Certification Benefits AFS Members Working in the Private Sector

In May 2011, the Membership Concerns Committee dis-tributed a survey to the American Fisheries Society (AFS)membership to gauge interest in and benefits of professionalcertification. The committee delivered its report to the gov-erning board and a full article for publication inFisheriesispending, but one highlight of this survey that the committee de-sired to report specifically was the perceived value provided tocertified members working in the private sector. The survey wassent to 875 certified members, and we received 338 responses(34% response rate), 21% of whom reported working in the pri-vate sector, such as consulting