AquaSol, Inc. is a United States based aquaculture consulting company that provides expert opinions, technology transfer, and aquaculture project management services to new and existing aquaculture projects worldwide. AquaSol is based in the United States and is a State of Florida Corporation established in 1997. We deliver high levels of dedication and service to every aquaculture project we undertake. We also take great pride in developing each and every successful new project and view the success of each and every project as a direct reflection upon our skills and consummate reputation. AquaSol is a supporting member of the Aquacultural Engineering Society, Global Aquaculture Alliance, and the World Aquaculture Society.
Tom is the Founder of AquaSol, Inc. He has 25 years’ experience in the aquaculture industry. Tom earned a Master of Science degree in Marine Biology from Florida International University in 1994 and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Florida in 1981. With this unique mix of aquaculture and financial training and many years of experience, Tom has excelled in delivering leading-edge aquaculture project development and management expertise to AquaSol’s clients worldwide. Tom has led multi-million-dollar projects for clients in The Bahamas, Belize, Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, The Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Lesotho, Mexico, Mozambique, New Caledonia, Oman, Qatar, Suriname, Switzerland, Turks & Caicos Islands, Uganda, United States, Venezuela, and Vietnam. Tom’s principal role at AquaSol is to continue to lead and manage important new aquaculture projects worldwide and to oversee projects that drive efficiency into existing aquaculture operations.
Dr Claude E. Boyd is a world renowned expert in aquaculture with more than 45 years experience. Claude’s areas of expertise are in water quality, soil quality, and environmental management of fish and shrimp farming operations. Focusing on water and aquatic soil chemistry, Claude obtained his Doctoral degree from Auburn University in 1966 and has been on the faculty of Auburn University ever since, achieving distinction as a tenured full Professor in 1977. Throughout his distinguished career, Claude has performed consulting work in more than 35 countries. Some of his most important work has been in the Catfish industry in the United States, where he ultimately received the Distinguished Service Award from Catfish Farmers of America. Claude was also responsible for some of the most important early advances in the shrimp farming industries of Belize, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Madagascar, and Thailand to name a few. As the industry-leading authoritative expert on aquaculture soil, water, and environmental quality, Claude’s expert opinion has always been in high demand. As a result, Claude has authored or co-authored seven books and more than 250 scientific and industry journal publications on topics of interest to fish and shrimp farmers worldwide. Claude’s first authoritative work, Water Quality in Warmwater Fish Ponds, was published in 1979 and remains one of the most important industry references. Claude is also an outstanding trainer and mentor to aspiring aquaculturists worldwide. At Auburn University, Claude has been the major Professor to more than 107 master’s and doctoral candidates. Claude currently serves on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Aquaculture in the Tropics, Journal of Applied Aquaculture, and Aquaculture International. Claude has ALSO been part of the Global Aquaculture Alliance’s Shrimp Farm Standards Committee since its inception in 2003. To recognize Claude’s outstanding achievements and contributions to the aquaculture industry, he was awarded the Honorary Life Membership Award by the World Aquaculture Society in 1999.
Jim Brenner is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in the States of Florida and Texas with over 30 years of accounting and financial leadership experience. Jim is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and is a member of the Forensic and Valuation Services and Tax Sections of the AICPA. Jim has earned the Accredited in Business Valuations (ABV) designation by the AICPA and is fully qualified to provide full business valuation services, and consultations surrounding all aspects merger and acquisition activities. He is also a member of the Institute of Business Appraisers and the International Tax Forum. Jim has extensive experience as either the lead, or the financial lead for small and large projects, having worked on approximately fifty (50) acquisition/divestiture projects, of which approximately 60% of them were closed. In support of these efforts, Jim has spent countless hours on due diligence initiatives, review of business data, developing financial models and working on negotiating points on behalf of his employers and clients. From 1986 to 1990, Jim was Treasurer of Latin American Agribusiness Development Corporation with responsibilities for equity portfolio companies, fund movements, non-performing assets among other duties. From 1992-2003, Jim was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for Statia Terminals Group N.V., a publicly traded, oil and gas terminaling company that had revenues of approximately 200 million in 2002. From 2006-2009, Jim was Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners Terminals Division. Kinder Morgan is a publicly traded, master limited partnership and one of the world’s largest pipeline and terminaling owner/operators with 2009 revenues of $7 billion. While employed at Kinder Morgan Terminals, Jim led the division’s finance and accounting functions, including participation in numerous acquisition and divestiture projects. Jim’s principal role with AquaSol is to lead or co-lead our aquaculture investment advisory services, aquaculture asset valuations, and the financial aspects of our aquaculture due diligence efforts.
François has over 24 years of aquaculture industry experience in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, managing commercial aquaculture ventures with a focus on production, biosecurity, shrimp broodstock breeding, bio-floc technology, and consulting for private and government entities. François started his career in 1993 working in the shrimp farming industry for Megalarvas hatchery in Ecuador. He also gained experience working with Redfish (Sciaenops ocellatus) at a hatchery in Martinique. In 1995 he was awarded a Master’s degree in Aquaculture Production and Project Management from the University of Montpellier. After several years working as a fisheries consultant on various projects in Mexico, Guatemala, The Seychelles, and Peru, François returned to Ecuador to manage Lisamar's 280 hectares semi-intensive shrimp and tilapia polyculture farm. François advanced his career with a move to Brasil, where he managed both the 240 hectares intensive growout farms and hatchery operations of Tecnarao. In 2004, he moved to Madagascar, where he was Head of Mahajamba farming operations of Aqualma (Unima Group). François was directly responsible for the management of 760 hectares of semi-extensive farming operations, which produced 4000 tons of Penaeus monodon per year, within ISO 9001:2000 and Label Rouge standards. Two hundred and fifty employees were under his direct responsibility and he was further responsible for managing a 11 million Euros annual budget. François was most recently the Head of Biosecurity for Shrimp Business Unit and Head of the Shrimp Breeding Program at National Aquaculture Group (NAQUA) in Saudi Arabia. François was responsible for establishing the group's biosecurity system. His key achievements included establishing a quarantine system, first introduction of Penaeus vannamei in Saudi Arabia and sustained commercial introduction of over 20,000 broodstock, establishing biosecurity protocols at company level and advising at national level, managing a disease surveillance program and overseeing the diagnostic lab, establishing a corporate biosecurity certification program for 2700 employees, advising the business unit director on biosecurity strategies and risk management, establishing the breeding program with Penaeus vannamei under indoor biosecure biofloc technology, and supplying in excess of 50,000 commercial broodstock per year. Budget responsibilities accounted for 10 million US Dollars. François recently advised the Australian Prawn Farmers Association on biosecurity risk management. François is fluent in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
Dr Roger Doyle is a world renowned aquaculture geneticist with 40 years of research, development and commercial experience in tilapia, salmon, carp, and shrimp genetics. Roger earned his MSc and PhD degrees in Biology from Yale University and his MSc degree in Oceanography and BSc degrees in Biology and Chemistry from Dalhousie University in Canada. For 10 years, Roger was engaged as an aquaculture genetics consultant for one of the world's largest salmon aquaculture companies, where he designed their Canadian salmon family breeding and selection program, built-up their genetics database, and interpreted microsatellite family identification results. Several years ago, Roger performed due diligence in connection with the purchase of a large and successful aquaculture genetics organization. In 1997, 1999, and 2005, Roger was a technical advisor on genetic conservation in Salmonids for the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service. Since 1999, Roger has also performed genetic conservation work in Salmonids for Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He also formally reviewed and subsequently redesigned the shrimp genetics program at the Oceanic Institute in Hawaii during a multi-year consultancy in the early 2000s. He is currently consulting on breeding and quantitative genetic aspects of the shrimp breeding program for one of the largest shrimp producers in Asia. He is also currently responsible for aquaculture genetics programs for other producers in the Middle East and the Americas. Dr. Doyle is also extremely active in tilapia genetics for multiple clients around the world. He is the former President of the International Association for Aquaculture Genetics and former Coordinator of the Aquaculture Genetics Network in Asia (IDRC). Dr. Doyle is a retired Professor of Biology and Founding Director of the Marine Gene Probe Laboratory at Dalhousie University in Canada. From 1980-1984, Dr. Doyle was an aquaculture genetics Lecturer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. He has approximately 100 publications in theoretical and applied genetics to his credit, including his co-editor role in the important 1996 publication entitled Genetics in Aquaculture V.
Spencer is a practical hands-on farmer with more than 30 years of aquaculture experience, farming a variety of finfish species on five different continents around the world. He graduated from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (Canada) in 1982 specializing in Aquaculture & Fisheries Management and has been passionately involved in the fish farming community ever since. He is an expert on all aspects of fish husbandry and knows what it takes to maximize growth and survival in a production setting. He is also an expert in feeding and feed management with a goal to achieve the lowest feed conversion rates possible. He started his career in the early days of salmon farming on the west coast of Canada and expanded his practical farming experience with both Pacific and Atlantic salmon in Chile and Tasmania. He also has years of hands-on experience growing Sea Bream and Sea Bass in the Mediterranean (Spain), Totoaba and Huachinango in the Sea of Cortez (Mexico), and Tilapia in Malaysia. He has farmed under a wide range of environmental conditions using most of the farming technology available to the industry today, including submersible cages. Spencer is enthusiastic about aquaculture and eager to share his vast experience with others.
David has over 30 years of technical and management experience in all phases of commercial shrimp aquaculture. David worked in Ecuador from 1986 to 1991 and throughout Central and South America up until 2003 and throughout Asia from 2004 to the present. Areas of expertise include broodstock breeding programs, hatchery management, and intensive grow-out systems. David received his BA degree in Zoology from the University of Hawaii in 1979. David’s areas of expertise include broodstock breeding and multiplication projects, design and management of intensive shrimp farms and hatcheries, multi-phase and biofloc technology for sustainable shrimp culture, and training and manpower procurement for commercial aquaculture operations.
Dr Wolfgang Koppe graduated from the Georg August University in Göttingen, Germany, with a diploma degree in Agriculture, Animal Production. He was awarded his PhD in 1993, specialising in fish nutrition and physiology. In 1995 he joined the Aquaculture Research Centre of Skretting in Stavanger, Norway, as a researcher in the areas of pigmentation, amino acids and formulation. From 1999-2017 Wolfgang headed the Nutrition R&D department at Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre. In this role, he was developing and executing an R&D portfolio for feeds for salmon, trout, whiteleg shrimp, tilapia, sea bass, sea bream and other species while also developing and implementing commercial nutritional solutions for Skretting’s global feed lines. He is inventor and co-inventor of 7 patents for fish feed applications. Since 2017 he works as a consultant in the field of aquafeeds.
Chris is a senior level aquaculture operations professional with roughly 30 years of experience developing, deploying, and managing projects. He has an extensive track record for implementing projects in an efficient and timely manner with an emphasis on building teams to reach defined goals through collaboration. The bulk of his experience has been in the private sector, but at times with significant collaboration with non-profit, academic, and domestic and international governmental organizations in various capacities. Chris began his career in the Peace Corps growing Tilapia in a remote section of Liberia after graduating from the University of Rhode Island with a degree in Zoology (marine biology) in 1986. Chris segued into marine aquaculture starting in Woods Hole, Massachusetts where he was part of a team that devised a unique hatchery and growout protocol for culturing the bay scallop (Argopecten irradians) on a commercial scale. From there, Chris has focused primarily on the production of various bivalves that include the American oyster (Crassostrea virginica), the hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria), and the surf clam (Spisula solidissima), among others. In addition to his work with shellfish, Chris has been working with companies focusing on large scale production of microalgae utilizing various cultivation platforms (photosynthetic, mixotrophic, heterotrophic) for fuel, feed, and nutraceuticals. Chris has been in directorial positions for various companies in operational as well as research and development capacities and has been part of two significant Department of Energy projects looking at the production of microalgae for CO2 mitigation, as well as fuel and feed applications. Chris has designed and managed aquaculture operations domestically and internationally, which includes co-owning and directing two companies of his own. Aside from various US domestic locales, international project locations include South Africa, New Zealand, North Cyprus, Spain, Tunisia, and Israel.
From being an award winning regional CAD Manager for a national Top 500 engineering firm, to working with the implementation of AutoCAD Civil 3D by international engineering firms, during the software’s infancy in 2006 – Josh is recognized as a leader in the use, training, implementation, consulting, and customizing of Autodesk Infrastructure products. Josh started with AutoCAD Release 12 over 20 years ago and, progressing through each release, is now building .net applications for AutoCAD Civil 3D 2017. Josh works closely with Autodesk in many consulting ventures – from education to State Department of Transportation (DOT) implementation. For the past 5 years, Josh has served as the technical editor for the best-selling book, Civil 3D Essentials – an Autodesk official publication. In addition to writing and working with the software, Josh has been a top-rated presenter at Autodesk University for five years. Currently, Josh serves as an Owner for InMotion Consulting, an engineering and technical consulting solution provider and a member of the Autodesk Developer’s Network.
Dr Siân Morgan is an ISO 9001:2008 certified lead auditor in Scientific Certification System’s Sustainable Seafood Certification program, which includes both aquaculture and chain of custody certification under the auspices of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), as well as certification of capture fisheries under the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standard. Siân has ten years of experience in the fields of ecology with particular expertise in markets-based fisheries reform, certification and pragmatic, quantitative methods for decision analysis. She has been intimately involved in the Aquaculture Dialogues, sitting on the global steering committee for the Shrimp Dialogue and the Freshwater Trout Dialogue. In addition, she currently sits on the Technical Advisory Group for the ASC, and is a past member of the MSC Stakeholder council. Her doctoral research at the Fisheries Center, University of British Columbia/McGill examined the ecology, population dynamics and management of small-scale, data-poor fisheries in Asia. Siân has worked in non-governmental, academic and consulting settings and brings to the team a strong background in multi-stakeholder consultation. Past projects managed by Siân include developing SeaChoice, a national sustainable seafood program for Canada, conceiving pragmatic trade tools for the CITES Secretariat and researching species responses to area-based management for WWF. Siân is qualified to audit the MSC and the ASC standards including the MSC Risk-based framework, Low Trophic Level MSC assessments, MSC Chain of custody audits and SAI’s SA 8000 social accountability audits.
Hennie is an innovative engineer with more than twenty five years experience in extrusion technology related to the production of extruded raw materials, including aquatic animal feeds. He has specialized expertise in aquatic feed process design, extrusion technology, extrusion process design, and the technologies required to process by-products into valuable feed ingredients. Hennie also has more than twenty years experience and involvement in aquaculture engineering and the design of sustainable aquaculture systems. Hennie’s work-flow starts from project definition straight through to conceptual design, process flow design, plant layout design, detailed engineering design, specification of and assistance with supply of equipment, start-up and commissioning of plants and facilities, and training of personnel and operators. Hennie received his B. Eng. (Agricultural) from the University of Pretoria (S. Africa) in 1984. He is well-versed in AutoCAD, SketchUp Pro, and has exceptional skills in conceptual design and industrial styling. He served as Vice President Engineering & Operations at Insta-Pro International, a well-known manufacturer of extrusion and oil expelling equipment, from 2008 to 2012. Some of his responsibilities included consolidation of the range of extruders Insta-Pro produced at that time and spear-heading the design, project management and commissioning and training of several extrusion and oilseed processing plants around the world. Hennie is currently the Founder and CEO of hp dezign Pty Ltd. Recent client work has included involvement in a major vertically integrated shrimp farming project as well as a state-of-the-art aquatic feed plant making use of fresh fish by-product as ingredient for aquatic feed manufacture. Hennie has traveled to and worked in more than 50 countries around the world, serving customers from various cultures and regions and is always interested in sharing his experience and expertise with clients interested in taking sustainable and vertically integrated aquaculture production to the next level.
Dr Georgina Robinson earned a Bachelor of Marine Sciences degree from the University of Southampton, a Master’s degree in Oceanography from the University of Bordeaux and a PhD in Aquaculture at Newcastle University. She has over 12 years’ experience in the aquaculture industry in both temperate and tropical environments. She developed integrated aquaculture systems in Scotland for the cultivation of Atlantic salmon, sea urchins and seaweed, and pioneered the development of sea cucumber and seaweed farming in Madagascar. Georgi is an expert in tropical sea cucumber aquaculture and recently chaired the sea cucumber aquaculture session at World Aquaculture 2017. Her areas of expertise range from the development of simple, low-cost technologies for extensive forms of aquaculture as an alternative livelihood option for coastal communities to intensive land-based commercial culture systems in flow-through and recirculating aquaculture systems. She is particularly interested in integrating sea cucumbers into existing aquaculture production systems to improve sustainability and reduce environmental impacts on the marine benthos. Her PhD research focused on the biostimulation of deposit feeder – microbial interactions existing within sediment-based bioremediation systems to increase their capacity to process solid waste from intensive land-based aquaculture systems. She has authored a number of peer review papers and technical handbooks on sea cucumber aquaculture and has presented her research experiences at a number of international conferences. She has worked on projects in Indonesia, New Caledonia, Madagascar, Tanzania, South Africa, UK, Seychelles, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Mozambique, Mauritius, Rodrigues, and Thailand. She is currently based in Mauritius where she works as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Tropical Ecology and collaborates with a number of private companies, universities and international organizations, including the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Georgi is fluent in English and French.
Neil Sims is an Australian/American marine biologist (James Cook University, UNSW) who has led breakthrough developments in marine fish hatchery technology, open ocean mariculture systems, and untethered open ocean ‘drifter pens.’ Neil originally worked in fisheries management in the South Pacific, and pioneered many advances in pearl culture. Recognizing the imperative for expansion of marine fish production, he co-founded Kona Blue Water Farms in 2001, and obtained the venture financing to grow the company into a world leader in commercial offshore fish culture technology. Kona Blue produced 500 tons of sashimi-grade Kona Kampachi® in 2008, worth almost $6 million. Neil co-founded Kampachi Farms in 2011 to pursue ‘next generation’ technologies and broader opportunities in open ocean mariculture. Most recently, Neil co-founded Kampachi Worldwide Holdings, which will serve as the vehicle to further deploy technologies pioneered by Kampachi Farms and fulfill the mission of expansion of Cabo Kampachi™ (Seriola rivoliana) production globally. The company’s first commercial hatchery and offshore farm are currently under development in La Paz, Mexico, with additional farms planned for Middle East and South-East Asia.
