Who do you like?

Gov. Sarah Palin nominated Alaska fisheries veterans Ed Dersham, Mike Heimbuch and Roland Maw as candidates to fill the North Pacific Fishery Management Council seat vacated by Ed Rasmuson.

Dersham, a longtime charter boat operator in Lower Cook Inlet, served on the Alaska Board of Fisheries for more than eight years, including three years as chair and two years as vice chair. He holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Oregon and is a retired from a career as a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency. Dersham is Palin's recommendation for appointment.

Heimbuch, a commercial fisherman from Homer, has fished for halibut, herring, cod, shrimp and salmon around the state since 1963. He has served on a variety of civic and local government commissions, including the fish and game advisory committee and the Prince William Sound Aquaculture Association. He is an active political writer in Alaska newspapers and is currently a member of the Homer City Council. He majored in music and education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Maw, a Kasilof resident, is executive director of United Cook Inlet Drift Association and is co-owner of a charter and salmon research business based in Homer. He has served on the United Fishermen of Alaska's board of directors, on the Kenai Peninsula Fish and Game Advisory Committee and on the Joint Legislative Salmon Task Force Governance Committee. Maw has a doctoral degree in forestry and wildlife management from the University of Alberta.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is one of eight regional councils established by the 1976 Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act, later renamed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, to oversee management of the nation's marine fisheries.

The council has jurisdiction of more than 900,000 square miles of ocean from 3 to 200 miles off Alaska's shores, and the primary responsibility for managing pollock, cod, halibut, sole and other groundfish.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires governors of specific coastal states to provide a minimum of three candidates for each applicable vacancy, from which the Secretary of Commerce makes the final selection.