Dick Allen began his 36-year commercial fishing career as a clam digger while attending the University of Rhode Island.   His first attempt at a college degree suffered from a lack of direction and his part-time fishing job soon became a full-time occupation.  At that time he worked for the first lobster fishing company to set lobster traps on the U.S. outer-continental shelf, the Prelude Lobster Company.        

                After a tour of duty in Vietnam as a harbor craft boatswain in the U.S. Army, Allen was in the second graduating class of the fisheries and marine technology program at the University of Rhode Island.   Allen also earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resource Development and a Master of Marine Affairs degree.    

                Allen returned to active fishing after obtaining his degrees.   Since that time he has dredged surf clams, trawled and gillnetted groundfish, seined herring and menhaden, and experimented with light-fishing for squid, in addition to lobster fishing.   He currently fishes for lobsters from the port of Pt. Judith, RI with the forty-four foot Ocean Pearl.        

                Allen began a parallel career in fishery consulting in 1972 and has represented the fishing industry on a variety of public policy issues since that time.   He was a member of the New England Fishery Management Council for nine years, ending in 1995, and was a commissioner on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission from 1986 through 1997.   Allen is a former member of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Sea Grant Review Panel, and served one term as its chairman. He has also served as a member of the U.S. Department of Commerce Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee.    

                In 1998 Allen's interest in demonstrating the economic benefits of fishery conservation led to his selection as a Pew Fellow in Marine Conservation.   His three-year project was aimed at facilitating science-industry collaboration by introducing computer simulation models of the lobster fishery to the lobster fishing community.        

  As an adjunct to his conservation fellowship, Allen has also developed numerous presentations on Fishery Bio-economics.   Allen believes that the fundamental problem facing the fishing community is a lack of understanding of the basic principles of fishery biology and fishery economics and how they interact to determine the outcome of fishery management policies.   "I try to demonstrate that fishery conservation can be a win-win proposition," he says.    

                Allen has also been an active fishery journalist, writing for Commercial Fisheries News and National Fisherman.   He was also the editor of the 1983 Atlantic Fishermans Handbook.   As a fishery journalist, Allen has attempted to contribute to a broader understanding of fishery management issues.   In the 1980s, his Baited Hook column challenged popular opinion on controversial fishery policy questions.  In January of 2003 he produced a booklet titled "Understanding the Collapse of the Area 2 Lobster Fishery and Doing Something About It."