TAA Members –
Happy Friday!! Starting today, you will receive a monthly newsletter from TAA to keep you in the know on things happening in Texas aquaculture and at TAA. So much has happened already in 2025, so I wanted to share some highlights with you today, but the plan for future “newsletters” is to be in a more engaging format. Thanks for your patience. Please let me know if you have questions about anything below or otherwise, and if I left anything important out, please send me feedback to help improve future TAA newsletters..
TAA Annual Meeting
75 people attended the TAA 2025 Annual Meeting in Port Lavaca January 27 – 29th. Thanks to TAA Vice President Brian Ray of Texas A&M AgriLife for developing an awesome day & a half program. The Agenda can be found here, and those of you who attended were previously provided a link to the speakers’ presentations. Thanks to Homegrown Seafood and PMAR for providing tours and for your very special sponsorship support! PMAR was a Visionary sponsor and Homegrown Seafood supplied the redfish for the banquet. Additional thanks goes to Gulf States Aquaculture for its special support for the TAA student scholarship fund. A $1,000 donation was made in lieu of the marksmanship competition (cancelled due to weather), and another $500 donation was made in recognition of Fritz Jaenike who retired in December as TAA’s Executive Director.
And a BIG THANK YOU to all of our other sponsors who helped make the event a great success: Capital Farm Credit (El Campo), Hayward Flow Control, Pure BioMass, Austwell Aqua Farm, The Orion Companies, Tyler Fish Farm, Lochow Pond & Lake Management, Ekstrom Aquaculture, Cargill, Fusion Fiberglass, and Rangen.
Special guests that were recognized for their years of contributions to Texas aquaculture included Doyle Schaer, Donna Hanson and Cindy Schmid (posthumously). TAA student scholarships were awarded to Claire White (graduate) and Kyus Saha (undergraduate).
The 2026 Annual Meeting planning is already underway, so if you have interest in where it will be held, please email me ideas for cities and venues. We hope to announce it by early April! We’re also accepting presentation/speaker ideas and of course sponsorship pledges!
TAA Board Members – Election Results
New officers and board members elected at the TAA Annual Business Meeting include Brian Brawner – Hayward Flow Control as President, Brian Ray – Texas A&M AgriLife as Vice President, Nasir Kureshy – Turtle Creek Aquaculture as Treasurer. The position of Secretary remains open at this point.New board members include David Aparicio – DJ’s Oyster Company and Jim Meyn – PMAR. Board members elected to another term include Mark Kubecka – Homegrown Seafood, Fritz Jaenike – Jaenike Consulting and Mike Robison – Brenham Fisheries. Special thanks to outgoing board members, Hannah Kaplan – Barrier Beauties and Granvil Treece – Treece & Associates for their service. The full list of TAA board members can be found on the TAA website.
NAA Election Results – TAA is on the NAA Board!
The Texas Aquaculture Association was elected to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Aquaculture Association last week in New Orleans at the NAA Member meeting during Aquaculture2025! Shane Nicaud, Chief Administrative Officer of Gulf States Aquaculture in Palacios, will be TAA’s representative on the NAA Board. Membership in NAA is extremely important for both the TAA and individual members of the aquaculture community because it provides a national voice for aquaculture on legislation, regulations, and other challenges directly impacting members and stakeholders who depend on a strong aquaculture community. To learn more about NAA, visit their website here.
Congratulations to Shane!! We know you will provide a strong and passionate voice for Texas aquaculture and our key stakeholders!
TAA Goes To Austin – Key Legislation and TAA Actions To-Date
Also last week, I went to the Texas Capitol to meet with key legislators to provide support for bills directly impacting TAA members. Below are the two bills that TAA provided a letter of support for and the offices visited.The elected officials were in hearings or committee meetings but legislative aids were available in most cases. TAA has been in communication with the Texas Oyster Mariculture Association on the oyster bills and is working closely with The Catfish Institute to coordinate efforts on the catfish bills. Also TAA Board member, Amanda Saha, will be in Austin Monday to testify on SB1484 at the Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs hearing.
SB1484 – regarding the marketing and sale of catfish and similar fish by food service establishments.
TAA’s general letter of support can be found here (most were personalized to the legislator). Below are the offices visited last week.
- Senator Hinojosa – author of SB1484 (met with Natalie Garcia)
- Senator Kolkhorst – (met with Michael Vallee)
- Senator Sparks (met with Hannah – will give info to Legislative Assistant…)
- Senator Perry (met with Adisyn Elrod)
HB2976 (companion bill to SB1484 – identical)
- Rep. Briscoe Cain – author of HB2976 (met with Zach)
- Rep. Guillen, Chair of Ag Committee (receptionist gave materials to Legislative Asst….)
- Rep. Guerra, Vice Chair of Ag Committee (met Laela Ovalle – will give materials to Legislative Assistant…
HB609 – Relating to the cleaning of a structure used to grow oysters for cultivated oyster mariculture. The hearing is scheduledfor next Thursday, March 20th in the House Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee.
TAA’s general letter of support can be found here (most were personalized to the legislator).
- Rep. Vasut – author of bill (met with Dylan)
- Rep. Helen Derwin (met with Pierce)
- Rep. Orr (met with Seth)
- Rep. Mano (met with Eric)
Other key legislation impacting TAA oyster members.
| HB3724 | Relating to the placement of a cultivated oyster in a natural oyster bed, a private oyster bed, or coastal waters. [Detail][Text][Discuss] |
2025-03-04 Filed |
| SB1215 | Relating to the placement of a cultivated oyster in a natural oyster bed, a private oyster bed, or coastal waters. [Detail][Text][Discuss] |
2025-03-17 [Hearing: Mar 17 @ 8:00 am] To Senate Water, Agriculture, & Rural Affairs Committee |
Please contact your legislator to support these bills! An excellent & free app to use to easily access your legislators’ contact information is called Cirql Use it to find your legislator, which committees they serve on and their contact information to email, call or visit.
TAA Joins the Texas Agriculture Council
Last week, the Texas Agriculture Council approved TAA as a member. Benefits of membership: Being part of the TAC provides more eyes on legislation providing intel, as well as guidance and insight to approaching certain legislators. While some bills are industry specific, others impact all in ag, so working with this coalition provides a broader network of support. Each week, the Texas Farm Bureau provides a bill tracking summary of proposed legislation impacting ag to Council members. TAA will be added to the website next week after the coordinating group’s annual conference.
Input Submitted to TCEQ on Small Business Burdens
In January, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) contacted TAA at the request of the Governor for input on rules, permits, fees and regulations that may hamper small businesses’ formation, operation and growth. TAA responded with this letter,however, many additional issues could have been raised with more time. The request was received on a Friday afternoon and the deadline for submission was the immediate following Monday. We will stay in contact with TCEQ for future opportunities to engage and provide additional feedback.
TAA is Now On Social Media – Please follow, “like” and send some photos to help!
Please follow TAA on LinkedIn, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) and like our posts when you can! I want to build awareness of Texas aquaculture and TAA, so please help us reach people where they find their news and information – on social media! I haven’t been able to post a lot yet, but plan to make our sites more active. If you have photos to share that I can post to help better showcase our amazing community, please email them – or DM me via social media – with them. I only have a few but Texas aquaculture is so amazing and vast, I want to showcase all sectors. Also please tag TAA when you post – we’ll help each other.
That’s all for now, but TAA will plan to do a monthly update so thanks for reading today and for helping us build more awareness about this amazing world of aquaculture! Contact me anytime if you have questions or need assistance.
Kay Johnson Smith
Executive Director
Texas Aquaculture Association
(703)346-2953