Thirty years or so ago, Jackie Halstead was a student at the University of Washington, pursuing a career in oceanography. Then she met Peter Wiebe, a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a marine technician named Mike, who worked for one of her professors, Tom English.

Wiebe was visiting Seattle to consult with English, who had developed the tucker trawl, a mechanical precursor of sorts to an oceanographic sampling system called MOCNESS: Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sensing Systems.

Her future changed course, drastically. She married Mike, and they soon founded Research Nets, a small business in Redmond, Wash., that sells nets almost exclusively to universities, research organizations, and utility companies doing environmental assessments.

“We saw a need to give scientists what they wanted, and it was a good opportunity for us to work at home and raise a family,” Halstead said. “It grew from a backyard effort to a regular shop employing about 10 people.”

Halstead, who has made thousands of nets for Wiebe since the 1970s, says making the MOCNESS nets has been a challenge.

“The MOCNESS nets are unique,” she said. “This last cruise was a real challenge because the nets were the biggest we have ever made, and had the smallest mesh size (333 micrometers). I wasn’t sure they would hold together.”

“There was real skepticism that nets with that fine mesh on a trawl would work,” Wiebe said. “The net maker and others thought sure they would blow out. But the nets performed beautifully.”

“We were happy to get the news and see the images of the creatures they captured,” Halstead said. “It is always nice to know something you made works and may make a difference in science.”

—Shelley Dawicki