My great-grandfather Matthew McAteer died long before I was born. Yet he created a legacy for me that endures. He would have lived in Northern Ireland at a time of great transition. His forefathers would have spoken Gaelic, but he lived in a generation where the call of jobs from the United States and England made the English language a necessity. The name McAteer, spoken Mac an tSaoir in Gaelic, means son of a craftsman. For Matthew and several generations of McAteers, the factories, railroads, and construction sites of the United States were a place where the sons of craftsmen could earn upward mobility and the opportunity of a better life. His generation and those that followed deserve credit for unlocking opportunities and creating the innovations that define our life today.

During Matthew's life, the basic science of global warming was established, and during his son's generation the world experienced a new era of innovation and industrial development unlike any seen before. My father and mother experienced both the advantages of that industrial era and the problems unleashed by new social and economic challenges. They grew up in the Great Depression and survived World War 2. Insightful leaders of the time oversaw the creation of the United Nations and many of the intergovernmental bodies that try to manage the challenges of sustainable development. With each generation we made progress, yet we have left much to be done. Although the UN held its first Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) the year I was born, almost two thirds of the ocean remains nominally regulated with no overall enforcement mechanism for violations. The post–World War 2 era saw the benefits of decolonization, but it also saw an increase in deforestation and ocean dumping, and a weakening of the earth's ozone layer.

My great-grandfather's personal story and that of the family members that followed are not unlike those lived by many families of immigrants today. They seek a good job, safety and security, and the opportunity to do better. Each generation—Matthew's and the four that followed— inherited a world of greater economic prosperity and knowledge.