Our Team
ANDREW CARMINES, FOUNDER-PRESIDENT
“I believe if you are making a living from what the ocean provides, you should be responsible about the resources you are depleting,” said Carmines, a Hilton Head native. “Shell Ring Oyster Company will allow us to avoid purchasing large amounts of the natural resource and will clean the water in the process. It will also provide a product in abundance that doesn’t occur very often in the wild here in the Lowcountry. This is the type of win-win we all need and want.”
In addition to being the founder-president of Shell Ring Oyster Company, Carmines is the general manager of Hudson's Seafood House on the Docks—Hilton Head’s oldest restaurant and a longtime champion of sustainable seafood. Carmines has also been involved in other environmental initiatives like the Hilton Head Island Sea Turtle Project and is a member of the Southern Shrimpers Alliance and the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association.
“Eating items from the wild is clean eating to me. When I was young and growing up on Hilton Head, my family was always hunting and fishing. When you eat clean, you feel more healthy and food always tastes better if you grow it, catch it, or hunt it yourself. That’s the cornerstone of our company.”
ROB ROWE, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
Commercial fishing has been Rob Rowe’s life for 40 plus years. “I love the water. It’s the only place I want to be,” said Rowe. “If you’ve ever been on the water you know how peaceful it is. It helps you get away from the everyday grind.”
Growing up on Murrells Inlet, SC, Rowe developed a keen appreciation for the area’s raw beauty and vowed to stay true not only to its aesthetics but to the fishing traditions that have long contributed to the Lowcountry’s historic and cultural narrative.
“Long ago I bought some crab traps, some nets, and this that and the other so I could catch anything that swims or burrows in the mud, and I never looked back,” said Rowe. “I look forward to every day checking on our oysters and being on the water. It’s what I was meant to do.”