He rescued a fledgling and orphaned Cape Haze Marine Laboratory and, together with the late Dr. Perry Gilbert, Professor Emeritus at Cornell University, and Dr. Eugenie Clark, professor at the University of Maryland, moved it physically and philosophically to become one of the better independent laboratories in the country. The laboratory bearing his name I think he would consider his finest accomplishment--an institution committed to pursuits in marine education and understanding on every level.

Bill Mote’s intent when he established the William R. and Lenore Mote Endowment was to provide support for eminent scholars, for international symposia in fisheries ecology, and for young undergraduate students to conduct marine research. His reasoning and his choices in doing so seem to have been impeccable. Thousands of school children visit the Mote Marine Laboratory both remotely and actually each year. Hundreds of scientists either use the laboratory as a base or collaborate with resident scientists on issues ranging from red tide to turtle protection and aquaculture. Scores more from around the world gather every other year for the Mote International Symposium in Fisheries Ecology to tackle some of the most contentious and complicated issues facing fisheries management today. The intent is to take an emerging area of concern--such as stock enhancement, marine reserves, or precautionary management--to investigate divergent points of view, and always to focus on the root problems of extracting living marine resources from the sea. The publication of the proceedings from these symposia feeds directly into conservation and fisheries policy arenas. Truly, these serve as palpable testimony to Bill Mote's interests and philanthropy and will continue in the same vein in the years ahead.

Bill Mote retained to the end a crystal-clear vision of his mission in life. He voiced his often-repeated concern that we’d taken too much from the sea and that it was time to give something back. He was certainly right on the first point, given recent statements by the United Nations and the National Academy of Science that most of the world’s oceans are in fact overfished. Given the legacy he’s left us, he clearly accomplished the second. He has most assuredly given back, and we thank him gratefully for it.

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