Where We Are Today

I often do posts on my blog for cathartic reasons, sometimes to address something that really bothers me, sometimes to share information that I think others might appreciate, and also to talk about my company and what we are trying to do to help make a difference in the world.

The following is an interview I recently did with my partner and friend of over 20 years, John Aquilino. The article has been posted on the web site of our company under "NEWS".

I thought it might be worth running again so I am posting on my blog.

Interview with GBT Chairman, David K. Wills

John Aquilino:  David, you and I have been partners for the past 20 years.  Some 15 years ago, we sat down together to decide what path our company should follow.  Since the beginning we focused on trying to do things better for those in need of medical research, better in terms of how farmers raised their livestock, how corporations sourced their seafood, and better for the earth in general.  You had been literally around the world showing Red Lobster and other major corporations how to avoid suppliers who overfished Ocean stocks, polluted water with their aquaculture practices, destroyed coral reefs, exploited their workers and more.

David Wills: Those were the days!  In hindsight, I think we were modern-day Cassandra’s.  We told the truth and our words floated past deaf ears.  That’s when we decided to take our own advice and put our words into action for our own company instead of advising others.   That’s also the time when we were asked to do an analysis of millions of dollars in Congressional funding that over the past decade failed to produce a world-class, competitive shrimp aquaculture industry for the U.S.  So our experience and the convergence of fate set our path for us.

JA:  The path to Texas took some mighty big turns didn’t it?

DW:  You can say that again.  In Mississippi, we saw the fruit of the research those federal dollars supported but we also saw that research is not the same as entrepreneurship.  Building an industry is not what academia is all about.  Then, we went to South Africa and proved we could grow commercial quantities of outstanding shrimp.  We also learned the flaws in that early system design.  From there it was back home to the United States to develop the system we are using now.

JA:  David, you first arrived in Texas in February 2011.  It’s three years and eight months later and I think we both agree it’s time to tell friends, investors and folks across Texas the state of Global Blue Technologies today.

DKW:  All things considered, we’ve made incredible progress. 

JA:  How so?

DKW:  We just harvested 13.6 metric tons of shrimp weighing between 30-45 grams from three ponds with 85 to 90 percent survival.  The average harvest from open pond farms throughout the world yields, at best, two metric tons of 16-20 gram shrimp per hectare with 60 percent survival.  A handful of super intensive farms say they can grow 20 metric tons of the same size shrimp with the same average survival.  Maybe.  If they can, I say good for them.

Let me put the importance of the data collected from our three-pond harvest in perspective.  A hectare equals 2.47 acres.  The three ponds we harvested barely total 1.18 acres combined.  The average open-pond farm anywhere in the world grows 4409.24 pounds of shrimp per acre.  Our harvest was 25,409 pounds per acre, almost six times that of the average open-pond farm.

JA:  That’s impressive!

DKW:  True.  But it’s only a fraction of what we can do once all systems are running at full capacity.  Those numbers are from ponds stocked at less than half density.

JA:  Why is that?   

DKW:  GBT-Cameron, our U.S. flagship farm, is a little less than a year behind schedule due to a number of factors I will explain later.  For that reason our initial harvests are the aquaculture equivalent of a “test flight” of a new aircraft or “shakedown cruise” of a Navy warship.  No one, including our own staff, has ever worked in a system like ours so the data from each pond we harvest helps demonstrate the merits of our projections.  It also helps establish benchmarks by which we can tweak the system to enhance efficiency.

When we say our harvests of minimally stocked ponds yield six times the average biomass with double the survival, no one in the industry believes us.  Those figures just seem incredible if not impossible.  To us they are just the beginning of what we can do.

If we average only 10,000 pounds for each of the eight ponds stocked at less than half their stocking density, then we should pull 80,000 pounds of shrimp from all eight ponds per module after those first harvests. 

Once stocked to full capacity, those ponds, we believe, will yield double, even triple that biomass per pond per harvest.  With partial harvests it is conceivable that we can get four or five times the production of that first harvest.  In the future we will hit benchmarks of 20,000 to 30,000 to 50,000 pounds of shrimp per pond.  So each eight-pond module could produce from 160,000 to 400,000 pounds of shrimp per module per harvest. 

With one production footprint of four eight-pond production modules and 2.5 harvests per pond per year... well, you do the math.  Don’t forget to multiply by $10 a pound for a conservative dollar figure.

JA:  You are talking serious numbers of shrimp!

DKW:  We would be hitting those numbers today if we did not encounter the delays I mentioned earlier.

JA:  Will you elaborate on those delays and their effect on the facility?  

DKW:  Without them, we would have gathered the data we are collecting now on growth, stocking density, and more some six to eight months ago.  Without that nearly year delay, today we would be well into full-density commercial production and have a strong income stream flowing.  Our investors would see a decent return before the end of the year.  Unfortunately that is not going to happen until 2015.

The first delay was from structural/construction issues both in terms of quality of construction and failure to meet promised deadlines.  The combination quite literally set us back by the better part of a year.  We expected to have the ponds for the first module covered by October 2013. 

That second factor was the worst winter in Rockport, Texas history.  If our pond shelters were delivered and constructed on time, the weather would not have been a factor in pushing us so far behind schedule.  But delivery wasn’t until December 2013, right in the middle of winter.  The poor quality of construction compounded the delay causing us to not take possession of our production facility and start to prepare the ponds for stocking because of repeated and unsuccessful attempts to repair the poor construction until April 2014.

We now realize we erred in not constructing our bio-filter before our production module.  The frustration caused by the structural issues distracted us from the fact that building the bio-filter first would have given us time to culture our biofloc in quantities to handle greater initial stocking densities. 

On a personal level, the death of my wife, Lori, after her heroic struggle against the most lethal form of breast cancer – Triple Negative Breast Cancer – and the four-year, 24/7effort to find a course of treatment to save her life sapped my focus, my emotions, and every ounce of my energy.  She was my life.  Toward her end, daily activities of the farm receded deep into a fog of utter sadness and loss.  Luckily we’ve been very successful putting together a team of incredibly wonderful individuals to run the farm while I tried vainly to save Lori’s life. 

I’m not looking for sympathy.  I’m just letting everyone know where I was emotionally during that time.

JA:  What, in your opinion, is the status of the company now?

DKW:  We are in a very, very good place.  We know our system works.  We grow far larger quantities of bigger, better tasting shrimp in less time with a smaller environmental footprint than any other system.

Let me revisit my reference to our putting together a quality team. 

The Copano Bay facility as well as GBT’s international production oversight is in the more than capable hands of Eduardo Figueras.  Eduardo is recognized throughout the shrimp aquaculture industry worldwide as the co-founder of the “Blue Revolution” for his work to convince the industry that broodstock and PLs (post larvae) need not be sourced from the wild.  He proved the science of genetics unlocked the way to raise both disease-free in hatcheries.

We’ve tapped decades of aquaculture experience when we hired John Harvin and his son, Nick.  Nick Harvin is in charge of the daily production operations of the farm.  Nick literally grew up on shrimp farms as he followed his father’s career managing farms throughout Latin America.

Nick Harvin is typical of the young generation we put in place to take GBT into the future.  Another talented young man on our team is my son, Stephen White.  Stephen is the company’s COO and oversees all purchasing, contracts, and budget compliance. 

I could and probably should name everyone on our incredible staff, from the young scientists to the workers upon whom we rely to keep the farm in peak condition.  But I will leave it at Eduardo, Nick and Stephen.  Rest assured the future of GBT is in good hands.

If the mention of my son or of the fact that we hired a father and son pair, the Harvin’s, gives anyone pause, let me relate a conversation I had recently with an executive of a Fortune 500 company trained at the Harvard Business School.  In a very patronizing tone, he cautioned me against hiring “friends and family.”  Very unwise he said.  I looked at him and said, “so let me get this straight.  You think it’s better to hire strangers and enemies?”

GBT is not only a team.  It is a family.  That’s how we treat each other.  That’s how we treat our investors.  That’s how we treat everyone who responds in kind with truth, integrity and respect.

I want to point out that we consider our investors a special part of the GBT family.  To the man and woman, they are real people, not venture capitalists or investment bankers or Wall Street types seeking a quick hit or a way to leverage ownership then sell the company profiting only themselves and the investors be damned.  A sizeable number of GBT investors are real dirt farmers who understand the time and effort it takes to grow a crop or raise livestock, concepts quite alien to the New York Finance world.  GBT is, after all, a farm.

I want to give special thanks to Tim Aberson, Steve Groe, and Stephen Lapointe.  They are not only investors but they also oversaw raising the funds that allowed us to build GBT.  Thanks to their efforts, we have no debt and we have capital reserves to allow us to expand and support operations far into 2015.   I might add that Stephen LaPointe is GBT’s beyond very capable accountant and CFO.

Again, in hindsight, the other area where I admit I was not as prepared as I feel I should have been is construction.  We’ve struggled a bit in that area.  Thanks to the advice of a member of the GBT family, Steve Groe, we fixed that problem and hired a very experienced construction manager: Lee Barnes.

Our sales and marketing arm is up, running, and headed by Jim Salmon, former Chairman of the National Fisheries Institute and a veteran seafood sales, marketing and distribution insider.  During his career, Jim oversaw seafood sourcing for the original family of restaurants then owned by General Mills that included Red Lobster and Olive Garden. 

GBT is very close to making our operations truly vertically integrated.  More on that in a future update.

JA:  So is that were GBT stands today?

DKW:  Not quite. 

At a time when Texas’ once thriving shrimp farming industry is going bust from disease, with farms and hatcheries folding, GBT is proving our technology can thrive when critics insist all signs say it is “the wrong time, wrong place and wrong venture.”  We’ve been told since 1998 that the technology we were developing “won’t work.”  Critics and traditional aquaculturists in the field and in academia still don’t believe our technology will work or has staying power. 

Quite the contrary…this is the right time and our technology does work.  Those initial harvests prove it.  What we are building together will be around for a long, long time.  But we are not finished.

Aside from the GBT technology, the area I know best is international relations.  To date, we’ve taken substantive steps to expand the GBT corporate network by signing our first international deal.  We are on the verge of closing negotiations on two others.  Revenues from each will directly benefit investors in GBT - Cameron.

JA: Is growing profits your motivation for starting GBT?

DKW:  GBT will prove very profitable.  I want it to be profitable.  I am a Capitalist.  I want GBT to prove to be a paradigm shift not only in how we farm marine protein but also in how we conduct a for-profit business.

Our vision is for GBT to become the global showcase for ethical capitalism.  We want to demonstrate that capitalism can and should embrace how we treat each other, how we treat those who work for us, and how we treat the planet.  We want it to grow into an international giant that leads the way for ethically contributing to the world’s food supply. 

On a personal and professional level, we created GBT because first and foremost we want to do something to help the Oceans.  We want GBT’s system to produce so much shrimp that it makes a real difference in eliminating the tremendous damage done marine species and the Ocean eco-system by trawlers. 

Too many consumers believe wild caught shrimp is “natural” and more environmentally friendly than open-pond farmed shrimp.  They totally ignore the fact that for every pound of wild caught shrimp between seven and fourteen pounds of by-catch – fish, turtles, sharks, etc. – die. 

So if GBT can grow 10-, 50-, or 100-million pounds of shrimp, we look at it as saving conservatively 70-, 350-, or 700 million pounds of by-catch.

GBT’s corporate vision wants to help end the environmental problems associated with traditional shrimp farms.  If others copy us, fine.  The present and future demand for shrimp is tens of billions of pounds.  What is important is that everyone producing shrimp for the world’s food supply does no harm to the earth.

My personal vision for GBT goes beyond “doing no harm.”  I want to solve environmental problems and leave the Oceans and the Earth better than how we have .

JA: Is growing more shrimp the only way you are helping the Earth and its Oceans?

DKW:  Another of our projects is GBT’s attempt to do just that on the land hosting our GBT-Cameron farm.  I’m personally very interested and very proud of our plan to build a natural biofilter/Conservancy.  The idea – again dismissed out of hand by nay-sayers – is to take water from our operations and run it through a network of channels and ponds stocked with oysters, clams, sea grasses, mangroves, and a host of native plants and animals that in turn remove any waste.   They will also clarify the water that we will treat to eliminate viruses and bacteria.  Only then is it run it back into our bio-secure facilities. 

By developing this “natural bio-filter,” we want to show open-pond farms a way to avoid dumping contaminated pond water back into estuaries, bays, and the oceans.  We see it as a “bio-bridge” between nature and our man-made technology.

At the same time, I hope our project will create a Conservancy that is a natural safe-haven for native Coastal Texas wildlife.

JA:  Aside from the fact that I hoped this interview would illuminate for family, friends and investors the state of GBT today as well as provide answers for a multitude of questions each might have.  And I see that same information becoming a source of pride and motivation to help the GBT family succeed. 

So thank you.

Big Day at Copano Bay

It has been a long time coming and we definitely will get better but today we did the first ever truly commercial harvest of shrimp from the GBT system. 

Densities will get better and survival will get better, but the shrimp in this first harvest, (over nine thousand pounds) were some of the best looking and definitely largest shrimp, ever harvested commercially, in a recirculating system.

We still have a ways to go to optimize the system and we are still making some design changes and operational improvements, and we know the next few production facilities will get better, go up quicker, and cost less, but the proof the system works on a massive scale, is now there for the world to see.

I believe the GBT system is the future for not just shrimp production but for other species of fin fish as well.

And it is here now. 

Below are a few pictures shot today. 

They include the harvest pump, Harvin inspecting the set-up while getting ready to start the harvest, the set-up with pump and totes ready to begin, filling a tote with beautiful large shrimp, Stephen with a loaded and iced tote on truck ready to head to processing plant, Jim and Eduardo our sales and production leaders, and one of many 55 gram shrimp produced in the GBT system. 

HSUS EXPOSE

John Aquilino sent me the following link early this morning.

Hopefully, you can click on it directly or cut and paste it and go straight to the story.

DW,  Follow this link to the full story.  The one below is totally convoluted with a snippet at the very end.  http://www.awesomeocean.com/2014/07/31/breaking-hsus-loses-charity-rating/   JA

I have been told that there have been at least 4 separate national stories in the past weeks, whose content was similar to the link above John Aquilino sent me on the HSUS expose. 

I have been called today by over 50 people from my past or present who know history and controversy from my 5 years at The Humane Society of the United States. (HSUS)

From 1990 through most of 1995 I battled internally  against the President and CFO and others running HSUS against the deceit and misuse and fraud in nearly every aspect of the way they raised money and lied to the public.

Despite their powerful unethical leadership I truly know I helped improve the lives of millions of animals while I was there.

For risking my life multiple times and standing up to them.

For confronting them with what I knew they were doing, just using information from many dangerous investigations I personally undertook at their bequest, I would eventually be framed, branded a thief, and accused of virtually several acts of criminal behavior they hoped they could try and make stick on me. 

Wayne Pacelle who I thought was a trusted friend washed his hands of me. So did virtually every other person who had worked closely with me at HSUS.

I became a pariah in the humane world. I was angry, hurt, and confused.

But I never stopped caring for and respecting all life on this planet and I continued to care for the planet itself.

I even, with John Aquilino's strong assistance, wrote a book, entitled,  "Undercover: Five Years Fighting for Animals at the Humane Society of the United States" about that experience.

When the South African partner tried to steal our company in 2008 my infamous reputation within the humane movement was once again used to try and undermine my character and my integrity. 

This was 13 years after I had left the HSUS.

I have had my "past" with HSUS thrown in my face in the most negative and accusatory way over 100 times if it has happened once in the following years after I had left that organization. I am still occasionally confronted with it 20 years later. 

The Internet never lets any "lie die". 

Now, nearly 20 years after I left the HSUS in August 1995, it appears that "perhaps" the general public and the press are finally exposing the practices of what I saw as deceit and fraud and tried to expose 20 years ago. 

I should feel somewhat vindicated but somehow I just don't give a damn anymore.

Now with the shrimp project and aquaculture system I envisioned and my team designed and brought to reality, we are on the verge of doing something truly good for the world and the animals and humans that inhabit this planet. 

While we will have our setbacks and difficulties, we are succeeding and will only improve as we move forward.

  

I knew 15 years ago the world needed this system or something like it.

That said, I have no doubt that before we truly get everything in our system running as I know it will, I will again be accused of a million negative accusations and worse. 

When we miss a harvest or there is any kind of setback, or delay, or even the perception of a misstep, the accusations will begin to reappear.

I have learned firsthand the public, the press, and industry, even people you thought were your friends, do not treat fairly or decently people like me who see the world very clearly for what it is.

The old saying that "one is innocent until to proven guilty" has died, along with any pretense of fairness, justice, or just common decency. 

Everyone is all too willing to immediately believe the worst thing that can be whispered about anyone who is unfortunate enough to be in the public arena, even if you are not even a significant personality or player.

And they like you even less when you do not keep your observations to yourself. 

Or when you refuse to let someone tell you or ask you to accept what you know is simply not true.

I do not feel sorry for myself but I really no longer give a damn about the opinions of the idiots out there. 

And frankly,  that is most of the press, the politicians, and so forth and unfortunately the general public who like "sheep to slaughter" follow the crowd and believe what they read while never even making an effort to seek to see the full truth. 

Or " Heaven forbid", stop to think there might actually be two sides to any story being told.

So, as I have been asked multiple times today and as I will be asked the same question in the future, "what is my reaction to this story and other articles on the recent expose of HSUS?"

My response is simply "why was everyone so surprised, so unwilling, so blind, and so ignorant, that they did not see through this duplicity 20 years ago?"

"I did." 

Cathartic Post

This posting frankly, is just being written because I need to get some feelings out. 

I think this is the first time in my life I will be truly glad when the month of September is over. 

Usually for me September which heralds the beginning of fall is my favorite month but for the obvious reasons this month has been marked by sadness and grieving and depression and all the associated terrible emotions that come to anyone who has lost someone they loved and cared about for almost 20 years.

To make matters even worse, one of our beloved poodles, Sophie passed away this week. She had been battling failing kidneys for months, but the truth is I think that without Lori she just did not have the constitution or the will to battle any more. 

I think she wanted to be with Lori and since I do truly believe all animals "do" without a doubt go to heaven, then that is actually exactly what Sophie wanted. 

I am trying to focus on more positive things. I think I am going to sell this house in Texas and get another house for me and the dogs to inhabit. Too many tough and sad memories here. 

I do want to use this blog again to thank the literally hundreds of you who have written offering condolences. Lori's impact and unique personality truly and obviously affected many people everywhere. Thank you all so much for caring.

I will only miss one thing about this place. My gecko's. They are very active in the little courtyard in the front of the house. That courtyard and the whole yard is inhabited by so many geckos it looks like a mini "Jurassic Park".

One particular gecko and I have gotten so familiar he does not even scamper away when I approach. I have named him T-Rex.

I guess I also will miss the hummingbirds that frequently fed from the flowering plants around the house, but in any case I think we all need new surroundings.

I am excited that we are approaching the first partial harvest from the commercial ponds here in Texas. 

Nick threw a cast net the other day and the shrimp are pretty much large enough to harvest, especially since we are still starting off at low density stocking as we continue to gather the essential hard data required to start to bring up our stocking densities to the higher levels we know we will obtain. 

I have posted a short video at the end taken on a iPhone of Nick doing a sampling to gauge weights. I do not know if you can access it. I am as technically challenged by computers as ever, but I am going to try and post it at the end of this blog anyway.

October is going to be a very busy month for me travel wise and business wise. That is a good thing. Right now being inactive or having too much time in my own head is not helpful.

I intend to had back to Maryland for a bit in October and that truly is one of the most beautiful times of the year to be in Maryland. The leaves on the trees turn into magnificent varieties of colors.

The air starts to chill and the world seems to begin to get cleaner, at least for me. 

October also has Halloween which is one of my favorite holidays. 

It will all be very hard without Lori. But I feel very strongly she is still with us. 

TRANSITION

Life goes on. 

At least that is what the pundits say. 

I suppose that platitude is supposed to somehow give us comfort at times of loss and during our grief. 

Right now for me, personally, I suspect that time, the realities of day to day existence, and expanding our business, and "thank the Lord", having a very large and wonderful extended family, will in due course, dull the pain. 

So, the transition, from battling and researching everything there is to know about cancer that a layman can understand, to living a more "normal" life (whatever the hell normal means) has begun. 

Whether I am ready for it or not.

One thing that brings me great comfort is my animal family. They need me and I need them and that is a very important thing for me. 

The following (the poodles) is not the best picture, but look at those faces. Their world is now very different, but they can be assured they are safe and loved and their health and well being is and will always be a huge priority in my life. 

And of course, one adage that remains a constant is that "business does not stop". We are going to be doing some very exciting things within the company over the next few months including but not limited to, our first commercial harvests, beginning our first overseas project, and something very exciting, we will be designing and bringing from concept to reality, a strong and new environmental component to the operation in Texas. 

Also, we have already sold locally some of the shrimp we processed and froze a few months ago and the reaction to the taste and quality has been overwhelmingly positive.

Pictured below is a local dish from a local restaurant featuring GBT shrimp. 

I am looking forward to over the next few blogs expanding on a concept I have discussed verbally with many individuals over the past two decades and that is the concept of true "ethical capitalism".

Now that we are operational and expanding and all of the major parts of the company are coming into play, I believe the timing to discuss this "model" could not be better. 

In short, "ethical capitalism" is developing companies that produce critically needed resources without damaging the environment (and here is where it gets even more exciting), but in a manner and using methodologies that actually "improve" the environmental conditions of this earth and its oceans on which we reside. 

And does the above the old fashioned way, using human intelligence, sweat equity, visionary investors, and through building teams of like minded individuals. 

And by rejecting and not using government subsidies and tax reduction (read "evasion") scams and political "chicanery". (Now that is a word we no longer use enough, "chicanery").

And also begins to focus on reducing the amount of sentient non-human life required to sustain our own existence.

Now that last objective is the one objective/goal that I know made Lori smile. Stay tuned. I think the full scale design of GBT may surprise a lot of you.

Finally, I want to thank the thousands (literally over 2700) of you who showed such a compassionate interest and concern and support over the past two plus weeks, that followed our devastating loss. 

It was overwhelming and stunning and comforting. Thank you. 

Final update on Services for Lori

Lori's obituary should be in the Washington Post under "White-Wills" in tomorrow's Sunday (September 7, 2014)  edition. 

I think she would be very happy with what John wrote for her. 

There have been some minor changes after our meeting with the funeral home yesterday.

The service will be in September 10, 2014, this coming Wednesday. 

Visitation will be start at 11:00 am and go until 1 pm.

At 2:00 PM the actual service will start and it should last about an hour. Interment will be at 3 PM and will only immediate family and close friends will be asked to attend. 

There will be some refreshments and snacks served from 3-5 pm.

I can say with pride, we have done everything she asked us to do or had us promise to do for her service, literally down to the smallest detail. 

I will not be doing any more updates on the service for Lori. They are simply too painful for me to compose and then actually write and edit.  

These I have written and posted are my best efforts to give the literally hundreds of people who have called, some idea of what is planned.

Henceforth for me I will only remember or think about the 'happy times" we had in our marriage of almost 20 years.

I want to picture Lori holding Molly for her portrait in oil they had done together. 

Or Lori dressing up like Scarlett O'Hara. 

These are the memories that to me best described the effervescent and special spirit that defined and will always be Lori Jeanne White-Wills.

Memorials to Lori

Lori loved all animals. 

Dogs especially, but no creature was too small, too damaged, or too dangerous, for her not to want to help if at all possible.

I cannot put an exact number on it but if you count the dogs, the deer, the birds, the possums, the mice, the guinea pigs, ( cavies ) the cats, the box turtles, the raccoons, and so on, that Lori or Lori and I saved over the almost 20 years we were married it had to number over 1,000 and that does not include all the rescue dogs and cats for which she she found homes.

She even saved a beaver that had been hit by a car once near Beallsville, Maryland. 

Lori did "NOT" believe or accept euthanasia as a solution. Ever.

So, in lieu of flowers please consider a donation in her name to the: 

Humane Society and Adoption Center of Rockport-Fulton, Texas.

POB 1502 Fulton, Texas 78358. 

They are a no-kill small struggling shelter that Lori took at least 4 dogs to while she was here in the past year alone.

Her favorite book was "The Animal World of Dr. Albert Schweitzer" by Charles Joy.