Creating an ecosystem
Intern Danielle Calini, of Westerly, guides oysters through the tumbler at Sixpenny Oyster Farm in Noank Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Sarah Gordon/The Day)
By Theresa Sullivan Barger, Special to The Day
Sep 20, 2025 3:00 PM
Groton — When former science teacher Mike Gilman got started as an oyster farmer, Tessa Getchis, senior extension educator at Connecticut Sea Grant, mentored him.
And for the past three years, the pair have co-taught a class in shellfish farming to help a new generation learn the business.
“Tessa has mentored shellfish farmers in Connecticut for over 20 years,” said Gilman, assistant extension educator with CT Sea Grant. “The cool thing about this class is it creates this ecosystem.”
While people have been shellfish farming in the state for centuries, an increased awareness that shellfish clean the water led her to create the Foundations of Shellfish Farming course, offered at UConn’s Avery Point Campus.
“We have seen an explosion of interest in shellfish farming,” said Getchis, who has been with the Sea Grant program for 25 years. “We are trying to provide the best information and resources to understand what the world of aquaculture looks like and whether it is right for them.”
In fact, two students who took the course and participated in oyster farming internships were drawn to the industry after reading “Eat Like a Fish,” a book about kelp farming by Bren Smith.
One of those students, Danielle Calini, took the Foundation’s course in 2023 and is finishing up a 16-hour-a-week paid internship with Sixpenny Oyster Farm, which operates from Beebe Cove in Noank. Each summer, Sixpenny Oyster Farm offers two paid internships funded through grants from The Nature Conservancy and CT Sea Grant.
Out on the water
On a recent September morning, Sixpenny co-owner Will Ceddia and Calini took a flat, rectangular boat a short distance from the dock to an inlet in Beebe Cove to pull up some of the high-density polyethylene bags containing oysters that float near the surface, hooked to a rope anchored in place.
They brought the bags back to the dock, dumped the contents into round plastic laundry baskets and loaded the oysters into a tumbler, one basket at a time. The tumbler is a spinning metal tube with holes in it that separates smaller oysters from the larger oysters before being placed back in the bags and cove. The process also strengthens the shells and prevents them from becoming too long and brittle.
Calini, who lives in Westerly, R.I., said she, her husband and their three small children are an ocean- and nature-loving family.
“As a mom of young children, my ultimate goal is to lead by example, to live with intention and purpose,” she said, adding that she hopes to run a small, sustainable ocean farm from Stonington and partner with local educational and research groups.
In the meantime, the class prepared her for the four-step permitting process, while her internship showed her that oyster farmers can start small.
The state Department of Agriculture strongly encourages those new to aquaculture to enroll in the Foundations of Shellfish Farming course. While the course is not listed as a requirement to get a permit, those without prior experience often struggle to complete the needed applications without it, said a Bureau of Aquaculture spokesperson.
During her internship, Calini learned about the importance of talking to residents who neighbor an area where she hopes to farm before beginning the permitting application process. Ceddia and his business partner, Jason Hamilton, both master shuckers, teach their interns all aspects of the business, including how to oversee quality control, watch out for aquatic predators, shuck so they can inspect their product, and market it.
Another past student and intern inspired by “Eat Like a Fish” is Sam Tucker, a Portland middle and high school choral teacher who planned to bring his Tucker Oyster Company oysters to market for the first time on Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Old Saybrook Farmers Market.
“I fell in love with the idea of growing things, providing food and helping the environment,” said Tucker, a Chester resident who involves his 10-year-old daughter in his summer and weekend oyster farming business. “I think at this point, the more oysters in the water, the cleaner the water is going to be and the better off we’re going to be. The demand for oysters is significantly higher than the supply.”
Tucker took the Foundations of Shellfish Farming Course in 2023, and last year obtained permits to farm oysters in the waters of Clinton and Madison. He learned that not only was the oyster industry up and running, he said, but that existing oyster farmers were happy to help aspiring growers.
Both he and Calini have become part of a growing network of oyster farmers in southern Connecticut who answer others’ questions and brainstorm solutions to problems such as weather, diseases and predators.
Tucker completed his internship with Sixpenny Oysters last summer.
“I was really able to put a lot of the things I learned to use,” he said.
A chance to learn
Ashley Hamilton, who, like her husband Jason and friend Will, worked on an oyster farm before owning Sixpenny, said Sixpenny Farm sought the grants because the owners wanted to offer an internship to provide people who want to get into aquaculture with hands-on experience.
“The reason we’re able to have this oyster farm is because we’ve worked on someone else’s farm,” she said. There’s no replacement for observing the process from oyster seed to market, she said. “We wanted to put an emphasis on teaching and having open conversations.”
The Foundations of Shellfish Farming course, taught evenings over 12 weeks from January to April, provides basic information to help students determine whether aquaculture is right for them. The $300 course, which completed its third year this spring, is modeled after a similar program geared to prospective land farmers.
Getchis said they sought a co-teacher who had experience teaching and shellfish farming. Gilman fit the bill because he’s a former high school science teacher and an experienced oyster farmer.
The course covers all aspects of running a shellfish farming business, including the multi-step, lengthy permitting process, the equipment required, all the things that can go wrong, both mechanical and aquacultural, and finding markets for the finished product.
“One of the first things we talk about on day one, and I say this three or four times: I’ve been doing this a long time; I’ve failed at almost every aspect of it,” Gilman said. “I learned this business the hard way.”
The instructors want students to know they have to take the boat out in a biting wind when it’s raining and 40 degrees because they have to check on their oysters regularly, not just on fair weather days, he said.
Gilman and Getchis also dissuade people who see the wholesale price of oysters and think they’re going to make a lot of money. Instead, they point out the expenses such as boat repairs and the impact of diseases, predators or ice storms that ruin half their product.
While most of the students are somewhat new to shellfish farming, one student, Jake Simonds, 22, has been oyster farming with his father, owner of Stonington Farms Shellfish, since he was 13. The Mystic resident took the shellfish farming course to learn some of what he hadn’t discovered through hands-on experience, he said, such as the biology of oysters and how they filter the water.
He appreciated the chance to make connections with others with shared interests, learn from Gilman, he said, and “learn the ins and outs from what he learned from crop loss and setbacks.”
The class isn’t just for future shellfish farmers.
Some students are environmentally-minded people who want to learn more about shellfish aquaculture and the environmental and water quality benefits of having more shellfishing in Long Island Sound, Getchis said. Some volunteer for their local shellfish or conservation commissions or work in harbor management. Some students are interested in learning about shellfish restoration. And some are high school teachers who want to teach aquaculture to their students.
Gilman and Getchis have worked with teachers throughout the state to develop a statewide aquaculture educators’ network to expose students to marine science and aquaculture courses at technical schools, colleges and universities.