SPEAKERS

May 9, 2022

Jim is responsible for cultivating seagrass, maintaining our aquaculture nursery, and developing technologies that ensure efficiencies and success in restoration projects. Jim spent most of his career in turf farming and nursery production of ornamental plants. To date, Jim has developed and patented several subaquatic restoration technologies including an underwater liquid fertilization system, a planting machine that mechanizes the back-breaking work of hand-planting seagrass beds, a transplantation system for salvaging and transporting large pieces of seagrass sod, and sediment tubes for repairing erosion from propeller scars. Jim has worked with the USACE, NOAA, FDEP, FWC/FWRI, and others to explore options for reversing seagrass losses.

James F. Anderson resides in Ruskin, Florida, has been married to Susan Anderson
for 40 years, and has three daughters, all teaching in Hillsborough County schools.
For much of his life 35 year professional life Jim has been self-employed and
owner of Anderson and Son Nursery from 1973 until 2004. The thriving business
consisted of a 200 acre native turf farm, commercial, residential landscaping, and
nursery production of ornamental and native plants. He then cultivated native
grasses of various species to accompany his nursery operations. Jim started
working with seagrass when his favorite local fishing area was threatened with
closure to boats. The closure was attributed to the extensive propeller scarring in
the area. He postulated that repairing the seagrasses would be more logical than
closure. He then began developing technologies to address seagrass-restoration
needs. As a turf farmer/grower, he felt that retooling farming tools would be a
logical solution to fix seagrass injuries. He designed new technologies that have
been used on many different projects with varied scopes. His passions and tools
now are with the Sea & Shorelines LLC.