Oyster Entrepreneur Finds Home in Maine: Brad Blymier

Today I have with me Brad Blymier, and he is the co-founder of War Shore Trading Company. Thanks for coming in today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm really interested in your connection to Maine. I know this is not your initial place of origin, right. But somehow you felt drawn to be here. Yeah, so I myself grew up in Southern Pennsylvania right on the Mason Dixon line in a small town called Hanover, Pennsylvania. So if you've ever had like Ts potato chips or Snyder's pretzels, that's my hometown. So we're just a little bit of west of Gettysburg in between Gettysburg and York. but my connection to Maine is through my wife. My wife is Mainer, true Mainer born in Maine. she grew up in central Maine, Pittsfield. so that was our connection. and yeah, we we met out in northern California, and at the time I was living in Annapolis, Maryland. And she came back east, wanted to come back east started dating and then ended up, yeah, getting married. We got married in Hollowell where her mother lives right on the Kennebec River, a beautiful town. And yeah. And then decided in 2018 after my father passed away that we just wanted our kids to be closer to their grandparents, you know, and Hannah's mother's a wonderful person, and her dad, she has a great family up here. So we said, let's, let's make the move. So in 2018, we moved up here, had a day to find a house. we lived in, at that time, we lived in northern Virginia, about 40 miles outside of dc. Our house sold immediately, so we were kind of, you know, on the clock to find something. So I remember we threw our mother-in-law down. She drove up with Hannah and my two boys. I stayed down to finish out work. and then I flew up. It was a weekend of her high school reunion. She went to M C I. And we found an old friend of, of the family as a real estate agent, showed us seven houses at the end of the day. We picked the last one in Portland. And, and then 21 days later, we were residents of Maine. Yeah. That's a rapid turnaround. It was, it was really quick. We found a house, sold a house, bought a house, and moved to Maine in 21 days. And we've been here ever since. And it seems like it's worked out for you. Yeah, it's been great. It's been great. We you know, we knew that eventually we probably wanted to build, I had never been to Maine before I met my wife. so I'm, you know, I wanted to be closer to, you know, Portland. we're in the food business, you know, you know, we like to support restaurants, you know, so obviously the restaurant scene in, in Portland's amazing. So we, yeah, we found a house on Washington Extension, and then, you know, we wanted to kind of feel, you know, kind of get a, a feel for the area. 'cause I didn't know the area at all, and kind of see where our lives, our footprint was, you know, and it turned out, you know, that our boys got introduced to hockey at a very young age. So we found ourselves, you know, in Falmouth north Yarmouth a lot at the ice rinks. So when it came time to start scouting for some land, that's kind of the area that we, we looked at Falmouth, Cumberland North Yarmouth in Yarmouth. and then it was hard to find land, believe it or not. Like you think Maine's a big state, and that land would be plentiful. But, you know, for the specifications, we were looking for, you know, something, you know, under five acres, but over an acre, you know, it, it was tough. but we finally found a, a little two, two acre plot in North Yarmouth. And so we purchased that land, and then, you know covid hit, and that kind of put the, you know, the brakes on everything, you know, the insurity of, of everything that was going on in the world. but during that time, you know, we just kind of kept working with an architect for a plan for a building. And then you know, once we came outta Covid, you know, we decided to pull the trigger. had a couple builders fall through for us, you know, it was, you know, so we were very close to just kind of putting it on the shelf for another year. But then the last builder we met with, we just kind of clicked m g m from Wyndham Mike Manning, great group, and worked with their architecture design. He was a great guy, Matt. And we just kinda shared the same vision for the house we wanted. And, and yeah, so we just started building. And that was back in, so we moved in about a year, well, June of 2022, and we moved into the main house, and then we had a guest house built in a, in a swimming pool, and that got finished in September. So we've been there. We love it. It's, you know it's a great community, you know, people have been, it's just, it's, it's nice. It's a nice area, you know, I was, it's telling your husband, like, this is the first time I've been on Cousin Island, you know, and we live four miles away. So, you know, Maine's such a big state. There's a lot of like little nooks and crannies everywhere to, to explore. So it, it's fun. It's, our kids love it. Our kids love it. So how Old are your boys now? our, my o my oldest jet is nine, and my youngest jack is eight. So they're pretty close. they're about 15 or 16 months apart, so they're one year apart in school in hockey years, they go by birth year. So they're, they're two years apart in hockey. but yeah, they're, you know, they're type A go-getters, you know, very rambunctious. So we try to keep them involved in sports and activities, pretty much 24 7 as much as we can. but yeah. It sounds like your wife was pretty convincing to say, Hey, we'd like to move to Maine. And you said, oh, sight unseen. Okay, sure. Yeah, let's do this. And, and 21 days later you were here. So, Yeah, would've it had been a culmination of coming to visit? We would come up to visit twice a year. We'd come up for a week in the summer, and we'd always come up over the holidays. And you know, it wasn't a hard sell for me. You know, I've, you know, like I said, my, you know, unfortunately, my mother passed away many, many years ago. And then, you know, I've had family in the area, but not our immediate area in Northern Virginia. Most of my family was still in Pennsylvania. So when my dad passed away, you know, it was kind of like, okay, you know, my dad's passed away now, so, you know, what are we doing? What do we wanna do? Like, you know and family's important to me, you know, in terms of grandparents, you know, I only had one grandmother. and I just saw this is an opportunity, you know, there's a good window here. Our boys are still young. at the time, you know, I had a business partner, a guy I grew up with, and I just talked with him, you know, and said, Hey, listen, you know, it's gonna seem kind of outta left field. Not really. 'cause he obviously knew that Hannibal was from Maine, but, you know, we'd like to, you know, to move to Maine. And, you know, a lot of people think it was like a professional move, but it wasn't, you know, it had nothing to do with our business. Our business was in, you know, DC you know, we, we own a high-end shellfish distribution company, so we service Maryland DC and Northern Virginia. so, because naturally people make the association with seafood in Maine, like, oh, did you move up there? Now, later, we, we, we op, you know, we took the opportunity to create something during Covid that allowed us to work and, and, and do some neat stuff here in Maine, we can talk about later. But the move was, it was strictly personal, you know, so my business partner was good. It, the nice thing is that, you know, Portland to Baltimore is an easy flight, and our, our facility was just 10 miles outside of B W I, and we lived literally three miles from Portland Jetport. So it's an hour 10 flight. So yeah, for the first year, you know, I, I think that first year we moved up here after we yeah, after we moved, I think I spent about 161 days in dc. So we, I lived up here, but it still kind of felt like , you know, when I was coming home for vacation. and then in 2018 and end of 2018 we were able to buy out my business partner. he had had a super successful cybersecurity business that, that he had sold, you know, so when we started the company together, you know, it was more of my vision, well, it was both our visions, but it was more like, Hey, Brad, if, you know, we could make a, a thriving business outta this if you want to go, you know, full bore. And it, and so he was, yeah, he was very generous and allowing us to buy him out. And then I brought my wife on, you know, gave her a very short runway, Lisa, to, to kind of get off the ground. But she's amazed. She's smart. She got it, you know, and then, yeah, so since 2019, her and I are, you know, sole owners of the company. we work side by side every day. She you know, I, we stay in our lanes. I think a lot of people ask, you know, is it hard to work with your, your spouse? And I would say, as a side note, it's harder to parent with your spouse than it is, you know, to to run a business. But the reason it, it's successful and the what makes it work is, you know, we each have our specific duties. You know, I, I kind of use the analogy of a Venn diagram where, you know, there's a small part in the center that we both kind of work on together. But for the most part, you know, she's backend, she's finance, she's hr, you know, and I'm more sales marketing the face of the company, you know, although she has a, a prettier face than me. But, you know, I, I, I stay out in front of it in sales and marketing. 'cause that's my background is, is sales. And that's what, you know, that's what I'm good at. So, so, yeah. I mean, it's, it's been good. So why seafood distribution and, and what, what did you what did you think that you were gonna be doing when you were younger? Was it Seafood? No. . No, I, you know, if you would've asked me, you know, 15 years ago, if you've told me that I'd be owned my own business, I would've laughed because it was never my ambition to, to be a, you know, an entrepreneur or even a business owner. I we just kind of fell into it. My background my degree is in English, a minor in philosophy. so naturally I got into sales, right? . Yeah. So, you know, it was one of those things. I graduated college and went to school in Virginia. And my buddy Dave, who I just talked about, who was my business partner, he had graduated a little bit before me and got this job in Baltimore, just selling local area networking. you know, he knew me, gala college, just to kind of try to, you know, lay some kind of roots, kind of feel it out. And I took that job and I immediately realized that I liked sales, I liked all aspects of it. I, you know, I'm not a math guy, you know, my wife's that right brain, or, you know, she's, you know, she's, she went to R P I for engineering started there. So that's her, she's math. She's like, I'm, I'm not that, that side. So but I like talking with people and I like dealing, you know, I like the art of the deal and, and negotiation, and I like taking a product and, you know, convincing somebody that, you know, that it's something that wouldn't enhance their business or their life. so that was a great jumping off point for me. You know, I was 20 some inside sales, all of us sat inside of a bullpen, you know, and just hammered the phones and, you know, created customers. So I knew immediately there that probably the trajectory of my career was gonna be in sales or sales related. And it was. So but the, you know, so I, I worked there and then I ended up getting to software size, a, believe it or not, AI was ai artificial intelligence software program in the academic world that actually would evaluate students' writing. You know, it's funny now 'cause AI's really coming to the forefront. So this was probably back in like two early, two thousands. and that gave me an opportunity to move out to California. So I lived out, I moved out to Los Angeles, and I managed some territories in San Francisco and la you know, I lived out there for nine years you know, and came back with that same job. And when I came back, I reconnected with my, you know, my childhood friend Dave, and we'd always been in contact, but we were in the same geographical location now. And he said, Hey, listen. my dad bought this property in the lower Eastern shore, Virginia. His dad Charlie Seve great guy was a, a big outdoors man, you know, and he bought this property on the pun, Tite Creek in Chesapeake Bay, just to duck hunt, you know. and he would go down there a couple times a year, and this was back in like 2009. So the aquaculture boom hadn't taken off yet, you know but it was, you know, it was starting to, to set up, you know, to be something and to be very visible. so we were lucky enough to kind of get in the front end of that. And he said, Hey, let's start an oyster farm. I'm like, all right, yeah, let's do it. You know? Now I'd grown up close enough to the Chesapeake Bay where we'd been down there. Dave used to run a crab truck from our hometown Hannover down there to the Bay. So he was very familiar with it. And I think he cut some fish and seafood, or cut some, yeah, sorry, cut some fish in a seafood company when he was in college. So, you know, we had a little familiarity with it, but we just basically found an established oyster company, called him up, asked if we could come down and kind of see what, what they're doing, how it's done buy equipment from them. so that's what we did. And we leased a couple acres at the bottom of the Punt Creek in Onancock, Virginia. And we started growing oysters. So you know, at pedestrian, like I would, I still have my full-time job. He had his full-time jobs. And the weekends we wake up at four 30 and drive all the way down. You know, think about the Chesapeake Bay, you know, it's, it's a hall. You've gotta go over the Bay Bridge, you know, and then down the Eastern shore. So it's not easily accessible, like up here, here in Maine, you know, people live on the Damer, Scott, or people live on the Royal River, you know, it's very easy to get their leases. I mean, we had to travel quite a distance by three, three and a half hours to get there. But we go down and do it, and we, you know, we put a, I know, maybe like a hundred thousand oysters in the water. And then finally they, we had this product and we're like, wow. You know, so we have now what and we're like, well, we should try to sell it, right? And so like, yeah, let's do it. So there was a local right restaurant in, at the time. Dave was living in Old Town, Alexandria, right outside of dc it was called Hank's Oyster Bar. and we went in and we were friendly with them because we you know, we've, we were patrons there of the restaurant. And we just approached the general manager and chef said, Hey, we just started an oyster farm. we've got two bags of oysters here. Would you be interested in buying them? And they said, yes, . So we're like, alright, let's do it. So I think it wasn't that night, but shortly thereafter, you know, Dave said, Hey, listen, you know, let's take a stab at putting kind of a business plan together. Like I'm a pro forma and take a look at this. And as we tell the story, we actually create the business plan in that very same restaurant, you know, sipping whiskey at the bar. And pretty soon we said, he said, Hey, if you want to take a stab at this, you know we could, we could try to make a, a business Alice. Now we realized, Lisa, that there was two sides of the business, right? There's, there's farming and there's distribution. and we necessarily didn't wanna be in the farming side 'cause we weren't in the position to move down to the eastern shore. Again, it's not like living off the Damer Scott or Laro over here. You know, it's, it's the, out there, it's a lot of, you know, it's, it's pretty sparse down there. There's not a lot of, you know, you know lot of action, you know, unless you love the outdoors. so we thought, well, let's go to the distribution route. Let's keep our farm, let's keep our flagship product, the war shore oyster and, you know, let's, let's try to market that. So we drew up the business plan, and then I just literally started I would take a cooler and I'd have oyster samples, and I would literally just drive down to DC and I would knock on the back doors of every restaurant I could and try to talk to the chef. And that's how we built the business, one restaurant at a time, . so pretty soon, you know, once we started bringing our oyster to the chef's, naturally they're like, well, is there anything else you could bring us any oysters? So then that's when we just thought, okay, we're gonna need more than just our one oyster. So we just developed another oyster a more brownier saltier oyster off of Ti Island. so now we had two oysters with different flavor profiles, and, and then we just said, Hey, you know what, I'm, I wanna bring other farms oysters, you know? So we just really got into distribution, and then we started picking up other oysters, and then we moved outside our region up into the northeast, and then we moved up here to New England, you know, then we started bringing in Canadian oysters. And then for note, we were flying in West Coast, you know, oysters, and then just kind of built from there. And then we started adding scallops, you know, and lobster meat clams. and yeah, so that's how we got started. I'm sorry, it's a long answer to your to your question, but that's the backstory. So really it was about just the opportunity, you know of being able to start that oyster farm and then having the you know, the window. You know, I was, I was speaking about Kevin, Kevin earlier about what I think in, in life, what's worked for me, you know, is life's about, you know, timing opportunity and execution. so, you know, the opportunity was there, the timing was right. and all we had to do is execute on it. And, you know, and that's what we did. And I give tons of credit to my wife, Hannah, because when , you know, when I met her, you know, I, I told her, Hey, you know, we just started this oyster farm, you know pretty much what I had in savings went into starting this farm. I'm like, you know, I don't have anything now, but I think this could be something. So, you know, she really invested in me when I had nothing, you know, to tell you the truth, you know, and she's been an integral part, you know, even when she wasn't officially working, she would come with me down to the farms, you know, like, she would fly in from Northern California and spend the weekend in a truck with me driving down to an oyster farm, you know, and that's what she did for a, a long time. So it just was really neat when we had the opportunity to bring her on board full-time and make her a partner of mine. You know, it just seemed like it was a natural progression. and it's been great. It's been really great. So that's how I got into it. It was just opportunity, you know, my friend's dad was a duck hunter, had this property, and boom. and then, yeah, that's how I went from software sales to where we are today. You seem really passionate about the oysters in particular. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, it's interesting. And I'll tell you a story that's funny because, you know, you know, you go out into your social, when you go to parties and, you know, you're always exchanging innocuous banter with people, and you know, hell, where are you from? What do you do? You know? So I, you know, I tell people, yeah, I'm in software sales and that, no follow-up questions. That would be it. Right? Great. You know, but the minute I started telling people that I grew oysters, and then it was, it was, it was funny. Like there were, people were intrigued, you know, and just want to know every aspect about it. I don't know if it's something about the oyster itself or just something that, that, you know, is produced by Mother Nature and not artificially in a, in a, in a factory or something. But I found that people had a really big interest in, in aquaculture, you know? 'cause again, you know, back in 2009, 2010, you know, it was just starting to become prevalent, you know? And even today in Maine, if you looked at the number of, you know, oyster farms in Maine, probably in 2010, as compared to today, you know, I think there's well over 130, 40 now, you know? so people are identifying the opportunity there. and plus, if you think about the product itself, oysters are great. You know, they're filter feeders, so, you know, they're one step above sustainable for the environment. They're actually restorative. so oysters, you know, they, they clean the water, you know? and, you know, before with the natural, you know, wild oysters, they used to be plentiful, you know, these, they used the stories of Captain Boats would hit, you know, would get stuck in oyster reefs, natural oyster reefs when he's coming into Chesapeake. You know, that's changed now, you know, with, you know you know, with, with civilization, right? So the more you're building, the more you're, you know, putting hard surfaces down. You've got a lot of runoff. that's, you know coming into your tributaries that lead into your major bodies of water, you know? So it's, it's disruptive for natural oysters to kind of, you know, find footing on reefs and grow. So when aquaculture came along for the ideal farmed oysters, it was great, because now you're putting a product back in that's going to, you know, you know, replenish, you know, the water that you're in, and, and, and filter it. So I always tell people, you know, you're doing a good thing when you're eating oysters. You're really helping the environment, you know, so, and the states back then, Virginia was one of the first to kind of understand that, and they gave tax breaks, and they made it really approachable to be able to lease the land. you know, we were able to lease four or five acres, you know, fairly inexpensively to be able to do this, you know? And then now, fast forward to today, 2023, I mean, the oyster population has boomed, and, you know, there's tons and tons of oysters across the country in Canada. you know, and it's a good, it's a great, you know, it's a great product. I, I'd like to say, Hey, yeah, we chose the oyster because of, you know, saving the environment. But it was happenstance, you know, I'd be lying if I said that, you know, we chose the oyster because we wanted to save the environment. Now it's just so happened that that was the opportunity we have, and this was a fringe benefit, you know? and it's neat and people like it. People like to talk about oysters are social. You go out, you know, who doesn't like oysters? You know? Well, actually my wife doesn't, but , which is a good thing. But yeah. So that's, yeah, it's, it's neat. So, to, to answer your question more directly, y yes it's, it's exciting to talk about, you know, oysters and, and the environment, because there's so many different facets of it, right? And there's so many different ancillary things that contribute to, to oysters, you know, and, and you can talk about a lot of things, you know, starting with the oyster, you know, which leads into other conversations about anything with aquaculture or the environment, you know. And obviously here in Maine where we're surrounded by water, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's been lobster, lobster, lobster, you know I think oysters are, you know, are starting to get up in that conversation as well. It, it seems like, as you're describing timing, that the intersection between the work that you do and Portland, and really the booming restaurant scene mm-hmm. probably would've created a, a very nice synchronicity. I would, I would think, because for example, Eventide, right? really received national recognition Sure. And from very early on, and everybody was there, you know, lines outside their door, right? And they really did focus on the oyster. So here you come along and you already have your product, and you are from a different part of the country, but you're kind of bringing yourself to Maine, and seems like that kinda worked out Well. Yeah, no, like I said, it was, it was easy. so yeah, Andrew you know, small world Andrew coaches Little league, you know, so last summer he coached my son in, in summer ball. And quick story about him, if we have time, it, it, it, it just talks about how, you know, how close knit community this is. So I, I see him and I'm like, this guy looks really familiar to me, you know? And I see him have, he has a shirt on with oysters, and I said, man, what do I know this guy? And unbeknownst to me, he was thinking the same thing when he saw me, and finally he came up and approached me at a game and said, Hey, you know, do you work for, for War Shore? And I'm like, yeah. I'm like, I'm the owner, I'm like, and I'm like, man, you look really familiar. He's like, yeah, I'm Andrew. And I'm like, Eventide. So the funniest thing is I was trying to close a big client in Baltimore with a lobster program. So we, we deal with Ready Brothers seafood, they're in SoCo, and they've got a live production plant in Portland. so I flew down with two of their employees and did this presentation, and they had this video selling this, this product. It was cold, cracked, raw Lobster. and that video we showed our clients, and, and it, it, you know, it focused on it spotlighted a, a Portland restaurant. So it was even tied, and it was Andrew, and that's where I remember his face. And then, so I joked, I'm like, you helped me close a million dollar deal, , you didn't even know it. You know? So so that, yeah, it was a little funny story that the first way, the first time I met Andrew. but yes, it, so to answer your question, yeah, it, it, that's a good time probably to talk about the Maine Oyster Initiative. So when we moved up here, like I was saying earlier, it was a, a purely personal move. You know, I wasn't looking to do business in Maine, you know, or, or, or disrupt any of that. but when Covid came around, I, you know, I know a lot of people got creative, and, you know, without going down that rabbit trail of what Covid did and how everybody, you know, shifted we, you know, we had an opportunity to get the P V P loan from the government and we created what, which many people did, kind of just a kind of a blue Apron sort of, i, you know, concept where we would take seafood and then we would ship it out directly to people in the home. So originally we first started doing it where we'd use our own trucks, our distribution trucks, and we would pack all the seafood in boxes, and then have our drivers delivered straight to our homes. So if you were a customer and you went to Hank's to get their product, now, we would bring that seafood straight to you, to your home. so we still, we called that current catch, and it was great. It gave us, you know purpose during C O V I. and we, it gave us an opportunity to truly use the, the P P P program in the real spirit of what the legislation was to keep our employees, you know employed and, you know, to keep going. So we did that once Wholesale came back, you know, that was our true model. so we, we phased that out because that's a whole different ball game that, that mailing to consumer. It's, it's really all about putting dollars in the marketing, you know search engine optimization, all that stuff. And that, that wasn't our, you know, cup of tea. We wanted to focus on the wholesale, it was our business. But what it did, Lisa, it allowed us to create a space that we could do this. So we actually rented space from Scales. so Dana had some, some room right next to Upstream. So Upstreams is the local river there, and he was actually gonna do a, I think like a seafood like shop there. but it was really just vacant space. So at the time, George Parr, r i p, George Parr he was kinda like a local fish monger that everybody knew. I was talking to him about places, you know, and he'd said, well, why don't you guys just come in here? You know, we're not using the space. So we set up shop there. It was great, you know, and we'd get all our fish right next door from those guys, you know. So it was, it was a nice, it was a nice situation. but when that went away, we had that space and I was like, you know, I, I wanna still do something with Maine, you know, and I had a vision several years ago about taking Maine Oysters and getting 'em across the country, you know, not only to distributors like me, but other distributors. So that's when we started, Hannah and I started, and, and the main Oyster Initiative, and basically Main Oyster Initiative is me working with us, working with a few select farms taking their product and brokering across the country to other distributors like me. and that's what we did. So C O V I D opened the door for current catch, current catch opened the door for us to, to get into the Maine Oyster Initiative. and that's how I got involved now in, in, in Maine, to kind of circle back around to what you're saying. So, you know, our mission is that we want to take Maine Seafood and and represented outside the state boundary. so, which is really neat. So, so that we're putting true, authentic dollars back into the Maine aquaculture that, that aren't recycled dollars in Maine. Now, these are, this is product that's going out that is going, going to other states in, in the country, you know, specifically. So we actually don't do business in Maine. we had an agreement with Upstream that, Hey, I'm not coming up here to, to look for distribution. It's a crowded market. These guys were great. You know, a lot of farms would go direct. You know, we didn't, that wasn't our, that wasn't our m mo up here. our ML was to, you know, procure the, the best seafood and take it outside. so so yeah, so today the main Oyster initiative. we've recently moved down to the Portland Fish Exchange, and I run it two days a week. And I work with two great farmers, one in Dam Mascota, one right here in the Royal River Butterfield Shellfish. Keith Butterfield does a great job. he's has got his lease right between little and big Mosier Island. And they harvest oysters and they bring 'em to me in Portland Fish Exchange, and I get 'em across the country. So we get 'em down to Alabama, Florida you know, Boston, they're out to Texas Pennsylvania, you know. so it's fun. It's, it's neat to be able to to take Maine's product. And we do this with Lobster as well, you know, so our big three biggest products in our company, our portfolio are, you know, oysters lobster meat and scallops are a big three. And, you know, so we sell about million Maine oysters a year outside the state of Maine as a whole. We do about five to 5.5 million oysters as a company. so a good sort percentage of those are Maine oysters. so yeah, yeah, it did, it worked out great. and just, just to kind of meet Dana, you know, street and then to meet Andrew, you know, you meet people that are, you know, pretty big players. and it's just neat. It's a, it's, again, it's a nice community. You know, I talked about, you know, the, the community, the hockey community for us was big, you know, getting us into North Yarmouth and, and, you know, the restaurant communities is nice too. I mean, we don't know a ton of people, but the ones that we've met, you know, like Andrew and, and Dana it's, it just, it's nice. It's nice. You feel that support and everybod