Interviewer: Preetam Prakash

Affiliation: University of Arizona

I had stopped by the crab and oyster processing plant operated by Johnny Johnson, his son Paul, and other members of their family early on in the fall of 2010. At the time I had spoken with them about some of the impacts of the Gulf oil spill on their business. I had mentioned to them that I was hoping to conduct some oral history interviews with people in the area who were involved in the seafood industry, and they had indicated that they might be willing to sit down for an interview. I got back in touch with Johnny in early January. He said that he would be willing to do an interview and we tried to get a proper time scheduled. I ended up swinging by their processing plant one day when I was in Coden, and ran into Paul. He called his father, who drove over, and we ended up talking on the floor of their plant.

Johnny and Paul had both been born in and raised in Heron Bay, a community around Coden. They discussed coming from a family with a long history of working on the water, and spoke about the earlier days of the seafood industry in the area. The family had historically owned a crab shop where the processing plant was currently located and Johnny, Paul, and Johnny’s other son had officially taken over operations in 1994. Over the years since then, they described having slowly built the business up. However, over the years a variety of factors, including increased regulations, Hurricane Katrina, and most recently, the Gulf oil spill, had taken a heavy toll on their business. Among their major concerns at the time of the interview was how difficult it had become to obtain oysters since the spill, and the loss of much of the customer base, which they had built up over the last 15 years.