Jessie Grow

Jessie Grow keeps critical Great Lakes monitoring equipment running and its data flowing as lead buoy technician at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Freshwater Sciences. The data she helps secure is relied on daily by anglers, weather forecasters and water managers throughout the region. In 2017, Grow became a marine technician and began managing the Great Lakes buoy program, launched in 2011. Thanks in large part to her work, the program has built a 15-year record of environmental data that supports research across the Great Lakes. The data help scientists track changing lake conditions, improve water quality management and inform decisions that affect everyone who depends on Lake Michigan.