SDMAS April Meeting!

[SDguy]

San Diego Marine Aquarium Society is pleased to announce we will be hosted by the Petco off Carmel Mountain for our April meeting!!

What: SDMAS Meeting

When: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 7:00pm

Where: Petco. 11160 Rancho Carmel Drive San Diego, 92128

Discounts: 20% off all live stock including corals. 10% off all hard goods.



Raffle Grand Prize
Oceanic Systems BioCube 29, Stand, and BioCube Skimmer
along with an awesome Kent package: Kent 2 part Nano Reef Buffer, Kent Microvert, Kent Phytoplex, Kent Zooplex


Second Prize
One ORA coral of your choice (excluding duncans)

*Raffle tickets: $1 each for SDMAS members. $2 each for non-members*


Speaker: Kevin Gaines of Quality Marine, one of the best wholesalers around!!


Our good friend Jeff over at Petco has informed me that they will be fully stocked, with livestock coming in from both Quality Marine and ORA that Tuesday before the meeting! Come check out what this unique Petco beta site is doing with their marine section!! The raffle needs no hype....that prize is sick! And Kevin Gaines will be speaking to us about Quality Marine's vision, MAC certification, and the process your marine ornamentals go through to get to your home aquarium, from collection, to holding at their facility, to shipment to your LFS. Plus, get your questions ready.... Kevin is a wealth of information!

This promises to be an exciting and informative meeting; not to be missed!

As always, the meeting is open to everyone. Not an SDMAS member yet? Well come on out and see what you've been missing!

 

[SDguy]

Here's a little bio on Kevin Gaines for those of you that don't know who he is.

Kevin Gaines was born in Daytona Beach, FL in 1969. He graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology and Cell Science, with a minor in Zoology and Chemistry. He then formed his own company, the Coral Reef Ranch in Miami, where he began commercially culturing over 30 species of corals. In early1997, Oceans, Reefs & Aquariums (ORA) was formed and he was recruited to join the company to begin marketing the fish produced at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution (HBOI). After a sales team was implemented, Kevin began getting involved in the production side of the business. He was Hatchery Manager for over two years and then became Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer before being promoted to President and Chief Executive Officer. Through his previous work with corals, ORA began commercially producing over forty species of hard and soft corals in 2001. He increased ORA’s product offerings, the world’s largest marine ornamental producer, with expansions in both new and existing species of fish and invertebrates. In addition to his duties with ORA, Kevin also has become active in coral reef restoration through the use of cultured specimens. Through his work with sea fan corals in 2002, HARBOR BRANCH became the first in the United States to re-seed a damaged reef with corals grown in captivity. In addition, Kevin also managed a Tridacna clam and coral farm in the Republic of the Marshall Islands that produces protected species for both commercial and re-stocking needs. Kevin has lived in Vero Beach, FL for the past 11 1/2 years with his wife, Tina and their two children, Chase Elizabeth, age 10, and Gage, age 4. He enjoys diving, fishing, surfing, motorsports and reef aquariums. He currently works with Quality Marine, a large marine wholesaler in Los Angeles, and is actively involved with developing corporate accounts, large pet store chains and public aquarium sales.

 

[SDguy]

Wow, what a meeting! Thank you all for coming out to support SDMAS!!

First, thanks to Jeff and Petco for opening their doors to us. You graciously hosted our meeting and provided very generous raffle prizes. You all are doing a great job with your revamped marine section. The effort is clear, and progress, wonderfully evident.

Thank you so much to Kevin of QM for taking the time to come speak to us. Your presentation about quick, proper collection and transport of marine ornamentals was extremely informative! Many of us have no idea what our pets go through to get to our home aquariums, and now we do. We sincerely apologize to everyone for the lighting issue… hopefully we can get at least some of those slides up on the web for everyone to see in glorious full color.

Congratulations to Maria for winning the Biocube 29 grand prize!! And to Dennis, one of our new 10 members that signed up last night for winning the ORA frag (nice choice on the HUGE birdsnest, BTW ) Welcome to all our new members.

It was great seeing old and new faces alike, and I hope everyone had a great time. I wish I would have had more time to talk to everyone there!! I hear Calfo even made it out there??

Some pics: