Aquaculture Braintrust Farms clams in Florida’s Tampa Bay
In the midst of a Florida field beseeched with palmettos and pines, Two Docks Shellfish is not your typical Gulf aquaculture business. A lawyer, a PhD, a Master and a biologist comprise the brain trust running the successful Bradenton clamming and oyster aquaculture operation.
Aaron Welch, III comes from a long line of Aarons. He and his father, Aaron Welch, Jr., started the clamming operations in 2014 after he attended a seminar featuring a session on aquaculture.
“After serving for five years as the navigation officer aboard a US Navy guided missile destroyer, I got out of the military searching for a direction to my life,” he said sitting in the companies office housed in metal outbuilding. “I attended a session with a speaker talking about aquaculture. I was just blown away. I sitting at the back of the room, I got up and made my way to the front. I got out of that presentation and called my wife and said, ‘I know what I am going to do with my life.’”
The speaker was University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science Professor Daniel Benetti. Already a graduate of Emory University Law School, Welch went on to study aquaculture under Benetti where he received his Ph.D.