"There's no substitute for hard work" Philip Haynie likes to say. To many in the Reedville community, Haynie is the embodiment of this expression. The great-grandson of a former slave, who became the county's first African American landowner, Haynie has made the operation of that land, which his family still owns, a priority. But farming isn't his only enterprise. Haynie's business acumen has made him a pillar of the regional community and economy, and his businesses remain central to its continued development. Haynie established and runs seven different corporations, including a real estate development firm and a transporting company, all in addition to the family farm. Among his clients, he counts Proctor & Gamble and Nestle Purina. For much of his success, though, Haynie is grateful to another client — Omega Protein. Growing up on the farm during challenging times, Haynie wanted to help his family as much as he could. So, he went to work for Omega, working night shifts unloading fish before managing to get to school each morning. The money that he earned put him through college at Virginia State University, and set him on a course that would not only help sustain the beleaguered family farm, but create and nurture the other businesses as well. "Without the education, none of the other pieces would fall together," he says.

A proficient student in high school, William Blackwell was offered an academic scholarship to the University of Virginia upon graduating in 2002. But he decided to forego college. "My father passed before I graduated high school," he says, "and all I wanted to do was follow in his footsteps as a boat captain."

Blackwell started as a crewman on a fishing boat for Omega Protein, and quickly advanced through the ranks. Even though he opted not to go to college, he still spent plenty of time studying, focusing on maritime concepts. He did his homework, attended classes, and, within a few years, he became a vessel captain at 25 years old, the youngest in the company's fleet.

"At first, being the youngest and a new guy, I wanted to prove myself," says Blackwell. "I've got guys on my boat who've been fishing longer than I've been breathing."

In his short time as a captain, he has indeed proven himself, and is grateful to his employer. "Omega treats me great," he says. "They gave me my break. They gave me a sense of pride."

Better known around Reedville as "Bucky," Irvin Lee Deihl, Jr. has been fishing the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean since 1954. "I had a very good career," he says. "I made a very good living."

At 21, Deihl was hired as a commercial fisherman, and he soon became one of the youngest captains of his time. A 55-year veteran of the Reedville menhaden industry, he says it's been, "… a backbone for this community and this Northern Neck. I mean people gain from the business all the way to Richmond and north of the Potomac in Maryland, all the way down south to Norfolk."

Rebecca Newsome Butler started helping track inventory for Omega Protein during summers in the late 1970s. When offered a full-time position in 1980, she gladly accepted. As a new mother, she knew the job would help supplement the family income. And, as the wife of a self-employed boat builder, she knew the benefits that came with the job would be invaluable. "The health insurance is a big thing," she says. "Omega pays a big portion of the insurance.If I hadn't have had this job, times would have been very tough for my family."

A Northern Neck native Jimmy Kellum was born to be a fisherman. He's been doing exactly that for his entire life, and it's no surprise, given his family's deep roots in the fishing industry. Kellum's grandfather began the legacy when he started working in Virginia's oyster business. Later, Kellum's father, along with several uncles, opened an oyster shucking business of their own, and his father, in the late 1950's, started his own shipbuilding operation. All of that family experience kept Jimmy Kellum close to the action. Even while studying economics in college, he would return home during the summers to fish.

Kellum has been a fixture of the industry since he joined it in 1978. In 1983, he became partial owner of his first commercial fishing vessel, and, today, he owns two menhaden boats. Now based in Weems, Virginia, about 50 miles from Reedville, Kellum employs 20 people and uses his two fishing boats to catch menhaden, both for crab bait and for the reduction industry.

He worries that any policy decisions that would put a cap or quota on menhaden fishing would have adverse effects, especially given current circumstances. "With the price of fuel rising and increasing limits, there'd be big impacts. My employees live local; they spend local. And quotas and caps would reduce our ability for a good year to offset the huge costs of keeping in business. If quotas take that away, our sustainability will be greatly compromised."

Jeff Reichle is the owner and president of Lund's Fisheries, which has been a Cape May, New Jersey institution for almost 60 years, producing various species of fish as seafood for consumers and as bait for commercial and recreational fishing. In recent years, the menhaden bait fishery has played an increasingly important role in his business. Our business has changed a lot in the past 38 years," he says. "We used to be a fresh fish packer, but starting in 1976, we started investing in freezing capacity, exporting seafoods and concentrating on high-volume, low-value species, including menhaden."

A Cape May native, Reichle became involved in the fishing industry as a teenager because "I married a fisherman's daughter," he says. He was eventually able to purchase the business from the Lund family, but, with his son and daughter on board, Reichle has kept the enterprise a family business. Lund's is an important job source and provides needed services to members of the Cape May community, where it is considered an integral aspect of the town's landscape. But now Reichle, who also serves as the president of the Garden State Seafood Association, worries that management policy decisions in the menhaden fishery could have dire consequences for his family and community.

"In fisheries management, no one looks at the cumulative effect of management on different species and what that does to companies like ours," he says. "Our processing plant is very dependent on menhaden, which is a major part of our summer business and keeps 150 to 200 people employed from May to October."

A Northern Neck native and seasoned plant maintenance expert, James Gordon has been working at Omega Protein's Reedville plant for 44 years. Now, at 74 years old, Gordon looks back at what his career has enabled him to do throughout his lifetime. "I raised my kids, built my home," he says. "Raised six head of kids; sent two of them to college."

The prospect of the plant's closing is unfathomable to Gordon. "It would really hurt my family. It would hurt a whole lot of families," he says. "It would hurt the whole Northern Neck. Everybody depends on Omega Protein."

Frederick Ray Rogers, Jr. was still a teenager as World War II drew to a close, but he recalls with vivid clarity his experiences as a volunteer with the U.S. Coast Guard in Delaware. Later, he worked many of the same waters that he once patrolled, only this time as a menhaden fisherman. A beneficiary of the G.I. Bill, Rogers returned to his roots in the commercial fishing industry after college. "I still wanted to go back on the water," he says. Rogers credits Omega Protein, his employer of 22 years, from 1971 to 1993, with providing him an ample salary and benefits. Over the course of several decades, Rogers became widely respected in the industry, so much so that he was appointed and served for seven years as a Commissioner on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Like so many natives of Reedville, Virginia, fishing is second nature for Frederick Rogers III, a self-employed fisherman who sells menhaden as bait. A fifth-generation fisherman, Rogers was preceded by his grandfather, who worked as a bait fisherman in the early 1900s, his father, who also made his living in the menhaden bait fishery, and a slew of uncles and other relatives who have made a life for themselves as menhaden boat captains.

Rogers recalls his junior and senior years in high school, waking at 4:30 am to help his uncle set pound net traps before going off to school. After a few years in college, he decided to stick with what he loved – menhaden fishing. So, in 1978, he founded his own successful pound-net trapping business, at times selling 100 percent of his fish for bait.

Today, he owns one boat, the Hush Puppy, and co-owns another. He fears that if the menhaden reduction facility in Reedville closed, the community would become a ghost town. "If I can't make money from my boats, I'm out of business," he says.

At just 14 years old, Melvin Walters was first introduced to Reedville, Virginia's menhaden fishing industry when his father took him to help paint boats. Later, he became a fisherman himself, working under his father's supervision. "I just fell in love with fishing," he says. This year marks his 46th year in the industry, the longest continuous tenure of any fisherman at the Reedville reduction plant.

For the past four years, Jeff Kaelin has specialized in government relations for Lund's Fisheries in Cape May, New Jersey, a business that harvests various species of fish as seafood for consumers and as bait for the commercial and recreational fishing industries. The job is the culmination of an impressive career. "I've dedicated my entire professional life to commercial fishing and advocating for commercial fishing as people who are interested in the sustainability of the stocks," he says.

The first person in his family to go to sea, Kaelin served in the Coast Guard during the Vietnam War before a ten-year stint as a commercial fisherman. In more recent years, he worked in the Maine Legislature, serving on the state's Marine Resources Commission.

As an experienced leader on the governmental side of fisheries, Kaelin wants to ensure the future sustainability of the Atlantic menhaden, both for the species itself and the communities whose survival depend on it. "As an advisor on various management councils, it's not just about us, it's a commitment to the process – for a sustainable outcome not just for ourselves and our families but for people who depend on them … we're in it for the long haul."

A Northern Neck native, Thomas Somers enjoyed a successful commercial fishing career that has spanned nearly four decades. "It was a good way to make a living around here," he says. "You could make a good living, better than average. I was able to build a house, I married, had two children."

Carrol Curry grew up in Northumberland County, near Kilmarnock, as one of 19 children. He was born into poverty, but he didn't have to go far to improve his economic situation. Thanks to a strong work ethic and the region's abundant fishing resources, Curry progressed within the local commercial fishing industry. Starting in 1957 as a common laborer, he rose through the ranks over the years, ultimately becoming captain of a fishing vessel. With nearly 50 years of fishing under his belt, Curry sees no other way he could have succeeded as he did. "From my experience, living around here, you could make more money fishing than anything else," he says. "No way I could have made what I made on the land."

Curry became a boat captain in the late 1950s, an exceptional accomplishment for an African American prior to the Civil Rights movement. He paved a path for later generations, and his son followed in his footsteps. "My son had it in his blood," he says. "He came home from college and said, 'Dad, I want to take some time off, and he fished."

In 1976, as a new mother, Susan Haynie sought and found employment at Omega Protein. She knew that Omega was an excellent employer. Her father had been a fishing boat captain for Omega, her husband also worked there, and her new son would eventually work for the company as well. In fact, even after her son was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy, Omega kept him on the payroll for several years, making sure that he had work until his condition became too inhibiting. "That really touched my heart," she says. "They allowed him to work for nine years [after his diagnosis] … They were so good."

Net mending is an age-old craft that predates the technological innovations of modern times. It is an intricate and detailed skill that few today have mastered. Kenneth Waller explains, "This is like an art," he says. "There's not too many people who know how to do it."

For decades, Waller has been mending net for the benefit of the local menhaden industry. His career with Omega Protein began in 1985. It enabled him to put his wife through college while enjoying a familial work environment that is conducive to his craft. "We really enjoy our jobs," he says. "It's like a family; we look forward to coming here. We've all got children and we've all got different problems, but we can all talk to each other and encourage one another."

Kathryn Robinson's professional skill is her safety net. As a net mender for Omega Protein, she says she is able to stay on track with her bills; that she's been able to improve her credit rating. "I'm never broke," she says. She also knows that her employer's presence is a safety net for the whole region. "Once this shuts down," she says, "that shuts down everything. It would be devastating."

John Deihl's great-grandfather was a menhaden fishing boat captain, and it's no surprise that fishing runs in the family. At 12 years old, Deihl himself was helping his father fish commercially. But he decided to take a different approach to fishing when he obtained his pilot's license in 1991. That's when Deihl became an airborne spotter pilot for the menhaden fishery. "It's a completely different perspective," he says. "Menhaden aren't hard to see, but they're sometimes hard to find. They school up so tightly that they make up a pigment in the water. After you've done it a while, you can tell the size, the density."

Not only does Deihl love his work; he loves the fact that he's been able to remain close to home. "A lot of my friends went off to college and never came back," he says. "The income has allowed me to live where I want to live. It's given me a lifestyle that I wouldn't have been able to achieve without going to college, getting a master's degree and getting a professional desk job somewhere."

With vivid clarity, Monty Deihl recalls his first experiences on a menhaden fishing boat. "I've been going on these boats since I was old enough to walk – with my father when he was a captain," he recounts. Standing beside his father, he gazed upwards at the boat's towering mast, and dreamt of captaining his own menhaden boat one day. At that age, Deihl was too young to reach even the first rung on the giant post, let alone climb it himself. So, his father would hoist him into his arms, and, together, they climbed the mast.

Since then, Deihl's accomplishments and civic involvement have made him a household name in his community. A Reedville, Virginia native, he began working on menhaden boats during summers throughout college. Then, upon graduating, he accepted a commission in the United States Air Force. Following 20 years of service and a brief stint with a major defense contractor, he returned to the menhaden fishery in 2009 - this time as the General Manager of Omega Protein's Reedville reduction facility.

Today, as Omega's Director of Fishing Operations, Deihl understands exactly how much is at stake in the face of harsh regulation. "Reedville is one of the last bastions of industry here…where people can find a good job with good healthcare and benefits and stability." Were the facility in his hometown to close, he worries that job opportunities would vanish with it.