Exciting Times Ahead

It has been a very good week. 


We are finishing the final touches on our first production module and we should be fully operational in a few days.


The past 6 months has been very intense but we are nearly finished the construction phase of this project.


In a few weeks we will have 12 ponds teeming with juvenile shrimp and our highly successful commercial closed aquaculture system whose development began over a decade ago will be back in  production.


This first production module is not the full size configuration that I had developed in South Africa. It is roughly a quarter scale of the larger more efficient version. That said this will grow over 70,000 pounds of head on jumbo shrimp annually and serve as a working demonstration facility as we seek to expand our production capabilities here in the USA and other parts of the world.


We all have a lot of work ahead of us but we have achieved a significant milestone in our growth as a company intent on finding sustainable and environmentally friendly ways to produce healthy sea food and create quality sustainable jobs.


In the past year I have read at least four accounts of shrimp aquaculture systems claiming that they have made a breakthrough in growing shrimp in a closed system. 


In each case after careful investigation the results being reported were achieved in academic research conditions and were still did not equal the production results we had at Ocean Springs in our early research days over 12 years ago.


I believe that as of next week we have the only commercially proven closed system for aquaculture possibly in the world and definitely in this hemisphere. (I am never really sure what is happening in China or India or Vietnam).


We managed to grow large shrimp in significant densities by 1999. It was developing designing and operating the commercial footprint that proved challenging and expensive. We have all learned so much since 2005. Our system is complicated and has several critical pathways all of which must work in an integrated fashion for success, but we are again in operation.


My camera does not take great pictures but I will give you a few quick looks. 

Our fence around the facility is being installed today. 

Which allows us to start installing the equipment in the mechanical area since we can now secure the site. 

                             And finally here is a view of the ponds from the office trailer windows. 


                                       Exciting times ahead.                                                           

Where We Are Today

As I mentioned in a previous post, despite the South African setback,  I was determined to move the aquaculture system I had developed, (along with a very dedicated and small team of individuals) to an operational stage. 


The quandary was how and with whom? I did not (ever again) want to be held hostage by a "partner". I wanted to make sure where ever we located the next evolution of the system, we would be able to defend our ownership of the site and our system. 


I had started this on my own in 1998 and here 12 years later after virtually everyone I had encountered during that period, had tried to lay claim to owning the project while breaking contracts, both verbal and written, and trying to wrest control of the project from myself and my American management team. 


The only positive thing that I learned from those attempts was that we had something that obviously worked or else there would not be so many people trying to "steal" it. 


So, what was the next step to be? Rather then drag out the thought process and the very complex set of issues that I had to consider let me give you the synopsis and if anyone wants more detail contact me. 


I went back to the few individuals I had known and trusted and put together another corporate structure. I went to my CPA of years and asked him to be our CEO and CFO. The rest of the team consisted of a partner of 16 years, my three key original American team members who were with me in South Africa, and finally we interviewed several aquaculture professionals and (after the most thorough vetting ever in an interview process) choose one new member to join our team to be the director of operations, the actual on site manager.


Then I went to our engineer and asked him to design a 1/4 scale production module that would demonstrate the various critical aspects of our system and produce jumbo shrimp.


The result was stupendous. In just 9 months we have obtained a site, gained permits, constructed the facility, and next week, we will stock our first ponds. I am anticipating a partial harvest as early as February 2012.


My vision, first conceived in 1998 of an aquaculture system that would be sustainable, profitable, environmentally friendly and that could have application with a wide variety of species is now operational. 


This is is now the third time in the face of nay sayers, exploiters, and business types of questionable ethical practices I have delivered a working facility. 


Last week, my CEO and I began developing strategies to expand our production capability in 2012. Regardless of what obstacles lay ahead we will make this happen. (If Edison was correct and genius is indeed, 1 percent inspiration and 99% perspiration, then myself and my team may all qualify). 


The world's fisheries are declining, collapsing and in trouble, to put it mildly.


Current aquaculture practices regardless of how much "BS" the industry tries to feed us, are not sustainable and indeed in many instances doing significant harm.


Despite my very bad personal experience with the politics and nastiness of the NGO community that does not change the fact that in most areas, the issues and the problems the NGO's are trumpeting are real. 


I am only interested in solutions these days. Solutions to problems that for me are personally distressing.


If I were "King for the Day" I would put a ban on all commercial wild fisheries and give the oceans a chance to get healthy. I would stop al dumping of waste and other crap into our oceans. 


(Obviously this is a simplistic solution but for me the dangers of continuing as we have in the past with our treatment of the oceans overwhelms any other concerns). 


The only way I see the world being assured of the marine resources it desperately needs becoming available in the years ahead is for us to learn to grow them on land. Leave the wild alone. I truly believe our system developed over the last 12 years and based on millions of dollars of excellent USA based and funded research is a small step toward that objective. 

UNDERCOVER AVAILABLE !!

Finally, after much review, editing, and frustration my book UNDERCOVER is available on Amazon.com

I will be back writing more on aquaculture, sustainable use, fisheries and other subjects concerning animals and the environment and such but for today just going to enjoy the fact that my side of the story is finally available for anyone who chooses to read it.

Moving Forward

My quandary in going forward with my sustainable aquaculture system was many faceted.

First and foremost I simply did not have the money nor access to the funding that would allow me to build the next evolution as should be built given the success achieved in South Africa.

Second, I had both the American “partners” (and I use that word sarcastically) and the South African partner threatening me with litigation, harassment and further vilification if I did anything without including them.

Their position was whatever I did they owned. This was despite the fact that the Americans never put a single penny into the project while the South African (who did indeed provide the funding for the development in South Africa) simply ignored the fact that he broke every contractual agreement he made with me when we established the partnership.

During on every contentious discussion when I brought up the signed contracts and the promises he had made, I was told, “ Signed contracts for us are just the beginning of a negotiation”.

2008 and 2009 went by, as the rhetoric grew more acrimonious between the members of the original partnership. At the end of 2009 the South African simply pulled all funding and decided they would develop what I had built in South Africa. (Lesson to self, you build your house on another man’s property it is not your house).  I did not have the money to go into litigation against a multi millionaire despite knowing he was absolutely in breach of both written and verbal contracts. (Another note to self, “you” (me) should have learned this lesson during the HSUS debacle. Being right means little if you cannot afford the legal representation to go toe to toe with your adversary).

So, facing 2010 with no income, no ability to pay my management team and no clue of what to do next, I decided to take a step back and reassess my strengths and liabilities.

Strengths: I had successfully proven the commercially viability of a re-circulating, no discharge, sustainable, environmentally friendly aquaculture system that was a major evolution in fish farming. Taking disparate parts of a multitude of various research advancements I had cobbled together a “system” that worked.  Not unlike Henry Ford, I had not invented anything but I had taken a lot of ideas and integrated them into a successful process.

Weaknesses were numerous. I had no money to take the system into production. I was being hammered again over my HSUS experience being called a “crook” and worse. I was in danger of losing the core of talented individuals that had worked with me to get the system to this point. I was being threatened with litigation, for what I was not sure but I surely did not have the money to hire any lawyers to fight in court over whatever the allegations might be.

Never let anyone tell you that giving up is an option.

Thomas Edison supposedly said, “Genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration”. If that is true then I have at least achieved the perspiration quota.

By early 2010 I had developed a strategy. It would be difficult and it was fraught with potential pitfalls of epic proportion but it was a plan.

First I would write a book telling my side of the HSUS bullshit. I had never had the opportunity to tell my story and refute my accusers. I had always been so disgusted and felt so betrayed by the politics behind my demise that I just wanted to leave it behind me forever but frankly, the Internet, the animal rights people and others would not let it fade into the past. Not content with the fact I had left the animal rights movement and a cause I loved, they wanted to make sure I never succeeded at any thing ever again. Failing that every time I had been successful the past 15 years they had tried to use the HSUS years to discredit me. It had never worked but now under pressure I past being tired of it and getting damn irritated.

Second, I would begin to develop a new corporate structure to oversee the development of the aquaculture system. I knew we could not use what we had accomplished in South Africa to tout our accomplishments so I would have to go back to the drawing board and figure out a new next step in our evolution.

The oceans were (and are) being depleted. Traditional aquaculture has a multitude of environmental and other problems. (Take a few trips to shrimp or salmon operations as I have in Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Chile and Canada and you will swear off seafood forever).

I and the core team around me possessed an answer to these problems. How to move it forward became the objective in 2010.

(Postscript:  I love Sub-Saharan Africa. As a kid reading Tarzan and Alan Quatermain stories by Burroughs and H. Rider Haggard I always wanted to work and live on the Dark Continent. It is a fascinating place and I have been privileged to work in Zambia, Angola, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia and South Africa, as well as Madagascar and Mauritius. The land and the animals that inhabit it are magnificent and awe inspiring. That said, each of these countries is plagued with corruption, crime, deceit, and dishonesty of epic proportions all perpetuated by the human beings, both black and white that live there. The human beings, (regardless of race), I have encountered there with rare exception operate in a moral vacuum. From 1988 to 2008 I traveled and worked in Africa taking no less then 35 trips and spending cumulatively over 2 years of my life there. I will probably never return but I will miss its animals and its wild places. They are truly the only noble beings that reside there).

Books on Fish and the Oceans Natural Resources

I have been thinking a lot about books lately.


This week (I hope) probably by Saturday or worse case, by next Monday my book "Undercover" should be available on Amazon. As I have written earlier it details my 5 plus years with the HSUS and my work there from 2000-2005 and my fall from grace. It was very cathartic for to write and I am sure seeing it in print is going to generate no small amount of personal satisfaction. 


I read a lot of books both fiction and non-fiction. I always have. Recently I just finished two books I feel should be added to anyone who cares about the world's oceans and fisheries reading list.


The first is entitled "Four Fish, The Future of the Last Wild Food". It is written by Paul Greenburg. It provides a fresh perspective on the relationship humans have with the oceans and the creatures that inhabit those oceans. 


The second book is entitled "The Most Important Fish in the Sea" by H. Bruce Franklin.


It is the story of a small but decidedly important species of fish called menhaden. Franklin is an accomplished historian and the history of the menhaden provides a fascinating story. 


I don't do book reviews or critiques. I don't feel I need someone to tell me in advance if a book is good or not. That is partly why I read, to learn and to form my own opinions. (I also read for my own entertainment).


Today, with the electronic media (which includes everything from TV to the Internet) having an increasingly negative impact on independent and critical thinking (in my opinion) I feel reading is more important then ever to increasing one's knowledge base and in forming one's opinions. I have very strong views against letting others, under the guise of news or entertainment, tell us what to think and believe. 


For me both of the above books fulfill both purposes admirably. I learned a great deal and my own opinions were altered slightly after reading each. 


Joining a list of such titles as "Cod, the Fish that Changed the World" (still the best of this genre in my opinion again) , and "The Secret Life of Lobsters", and "The Founding Fish" (the story of shad), these books all provide the reader with a brilliant combination of facts while telling their respective stories in an entertaining fashion. 


Most importantly while each author has their own perspective all of these books ultimately leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions. 

Lessons in Hubris and Greed

In 2005 I decided to see if I could find a partner who was willing to share my vision of creating a truly sustainable and eco-friendly aquaculture system. After multiple presentations and many impassioned discussions I entered into a partnership that included two Americans and a very successful South African businessman.


Funding was made available and I began to assemble the team that I felt would give us the best chance of proving the commercial viability of the system I had conceived of and developed in Ocean Springs from 1998-2002.


2006 and 2007 were hugely successful years. We built a series of prototype designs from raceways to individual ponds each incarnation being more productive then the previous. 


(We grew thousands of pounds of very tasty jumbo shrimp). 


We achieved each of our stated objectives and finally underwent an audit of our performance results that concluded with the project receiving a certificate from a major accounting firm that attested to the fact, "we had proven and indeed surpassed, every performance claim and objective".


The partnership had always agreed once economic viability was assured we would use the prototype in South Africa as an R&D and training facility and we would immediately build full scale production facilities in sites that favored our system both environmentally (warmer) and corporately. 


To this day, I cannot really explain what went wrong. Suddenly, the South African interests who had admittedly funded the bulk of the effort, wanted to build the full production farm in South Africa.


That was just unacceptable to me and my team. South Africa while a lovely country in many respects, is in too extreme of a latitude to be environmentally acceptable, has serious infrastructure limitations, not the least of which is a failing and inadequate electrical grid, and is rife with corruption and social discord.


The core team that was absolutely essential to the future immediate success of any roll out of the production facility was American and starting with myself none of us were willing to live in South Africa to build a facility that we know would not be successful.


The partnership interests with the financial power decided that 1) they could run the operation successfully without my leadership and without my core management team, 2) that the South Africa government would provide them the electricity and approvals to proceed and that 3) they could overcome the infrastructure limitations. 


Without going into every boring detail, despite making every effort to appeal to the better instincts of the partners, the partnership began to erode. 


Clearly, over time my position in the disagreements have proven prophetic. 


In December 2009 almost 24 months after they seized control of the project the Southern Africa press reported the closing of the project (despite its huge success in growing large shrimp) due to the company's inability to secure adequate electrical supply guarantees,  and other permitting issues from the government.  


Sometime during the process as the acrimony intensified, one of the players in the drama contacted the South African press and my entire history with the HSUS became front page news in South Africa. I had of course disclosed my history with HSUS prior to entering into any partnership discussions. 


Again, I was accused, convicted and condemned by the press for events that had transpired more then a decade earlier and as usual this next retelling of my past proved even more inaccurate and vitriolic then in the original version.


I am convinced that hubris and greed were the motivators that saw this wonderful success story fall into acrimony and disarray. 


I came back to the states in late 2008 licking my wounds and began to try and see where I would go from here. I had achieved an enormous victory and now possessed the expertise and the practical capability to build an aquaculture system that could prosper in the 21st century. 


That said, I was tired, disheartened and becoming very tired of having the HSUS controversy being used to impugn my honesty and my character. I was also determined to never again be held hostage by a business partner. I had a lot of thinking to do. I had no intention of not proceeding with the aquaculture system. The questions were how and where and with whom? 

An aerial view of the prototype recirculating aquaculture          system my team and I developed in South Africa. This was the next evolution of my work in Ocean Springs, Mississippi completed in 2002.

Sustainability

I am back. I took off much of the summer to decide my steps steps in developing both business and personal strategies for moving forward. I have decided on the pathway I wish to take in either but am mindful that as events arise the ability to adjust and evolve is crucial to success.

In other words nothing ever goes as I plan in any event so a strategy for me is just one possible way of achieving my objectives.

I am going to release my book "Undercover" this month. I have no doubt it will open the door for more criticism and slander but I feel I have no choice. (for more on this subject please refer to my earlier blog  "The Rest of the Story" published on this site on 6/25/11).  Lies and half-truths on the Internet continue to dog me and in some instances impact my life in a negative fashion. Even those the events of my 5 years with HSUS are now 16 years behind me the Internet has given such stories a new shelf life and those individuals who choose to pander in such waters can find decades old lies to try and make fresh.

Please do not mistake my comments as defensiveness. I am just occasionally frustrated with how a lie can live so long despite verifiable refutation. So, the book will be available this month. Then let the allegations begin anew.

I need to bring you up to date in more detail with what I have been doing the past 16 years since I left the animal protection movement as a pariah.

I have long been an advocate of sustainability. It makes good common sense to me. In the late 90's I began work developing a sustainable environmentally friendly recirculating non-discharge aquaculture system.

Having traveled the globe during and after my time with HSUS I had through my work with Darden Restaurants, the National Fisheries Association, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and others seen first hand the positives and the many negatives of traditional aquaculture systems. I vsisted and assessed shrimp farms in Indonesia, and Vietnam and Ecuador and Mexico to name but a few.

I traveled to The Federated States of Mirconesia and studied lobster and tuna fisheries there. (pictured above)

I even went to Iran and Kazakhstan and  developed a management plan for the Caspian Sea sturgeon fishery.

I saw salmon operations (net-pens) in Chile and Canada. I worked on a business development model for a Croatia carp farm. I studied small fisheries co-operatives in Uganda and Madagascar.

Everywhere I traveled I saw greed trump concern for sustainability and environmental concerns. Working as a consultant I was able to learn an enormous amount and became a bona fide expert on both wild and farmed fishery operations and systems.

In the late 90's and early 2000-2002 working with some very qualified fishery types, and looking at over 45 million dollars of federally funded USA research we established a biological protocol to develop a recirculating aquaculture system that initially would be designed to grow very large shrimp. My next step would be to find a way to secure the funding to see if my concept and my biological success could be translated into a successful business.

I would prove successfully the business merit of my system only to have my past be used against me in an attempt to high jack my system and discredit me to the extent that for me to continue on my own would be impossible.

More to follow........