Guillermo Gomez is the President and founding partner of Gomez-Hall Associates, which after 28 years of being based in San Diego, has recently moved to Seattle. Mr. Gomez has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico City, and a Master's of Marine Affairs from the Institute for Marine Studies (now School of Marine and Environmental Affairs) at the University of Washington, in Seattle, WA.  He is also HACCP certified.  Over the past three decades, he has been involved in all aspects of the tuna supply chain, from tuna vessel management, tuna processing, and tuna brokerage, to consulting projects for industry, governments, international management organizations and environmental non-governmental organizations from around the world. Prior to establishing Gomez-Hall Associates, Mr. Gomez held several positions in the Ministry of Fisheries of Mexico, including Director of the Division of International Fisheries Policy, and Advisor to the Minister. He has also served as International Tuna Specialist for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC); Coordinator for Strategic Planning at the Mexican National Bank for Fisheries and Ports (BANPESCA); and Vice-President for Business Development for a US/Mexico toll packing program with a Mexican cannery. More recently, in his capacity as MSC Technical Coordinator for the Pacific Alliance for Sustainable Tuna, he successfully led the Mexican tuna purse seine fishery in the Eastern Tropical Pacific to achieving MSC Certification.

The presentation will provide a brief description of today's tuna fisheries and markets, and an analysis of how technological changes and ecolabels are impacting global tuna fisheries. Emphasis will be made on how fishing on Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) is challenging the sustainable management of tunas in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, new areas for research, and how both the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) are paving the way for the future of tuna fisheries.