“Like most ecological systems, ESSA’s success and longevity are multi-factorial, of course. But at its core, ESSA has always been about its people. The ESSA story is a powerful demonstration of how a group of like-minded individuals can channel their collective intellectual curiosity into a synergism of scientific creativity to find solutions to difficult problems, and how a team of principled scientists can create a nexus of professional integrity and objectivity in a world where these attributes are both increasingly needed and increasingly rare. And, of course, how such lofty deeds can be accomplished while still having a lot of fun and laughs along the way”