the resignation of Osborne Burke, general manager of the Victoria Fisheries Co-operative, who decided after a decade it was time to step back.
“On behalf of the Alliance, we’re incredibly grateful for the work Osborne was able to do on behalf of the sector and organization,” said Kris Vascotto, Alliance executive director “He is a major component in the wild fish and seafood sector in the province. He’s done great work. We’re extremely grateful for the time and effort he put into it.”
Burke took on the role of president in 2015, about the time the organization, which represents land-based seafood companies of all sizes throughout the province, was transitioning in name from Nova Scotia Salt Fish Packers, which was formed in 1975.
The transition took the organization from one species to a broader reach of all species from Cape Breton to Yarmouth, said Burke in an interview.
The Alliance represents shore-based industries in processing and buying across the province, a lot of them family owned, added Burke.
“Over that period of time, we progressed with the assistance of board members and our executive director at the time, Leo Muise, who was well known in the industry. Leo had a lot of knowledge,” said Burke, giving an “honorable mention to people like Stewart Lamont, who spent a lot of time in the last year or so supporting a lot of activities as a board member and recruiting members and associate members like financial institutions, the loan board, companies that are associated indirectly with industry, suppliers of products.”
The Alliance now has over 200 members. “Since we transitioned to the Nova Scotia Seafood Alliance to better reflect the broad interests of our membership, our membership base continues to grow and now includes members with a presence in almost every fishery,” said Burke.
Burke is still on the Alliance board of directors and executive as past president.
“The Nova Scotia Seafood Alliance over the past number of years has worked closely with provincial and federal fisheries departments and certainly have earned their respect and continue to do so. We’ve been very effective in programs for our members from the AFF that we secured significant improvements for our members across the province. We recently became involved in a group insurance plan for our membership that has significant changes… reduced costs to members across the board. Like our motto says, ‘working together works,’” said Burke.
