Hello and thank you for being a Skoobelever. With this information I will keep in contact with you, Let you know of new episodes that come out and give you direct connection to me.
Farmer/Teacher/Father
I went to Texas A&M University and graduated with dual B.S. degrees in Marine Biology and Marine Fisheries. I went to work as a teacher and spent much of the next 20 years in the classroom teaching Math, Science, and Agriculture to students from 7th grade to 60+. It was in one of those early classrooms that I built my first Aquaponic system with some of my students in an effort to find something that could engage them fully. One thing led to another, and I fell fully down the rabbit hole. I consumed everything that I could on the subject, and eventually opened up my own company teaching Aquaponics, Hydroponics, and system design. For about 5 years I taught workshops, designed/built systems, and grew crops using Aquaponics and Hydroponics. Eventually I chose to shut my Aquaponic farm down, as it just wasn't as successful as it needed to be to support myself fully without a separate full-time income. Instead I made the decision to fully invest my efforts in a small gourmet mushroom startup that my business partner and I had the idea to build. Over the next three years, we built that little farm up from ~30# per week harvest to nearly 800# of 6 species, and we handled 100% of distribution to 25+ restaurants, 3 grocery stores, and 6 Farmer's Markets. Sadly, due to disagreements with my partner, I exited the farm in July of 2022 and returned to teaching. Though I am also working on two new farming-related start-up concepts....
