Michael has been advancing open ocean farming technologies for over 30 years in the US and Abroad. In the US, he has managed submerged cage culture projects in the Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii and the North Atlantic. In 2000, he took the role as Project Manager at the University of New Hampshire’s (UNH) Open Ocean Aquaculture Project and the Atlantic Marine Aquaculture Center. This project was in the forefront of developing biological, engineering, and environmental technologies for the commercialization of offshore aquaculture in the US. Numerous marine culture systems were deployed, and numerous species were successfully cultured at the demonstration farm located 13 km offshore in 52m water depth. In addition, he has been training fishermen and farmers on small scale, integrated multi-trophic aquaculture of steelhead trout, blue mussels, and sugar kelp on floating platforms. More recently and funded by the Department of Energy, Michael’s been involved with multiple US institutions to develop offshore macroalgae farms for biofuel production. Internationally, Michael has engaged aquaculture projects in the Black Sea (US AID), in Norway (SINTEF Oceans and NTNU), in the Mediterranean (University and private), New Zealand (Cawthron Institute), and Cuba (federal and non-profit). Michael received a BS (Biology) from the University of Wisconsin, a MS (Mariculture) from Texas A&M and a Ph.D. (Zoology) from the University of New Hampshire. Lastly, he maintains a Master Captain’s license (100 ton) and has over 5000 hours logged diving in the Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean oceans.
