Sea Summit 2021

Barton Seaver is one of the world’s leading sustainable seafood experts and educators. Before leaving the restaurant industry to pursue his interests in sustainable food systems, he was an award-winning chef leading top seafood restaurants in Washington, DC. After traveling the world with the National Geographic Society, he translated his experiences into his leadership in the area of sustainable seafood innovations. As a member of the United States Culinary Ambassador Corp, Barton facilitates international conversations on sustainability and the role of food in resource management and public health. As the Director of the Sustainable Seafood and Health Initiative at the Harvard School of Public Health, Barton led initiatives to inform consumers and institutions about how our choices for diet and menus can promote healthier people, resilient ecosystems, more secure food supplies, and thriving communities. He also served as a Senior Advisor in Sustainable Seafood Innovations at the University of New England and as a Sustainability Fellow at the New England Aquarium. An internationally recognized speaker, Barton has delivered lectures, seminars, and demos to a multitude of audiences. He has written seven seafood-centric books, including For Cod and Country, Two If By Sea, American Seafood and The Joy of Seafood. Seaver has contributed to Coastal Living, The Coastal Table, Cooking Light, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Fine Cooking, Fortune, Martha Stewart’s Whole Living, The New York Times, O: The Oprah Magazine, Saveur, the Washington Post, among many others. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, CNN, NPR, 20/20 and the TED stage. More at bartonseaver.com

Briana Warner is the CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms, located in Portland, Maine. Founded in 2009, Atlantic Sea Farms is the first commercially viable seaweed farm in the United States, with the goal of diversifying how coastal waters are used while providing a domestic, fresh, and healthy alternative to imported seaweed products. Briana Warner has dedicated her life to doing well by doing good. She is passionate about our incredible home state and working with our partner farmers to “kelp the earth.” After serving several tours in the U.S. Foreign Service, Briana opened and sold a wholesale bakery in Portland focused on pies with an international flair and employing recent refugees resettled in the Portland area. Before taking the helm at Ocean Approved in 2018, she worked to diversify coastal incomes as the Economic Development Director at the Island Institute, a non-profit focused on sustaining island and coastal communities both in Maine and elsewhere.

Kate Masury is the Program Director for Eating with the Ecosystem which promotes a place-based approach to sustaining New England’s wild seafood. Eating with the Ecosystem is committed to pioneering a unique solution to the challenges of sustaining wild-caught fisheries. They envision a local seafood marketing system that mirrors ecosystem dynamics, supports and engages community-based fishermen, and creates system resilience through positive feedback loops between the people who eat seafood and the ecosystems that produce it. By introducing new mental models for food system planning and new avenues for consumer engagement, they work to replace a piecemeal and reductionist view of sustainability with a systems-based, place-bound template for sustainability that serves the long-term benefit of the New England region’s people and ecosystems. A lifelong seafood lover, Masury’s enthusiasm for the marine environment stemmed from her upbringing on the coast of Maine. She earned a Bachelor’s of Arts in Environmental Studies from College of the Holy Cross before spending five years in the nonprofit world teaching marine science to students of all ages on both the east and west coast. She then decided to pursue a career that combined her passion for marine science with her love for seafood and returned to school and received her Masters of Advanced Studies in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation from Scripps Institute of Oceanography where she focused on sustainable seafood and fisheries.

Jamey Lionette is Director of the Sustainable Seafood Program at Red’s Best, a Boston-based seafood wholesaler that aggregates from small, community-based fishing boats with a mission of supporting the livelihoods of American fishermen while sustaining fisheries for harvest. Red's Best partners with over 1,000 New England boats annually. By choosing Red’s Best, you can support an historic industry and reduce undue burden on our natural resources caused by importing fish. Red's Best supports fishermen whose livelihood depends on the catch. 

Tom Barton is Executive Chef at Northeastern University where he brings over 20 years of culinary experience. Tom shares his culinary skills and knowledge in many ways: with guests at his Xhibition Kitchen; and with students through programs like Taste Testing with Tom Barton (TB3). Tom started his career at the Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton hotels, and has held such distinguished positions as Executive Sous Chef at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge, MA, Executive Chef, Food and Beverage Director at the Boston World Trade Center, overseeing The Seaport Hotel, and Corporate Executive Chef for Sebastian’s.

Kevin Gibbons has been the Executive Chef at UMass Dartmouth for over 10 years, and has been a chef for over 20 years. Chef Kevin won the Chartwells Higher Education Northeast Regional Chef of the Year Award in 2012 and National Chef of the Year Award in 2016. Volunteering in the local community with Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.) and teaching the art of cooking is his passion. He also is UMass Dartmouth's Freight Farmer, working in our on-campus, hydroponic farm to grow local lettuce. 

Suzie Flores is a former market development executive turned kelp farmer. She and her husband Jay run Stonington Kelp Company, the largest commercial seaweed farm in the state of Connecticut, selling food grade sugar kelp to local restaurants and shops as well as operating a small processing cooperative for sugar kelp. When not farming, Suzie engages in outreach and education around the sustainability of seaweed farming and works to support the development of an emerging blue economy in the north east.

Bill Blount is the captain and owner of the fishing vessel Ruthie B, a 77-foot stern trawler that he designed and built in the late 1970s.  The boat is named for Bill's wife Ruth.  Bill has been fishing for over fifty years and was the last offshore commercial fisherman on Nantucket before he and his wife moved to New Bedford in 2018.  Over the years, Bill has experimented with multiple ways of selling his catch. In addition to selling through the New Bedford seafood auction, he has done direct sales to retailers and restaurants on Nantucket and also started a community supported fisheries program, or CSF, to sell fish directly to the public.