A: [0:00] Here we go.

 

Q: [0:02] Great.  Does it show that you’re recording?  Awesome.

 

A: [0:05] Yes.

 

Q: [0:07] I would love if we could just start with how do you to like introduce yourself?

 

A: [0:12] Yeah.  My name is Claire Mauer and I’m currently doing many things right now in work life.  But yeah, I’ve on and off full time and right now it’s kind of a little bit on the back but I’ve run an aquaculture startup doing technology. I’ve cooked on and off in Portland and right now I have a full time job at an advertising agency and I’m a grad student, so a lot of different things going on.

 

Q: [0:45] Great.  Thank you so much.  And what year were you born?

 

A: [0:48] I was born in 1997.

 

Q: [0:51] And can you tell me a little bit about where you grew up?

 

A: [0:54] I grew up in Freeport on the water right there.  Looked out at the – where the Cousins River and the Royal River meet.  So I grew up very close to the water.  Pretty much interacting with it every day on the coast of Maine.

 

Q: [1:12] Great.  And can you describe for me what your parents did when you grew up? What they’re doing now?

 

A: [1:18] Yeah.  Both my parents worked in natural medicine kind of.  My dad was a naturopathic doctor.  My mom was an acupuncturist.  My dad still works and he’s transitioned a few times to what he studies and works on.

 

Q: [1:37] Thank you so much.  And do you have any siblings?

 

A: [1:39] I do.  I have two brothers, one younger, one older.

 

Q: [1:45] And what do they do?

 

A: [1:46] My older brother is a teacher in New Hampshire.  He teaches at a middle school, boys, boarding school.  And then my younger brother is still in college.  My older brother lives in New Hampshire during the school years and he’s lived in Camden for the summers.

 

Q: [2:02] Great.  And do you have any history of fishing in your family at all, this also might not necessarily look commercial fishing, anything that is recreationals – time on the water, stuff that.

 

A: [2:14] Yeah.  My dad’s a big hobby fisherman, loves it a lot.  We used to go clamming when I was a kid.  But there’s no history of commercial fishermen, fisherwomen in my family.  Very much hobby, seasonal.

 

Q: [2:35] And you mentioned your position growing up as being at the intersection of these two rivers and being on the water.  Can you describe that for me?  What that was growing up?

 

A: [2:45] Yeah.  I think it was just like, oh, the ocean is there.  And Freeport has a lot of fishermen there who work out at the harbor.  And we would spend summers on the canoe and the river, which is a saltwater, brackish river.  And yeah, there were – our neighbors who had an oyster farm at the end of our right where we looked out.  So when they were away, we’d keep an eye out for that. But just you kind of knew what was going on.  We weren’t necessarily – like I wasn’t really interacting with it.  And I never really had the bug for fishing. But I really liked being by the water.

 

Q: [3:39] Yeah, absolutely.  And I think you sort of touched on this.  But again, just for the sake of asking every question, do you have any family history and roles related to working on the water that may not necessarily be fishing?  Say bookkeeping, processing, marketing, work with bait or gear, anything that?

 

A: [3:56] Yeah.  Not really.  I think I’ve been close to it, but not family involvement in it.

 

Q: [4:12] Great.  Thanks so much.  And can you describe your educational background for me?  You mentioned you’re in grad school now.  So maybe up through the present day?

 

A: [4:20] Yeah.  So I went to high school in Yarmouth.  And then went out to college in Washington State and studied politics there.  Kind of always have been working in food.  So after that was definitely interested in food systems and politics and kind of where that comes together.  And then in 2023, I started a graduate degree, a Masters in Analytics at Northeastern University, and still pursuing that part time.

 

Q: [5:02] Great.  And are you married?

 

A: [5:03] No.

 

Q: [5:04] Do you have any children?

 

A: [5:05] No.

 

Q: [5:07] Great.  Thank you so much.  Now we’re going to sort of transition into questions about your role in the fishing and aquaculture industry in Maine –

 

A: [5:13] Yeah.

 

Q: [5:16] – if we could start with just how you like to describe your role in the fishing and aquaculture industry in Maine.

 

A: [5:22] I think I’m very inspired by it.  I used to run a catering company.  And during COVID, we started doing home delivery meals.  And we cook a lot, a lot of seafood because I was reading about how a lot of the seafood purveyors were kind of struggling because so many people eat seafood out at restaurants.  And they’re not really comfortable cooking it in their homes. So that was something I started to read about and realized I could do a tiny little thing with my small tiny business to buy more seafood and just support them.  And then the people who were supporting me would be eating more seafood. But I think as far as fisheries and aquaculture industry, I think I’ve always found it very inspiring, especially – what you think about these big issues of just climate change and food systems and population growth and these kind of really daunting issues that a lot of people – my age especially who are interested in politics or anything spend time thinking about.  And there’s this point where I realize food and aquaculture were really a way to help with that.  They seemed such a small solution but that could be so much bigger of just like, oh, you have these zero input crops.  Wow, what if like, how unique is that to have really nutritious, incredible zero input crops that clean the environment around them? That’s so inspiring and makes you feel so hopeful to think about how you can support that.  So even commercial fishing, I mostly like, I’m interested in aquaculture from an intellectual point but and also business and also the main industry but just being really inspired by that and seeing that is just such a point of hope in this whole huge problem.  And I don’t necessarily know it’s something I love reading about and thinking about and talking to people about.  And I would love someday to be a lot more involved in that industry than I am.  I think there’s just so many different ways to support it, whether that’s from a food perspective or a consumer perspective or supporting the farm (inaudible) or supporting the industry. Yeah, I think just being at a point of being really inspired by it and thinking it’s just so cool if you look at these bigger problems.  But – yeah.

 

Q: [8:04] Great.  And you mentioned your catering company that the seafood – I also know at the beginning you mentioned a startup.  Could you talk a little bit more about that?

 

A: [8:11] Yeah, so there were I think – I guess starting from a few years ago realizing there were these really cool companies especially around Portland who were innovating in this space of aquaculture and really doing interesting things. I was – just wanted to be involved in that and thought it was so cool.  So a year ago pretty much a friend had an idea for a seaweed farming device.  So we – so it’s a device that goes in the water.  It’s pretty much a smart buoy that moves up and down in the water.  So it collects data and has automation aspects and it’s designed for – well potentially oysters.  We originally designed it for seaweed but realized the market wasn’t necessarily there.  But still we’re really inspired by that market and again, that’s like, oh, what if we could make this industry more efficient and make just the idea of OK what technology innovations can you do to have farms produce more oysters per labor or more kelp per season.  There are these opportunities to just scale it that I think can happen through technology. So we were kind of brainstorming on that and built a prototype and right now it’s a little bit on the back burner but it’s something we’re all still working on part time.  So it’s me and two other friends who are involved in that project.

 

Q: [9:54] And can you describe to me just as much as you’re comfortable with, maybe a little bit more about the device itself a little bit more about your process.  I’m just really interested to hear more about the whole thing.

 

A: [10:05] Yeah.  So we started just researching technology in that space and what farming technology is out there.  We have one engineer, a data science and then me and I have professional experience in operations and food and different kind of business operations stuff.  So we were looking at the different mechanical solutions as well as data solutions. So how can we understand more about the water that’s being grown in and how can that inform farming.  So we integrated data collection as well as the mechanical aspects.

 

Q: [10:52] Can you just describe what is your vision for the future of this, how do you hope this continues to evolve?

 

A: [11:01] I’m not quite sure.  I think one of the bigger struggles is just understanding the market and of course if you’re inventing something new, some kind of commercial support or commercial viability for that.  And I think that’s something that’s pretty tough for us right now.  But trying to figure out what that could look like, but also understanding that this industry is changing so quickly and there might be more investment for a product this in the future or openness for a product that’s similar or does something similar in the future.  I think right now it’s margins are just always so short that people are really hesitant to invest in new technology from a farming perspective. And so it’s kind of a Catch 22 of like, oh, we could maybe you know get bigger margins from a labor perspective.  So decrease in labor costs.  But also you need this device is something this is not cheap and creating something this and iterating is not cheap.  So it would definitely trying to figure out if we’re at the right timing in this industry.  But still have been, I think, one part of this whole process is talking to a lot of different farmers and going out on the boat with people and just understanding what their problems are.  And trying to talk to them about that and understand what the struggles are to start and operate and continue to operate and grow and scale a farm, whether that’s seaweed or oysters. And that’s definitely informed a lot of where I’m going next.  But also has raised a lot of questions because it’s not an easy industry and it’s not easy to convince people that new technology is the way to go and investing a lot of money and risk in doing something a different way is the way to go.

 

Q: [13:10] And I’m curious of you could talk a little bit more about things that can really improve  through talking to a lot of people in the industry or if there’s anything that really sticks with you for those conversations.

 

A: [13:22] Yeah, I mean the cost of labor is so high.  And that’s such a – that just restricts the ability to scale and grow more a lot and also decrease prices because you’re just pretty much capped at how many oysters a laborer can make in a season.  So it’s just there’s just kind of this top ceiling and it’s pretty much impossible to go above that.  So then it’s hard to scale your farm or create more and I think just talking to a lot of people about that and understanding I knew the numbers behind of all of that and kind of the industry standard from reading.  But going out and talking to people about how that issue just keeps coming up in all these different ways is really hard and it’s hard to see. OK, a broader scale how do we scale this industry if farmers have this much trouble scaling their own farms.  And even obviously I’m sure you’ve heard the lease issue of leases taking forever so then the industry is just it’s just bottleneck kind of all the time.  So it would be really cool to see it grow faster.

 

Q: [14:55] Yeah, and so you have this – you’ve been working on this start up for a year you said, right?

 

A: [14:59] Yeah.

 

Q: [15:00] And so how long ago, I’m curious, from the time you started integrating seafood into your catering situation all the way through now.  How many years have you sort of been working in these areas working with these topics and people working on water?

 

A: [15:15] Yeah, after college I created a prototype app for connecting – I worked with a friend and some other people to create this prototype app connecting fish or fishermen – local seafood providers to local people who wanted it.  And we just never really got it all together but it was just I was reading again about how there’s so much this mismatch of seafood consumption in the US where there’s a we export so much seafood and then where we like, I don’t remember the specific numbers, but I was just reading something even just in Rhode Island 5% of the seafood that’s produced from Rhode Island gets consumed in state.  But 90% of the seafood that gets consumed in state is imported so there’s just this backwards in the whole seafood industry. We consume pretty much all imported seafood and then we export all of the seafood that’s produced in the US so it’s just this issue of consumption and knowledge and access and accessible information on seafood.  So I was trying to make something that could connect fishermen and seafood purveyors to the people who wanted that and even information and recipes about what to do with you know winter seafood crops which are much less popular in the US, they’re not your typical salmon or haddock fillet. So just teaching and trying to understand how to get that information out there and it never totally worked out that project but it was – it’s something I still think about and wonder if it could be done in a different way or if it is maybe a legislative issue of how do we inform this stuff on a state level.  Maybe a government thing could take care of some of that information.  And just be better about providing that information. I think you’re on mute sorry.

 

Q: [17:37] Sorry.  So how many years ago was that?

 

A: [17:41] Sorry.

 

Q: [17:42] (multiple conversations; inaudible) really engaged in so many different ways and I guess I just feel really impressed by the amount of different ways you’re sort of engaging and I’m wondering how long over.

 

A: [17:53] So that was 2020 that that project and so yeah I guess four years.

 

Q: [18:04] Thank you so much.  I’m curious with engaging in seafood and with sea farming and all these different perspectives.  Is there any are there any reflections that really stick out to you, things that you from doing all these things really feel like, prescient or compelling?

 

A: [18:22] Yeah, I think the options for technology innovation in this space just – they should be more and better funded.  There are more blue economy kind of startup funds or incubators or things that coming into this space.  A lot of them are populated by finfish farming technology and I think moving some of that more towards aquaculture would be really interesting to see or some fisheries – and I guess some of that technology is going towards how can we make thin fin-farming more sustainable and better practices. But there’s just not as much for aquaculture and that’s because this industry is not as lucrative as like, I don’t know eel farming, or salmon farming.  But it’s not as lucrative yet and I think there’s an opportunity for that investment and from that startups – startup funds incubators that early – that money to early access startups and early on innovation is just really important to expand to support that technology moving forward in this industry.

 

Q: [19:47] Great thank you so what I’m going to do is I’m going to ask you a few questions that are more specific about your experience.  I always forget that the Zoom times you for these meetings so when we run out of time I’ll just restart the meeting to keep the voice notes running.  I think that these questions will align perfectly with the end of time.

 

A: [20:05] Perfect.

 

Q: [20:06] We’ll see.  These are sort of shorter yes, no kind of questions.  Do you hold any commercial licenses?  Those could be fishing or (inaudible) and if so could you describe those to me?

 

A: [20:19] No.

 

Q: [20:22] Thank you.  Do you own a boat?

 

A: [20:23] I do not.

 

Q: [20:28] And do you have any experience in the industry beyond fishing or harvesting directly?  I’m going to give you some specifics to sort of bounce off of, the first of which are bookkeeping, bait or gear preparation?

 

A: [20:38] No.

 

Q: [20:43] What about those post-harvest processing, marketing or trade?

 

A: [20:46] I guess some marketing.

 

Q: [20:51] Could you speak a little bit more about that?

 

A: [20:53] Can you go back to the questions specifically?

 

Q: [20:56] Yeah, sure.  Just any experience that you have with marketing and you’ve touched on it already a lot.

 

A: [21:03] Yeah.

 

Q: [21:04] So just if there’s anything that you feel you want to add or anything that you haven’t touched on.

 

A: [21:11] Yeah.  I think just learning about some of the information channels and things that for aquaculture products and seafood in general.  But just learning how to broadcast that information better and get it to the right audiences and see where people are getting their information and try to get better information to those channels,  whether that’s supermarkets, digital media, all over the place.  But just understanding how people are getting educated on the consumption of these products.

 

Q: [21:43] Great.  Thank you.  And what about any experience in factories or research and development?

 

A: [21:48] No.

 

Q: [21:52] What about and again, you’ve touched on this already.  So of there’s anything that you feel compelled to add – any experience or reflections from work in food prep consumer interface, seafood, that kind of stuff.

 

A: [22:02] Yeah.  I guess food prep and consumer interface is kind of where I’ve spend more time.  But just yeah, understanding consumer behavior and again, where people get their information and where mainstream kind of consumers are getting their information on seafood in general.  And seeing how you can put information that’s informing them about local and seasonal seafood products, and also dispelling some of the myths about negative qualities of consuming seafood.

 

Q: [22:47] Great.  And the last one, what about advocacy or any community based organization related to fisheries or aquaculture?

 

A: [22:54] Not specifically.

 

Q: [22:58] Great.  Thank you.  And so then I think the last question I’ll ask before just transition to the Zoom meeting and maybe you’ll need more time – but do you feel or how do you feel your background or identity shapes your work in the fishing and aquaculture.

 

A: [23:12] Yeah.  I think I am really curious about this industry probably because I like, I mean I grew up in Maine and I have friends who work in aquaculture on oyster farms, harvesting kelp, lobstering etc.  And trying to better understand what that – how those can be supported.  And I think seeing the way that environment – environmental changes has shifted this industry in the last five years pretty much since I’ve been an adult and seeing how different it is from when I was a kid.  And understanding how that can be better supported and what are these changes that are happening environmentally also economically and even the perception of this industry. And then I think learning more about seafood consumption food and restaurant eating out as well as seafood purchasing and all of those consumer behaviors.  Definitely has all of those together informs what I’m interested in in this industry and where I see some of the big pain points with it growing and supporting this industry.

 

Q: [24:43] Thank you and do you feel your identity from a gender perspective influences your work at all?

 

A: [24:48] I think there’s – I don’t know – I feel I’ve never worked on a farm and I’ve worked briefly on a lobster boat but not any meaningful experience with that but I know that there’s a lot of just kind of old fashion kind of sexist behaviors in those communities.  And I think there’s also – I’ve seen it in a different way of just this resistance to change and resistance to technology or shifting maybe your business model if lobster you don’t get to make the money you used to lobstering and how can you maybe shift your business model and include some alternative revenue streams.  And seeing how sometimes people are really resistant towards that because it seems a change that they don’t really want and I think just that kind of trend.  I can see from a little bit of outside perspective which I don’t know that’s definitely related to my identity.  Oops. (long pause)

 

A: [26:30] There we go.

 

Q: [26:31] I’m so sorry I didn’t know it would just cut off.  I thought it gave you a little bit of time.

 

A: [26:35] I see the timer in the corner.  I think just that being a little bit of an outsider gives me that for its bird eye’s perspective a little bit more and you can see, oh this behavior, this resistance – oh there’s some logic up behind it but there’s definitely a lot of emotion or things to saying no about this technology or not even being interested in these certain changes or talking to someone about these changes.  And I’ve gotten that with just even talking about the role of technology in oyster farming in general to people and I’ll try and breach it as a very general thing just to talk with someone to get into what they’re thinking.  And people can be there’s not – I wouldn’t say it’s the majority but there’s definitely some old fashioned farmers who can be pretty resistant to that.

 

Q: [27:37] And do you feel there’s a gendered element to that response at all?

 

A: [27:41] Potentially?  I think there’s also a potentially an age and I probably don’t know as much of the industry is maybe someone who’s been farming for 50 or 60 years but that’s why I’m trying to ask them questions.  And so I think some of that just a little bit of maybe some resentment or things that and it could have to do with so many different factors all put together.

 

Q: [28:12] Absolutely thank you so much.  I’m going to sort of transition into questions about environmental change– these just could be things that you’ve either directly observed through engaging in all these different ways of seafood, or maybe their things that you are a built experience from all of the different things that you’ve done and talking to people.  Just however you feel interpreting the questions and if you don’t feel you have an answer that’s also totally OK.  Just whatever feels right.  So just starting can you describe any changes in the environment that you noticed or have affected you directly?

 

A: [28:43] Yeah, I mean I think the flooding and erosion and changing risk to harbors at this point it’s going to be a yearly issue in Maine I think, and it’s just going to become worse and worse.  So that just threatens equipment it threatens farming operations and all of those issues which – yeah threatens growth in a lot of different ways.

 

Q: [29:18] Thank you, you just tell me a little bit more about effects you’re seeing of that? I know we just had those terrible stories in January I’m just curious if that impacted your work at all or just anything else you might want to describe.

 

A: [29:29] Yeah it definitely did I think because people lost equipment or shit was damaged, oh sorry, I don’t know if I can swear.  Or equipment was damaged and docks are damaged and things that so it gives a lot of more hesitancy to invest in things that could have issues.  And so I think that was something that was we’re trying to create something new and a lot of people were saying OK but can it stand up in a storm?  Or OK, maybe you could help with one idea – and something we have partially implemented was a mechanical aspect to sink a farm to the bottom to protect it from potential storm damage. And that’s something that appeals to a lot of people because they’re seeing that is yeah you could just lose all your crops in a night because it’s sitting on the surface and you have a big storm come through, and you’re no longer as protected as you used to be, being inland of a bunch of islands – so you’re no longer protected the inside of Casco Bay or areas that you used to be when there weren’t as many of these huge storms and huge floods.

 

Q: [30:50] And so you mentioned sort of trying to create the ability of the farm to sink and curious if there are any other things you’re sort of trying especially with your kind of experimental startup (multiple conversations; inaudible).

 

A: [30:59] Yeah.

 

Q: [31:01]  – with these environmental changes combined.

 

A: [31:03] Yeah.  I think we were really inspired by offshore farming technology which is really expensive and huge for say kelp farms and it’s not necessarily accessible for someone with a little boat and it doesn’t have acreage like 50 miles out.  But a huge benefit of that is that they’re sunk down so they’re submerged more and so if you have a deeper water even inland it might protect it from islands.  There is an opportunity to sink that down and so I think that was kind of one of the main ones as far as storm damage.  But yeah, we were really inspired by offshore farms because that’s a huge benefit of them is you can move it up and down a bunch and you’re not getting the same damage potentially but the equipment is huge.  So we’re just kind of experimenting if you could scale that down or make some of that more accessible to someone with less massive equipment.

 

Q: [32:11] And can I ask maybe about your results or your experience as much as you’re comfortable sharing?

 

A: [32:17] Yeah.

 

Q: [32:18] What did you find in that process?

 

A: [32:19] We’re working so we’re working on that mechanically to hold it at a sinking level.  We have a pretty solid lifting capacity lifting up and down some lines in the water – so two buoys and it could lift it down or up. So yeah so we have that kind of prototyped but it’s – we’re working on getting it better intergratable (sic) to existing farming equipment.  (inaudible).  Sorry.

 

Q: [32:56] Thank you.  I’m curious what do you think has made it possible – the way this question is worded is sort of a question about resources.  What has made up possible for you to do that experimentation and have all your experience and startup?  I’m curious if there’s anything else that you really think you’re drawing on as you’re thinking about these changes and adopting to them.

 

A: [33:15] Yeah, so as far as doing this startup there’s me and one of my friends are both grad students at Northeastern which has been huge because we get a lot of resources accessible to us through that, through Northeastern in Boston and in Maine.  So that gave us product development resources.  We had a team of engineers working for us for eight months.  So graduate school engineers who had pretty much a project and their project was our device so we got to work with them and collaborate with them which gave us access to labs and they get a benefit of learning and creating this thing and then we get the end product. As well as we’ve worked with GMRI and we were in one of their early incubators in Portland and then have received some support from the Roux Institute because we’re both students there.  So they’re trying to understand how they can support student entrepreneurship and we’re kind of a guinea pig for them.  So I think being able to – there’s no way with this would have been possible without those connections and being in school at the same time.  But – yeah.

 

Q: [34:41] Yeah great, and I’m curious as you look towards the future sort of thinking about your connections your experiences the things you’re observing – are there things you really want to keep experimenting with, really want to keep trying, new directions you want to go?

 

A: [34:53] Yeah.  I think I’m still really curious about the food side of this industry and how I think some of the companies who are doing aquaculture food products are really doing interesting things and I’m curious to see where that goes.  I think going back to the information issues with this, I think that’s a huge issue that I’m not seeing super well addressed here.  But it’ll be interesting to see if that can be improved.  I know I’ve met with some of the people at the WWF, World Wildlife Fund and they’re doing stuff in Maine on messaging for aquaculture and just messaging campaigns which I think is really cool and very needed.  So they’re working on curriculum and younger schools so that people can just understand this industry, young Mainers can see what’s going on and understand it because they’re learning about global warming and all of these different environmental changes and learning how this industry fits into that. So I think those information marketing campaigns kind of and just that information sharing from the consumer perspective and the farmer’s perspective and the public knowledge perspective I guess.  I think that’s just really important and going to be a huge thing that I would love to be more involved with and especially this product even – and this project has really opened my eyes to how much that’s needed too on a mainstream level.

 

Q: [36:46] Great thank you and that’s transitions neatly into my next question for you which is as you look towards the future what do you think is the biggest environmental concern for Mainers and especially with your hands and this is the way to have maybe a different way to frame it – thinking about information just what do you think is really important for policymakers or for the general public to know, as sort of we look towards the future with Maine’s green industry.

 

A: [37:10] Yeah, I think supporting these products and right now there’s often perceived as luxury products from the consumer perspective and I think that can be something that can be changed and worked on.  So it’s not even the cost may not even be that high but the perception is just that they’re luxury, special products, so local seafood or local aquaculture products are just perceived as special and luxury and I think that comes off of – I mean I don’t know what it comes off of.  Maybe it’s related to lobster being kind of a luxury product but I think that perception and we are consuming a lot of seafood.  But a lot of it’s just imported and all of these other things.  Why not more eat more local seafood or be have that be more accessible and more understood and for the farmers and for consumers that just can have a huge benefit.

 

Q: [38:23] I’m going to ask you a few questions about climate resilience.  Have you ever participated in my climate relating workshops or adaptation trainings, anything that in the fishing industry?

 

A: [38:33] Not formally but I think – I guess I’d talk to people and work with some people who are very much at the forefront of that.

 

Q: [38:47] Great, and you mentioned a lot of different ways that you can feel this can be built and I’m curious if there’s anything else you want to add about the ways that the fishing or aquaculture industry could build resilience.

 

A: [38:58] Yeah.  I think – I don’t know I’m not the best person to say on the technical perspectives of how do we make the fishing stuff – the fishing economy is and harbor fronts physically more resilient, which is a big issue.  But I think – I’ve said supporting these ventures whether it’s someone trying to scale their farm, someone trying to try a new thing on their farm and just making that funding more accessible.  Or whether it’s someone from the outside trying to create something to try on a farm or any way that people are trying to innovate and scale and change and adapt having that funding accessible and increasing that funding is really important.

 

Q: [40:03] Great.  Thank you.  Can you tell me about any opportunities or positive changes you’ve seen in your time doing this work?

 

A: [40:09] I think people are – it’s a really adaptable, generally a really adaptable demographic who are running these companies and these farms.  People are really molding their own equipment.  They’re making up solutions to solve their problems.  And I think that’s something that lends itself really well to adaptation and resilience.  I’ve just seen some really creative solutions when you go in the water with people and they’re like, oh we had this issue for the last few years, but so I made this new way of helping to flip the oyster baskets or helping to make things the right buoyancy or whatever.  And they’re making their own solutions in their backyard, which is just if you look at comparable industries I’m sure there’s overlap but it’s something that’s really unique and people are just really crafty and adaptable.

 

Q: [41:17] Great.  Thank you and I’m curious as you look towards the future, what is your hopeful vision for the future of Maine’s fisheries and aquaculture?

 

A: [41:25] Yeah.  I think having, I mean I think making it more accessible to start and scale a farm and making it easier for people to start and scale a farm.  And that comes with  – that’s a lot of different things whether that’s leasing issues information channels which there are – there’s a lot better information out there about farming and regulation and things.  GMRI is doing a lot of really good work with that but also just scaling a farm and that just being able to start and scale if you want to start a farm it should not have to take a lot of upfront cost and knowledge and all of this.  I think it should be more accessible.

 

Q: [42:15] Great.  Thank you and have you noticed any change in women’s presence participation or status in aquaculture or fisheries over your time working with seafood?

 

A: [42:26] I think especially in oyster farming there’s a lot of women who are leading the charge and trying new things and marketing themselves really well and creating really solid markets and consumer bases that are really loyal and just making it really female forward.  And I think you’re just seeing that especially in oyster farming it’s so awesome to see these really cool solutions come out of female owned and operated farms.

 

Q: [43:06] Great and then my last question for you is – because I forgot to ask it earlier, where are you currently based when you’re not in Carrabassett? (sp?)

 

A: [43:15] I’m in Portland right now.

 

Q: [43:17] Great, thank you and are there any other things you want to say to me before we end of interview?

 

A: [43:22] I don’t think so.  I covered a lot.

 

Q: [43:26] Great well thank you so much this was so wonderful.  In a second I’ll go ahead and the Zoom.  If you could send me both the voice memo and the release form that would be awesome.  And I’ll keeping you in the loop with everything related to this project and thank you so much again for being so generous with your time especially while you’re away.

 

A: [43:45] Yeah of course.  Thank you so much.  It was great to chat.

 

Q: [43:47] Of course.  Have a great rest of your day Claire.  Please go free to email me if you have absolutely any questions.

 

A: [43:52] I will.  Perfect.

---