Interviewer(s): T. McGuire. Galliano, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I was referred to Jimmie Martin by Ronald Callais, Weber Callais, and Wilbert Collins, all during the same week, after not hearing of him before in the project. I called the office; his secretary located him on a cell phone and she immediately called by back to set up the interview for the next morning. We talked in his office, one filled with a marvelous collection of duck carvings, a large desk with a display case containing carved fishes, and several photographs of a modest shrimp skimmer where he entertains clients and shrimps for fun.

After the interview, we toured the office, where he showed me photos of the type of junk they pick up, and walked me through the storage area where he keeps his inventory of nets used to clean up and certify removals. He invented the "gorilla net," a large-mesh trawl net worked from one of his 3 shrimp trawlers to remove debris. He got the idea from an Irishman he met at a boat show, so the mesh is probably one used in deepwater trawling and seining in northern waters. He has a patent on the net, but admitted to having trouble enforcing it through the courts.

Jimmie Martin has three lines of work - cleaning up and certifying platform removals in waters up to 300 feet, which is the depth to which the Federal Contingency Fund covers [for damage to fishing gear/boats], running 3 utility and 2 crew boats, and building and renting (occasionally selling) portable crew quarters for rigs and platforms, quarters that conform to Coast Guard fire and safety regulations. The "B" of B and J Martin is his father, Beauregard. His father was born in Galliano, went to work for Texaco, went to the war, and returned home to enter the Coast Guard. In the mid-50's, he built a shrimp trawler which he later converted to an oil field vessel. Jimmie stayed in fishing until 1977 when he expanded into his current line of work.