{"id":95849,"date":"2026-02-27T14:52:57","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T19:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/speaker\/neil-sims\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:26:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T19:26:36","slug":"neil-sims","status":"publish","type":"speaker","link":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/speaker\/neil-sims\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Sims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Neil is Founder and CEO of Ocean Era, Inc., an offshore aquaculture R&amp;D company based in Kona, Hawaii. Ocean Era\u2019s foci include development of tropical macroalgae culture systems (both onshore and offshore), and refining marine finfish culture for species such as kampachi, uku (snappers) and nenue (herbivorous reef fish).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0Neil has co-founded two commercial offshore fish farms: one in Hawaii (Kona Blue \u2013 2002 to 2010, now Blue Ocean Mariculture); and one in Mexico (Kampachi Mexico \u2013 2012 &#8211; 2019, now Omega Azul). He led the Velella projects, which pioneered the permitting for offshore aquaculture in Federal waters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0Currently, Ocean Era is applying for permits for an offshore aquaculture farm off Oahu, culturing marine finfish and macroalgae. The company is also applying for permits for a Velella Epsilon demonstration pen offshore of Sarasota, Florida, and is working towards commercial permits in Federal waters offshore of Florida. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95850,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","speaker_category":[132,9],"class_list":["post-95849","speaker","type-speaker","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","speaker_category-132","speaker_category-speaker-category"],"metadata":{"speaker_id":["4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde"],"speaker_email_address":["neil@ocean-era.com"],"speaker_first_name":["Neil"],"speaker_last_name":["Sims"],"speaker_full_name":["Neil Sims"],"speaker_company_name":["Ocean Era, Inc., dba Kona Limu Company"],"speaker_job_title":["CEO"],"speaker_updated_at":["2026-02-27T19:52:42.699Z"],"_thumbnail_id":["95850"],"speaker_photo_url":["https:\/\/content-cdn.sessionboard.com\/event-files%2FsOwmLdneRyKLpSablEFM_Neil%20Headshot.jpg"],"speaker_sessions":[95017],"_eael_post_view_count":["773"],"rank_math_internal_links_processed":["1"],"_elementor_page_assets":["a:0:{}"]},"thumbnail":"<img width=\"2017\" height=\"2560\" src=\"https:\/\/divcomevents3-static.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/02\/4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde-scaled.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" srcset=\"https:\/\/divcomevents3-static.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/02\/4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde-scaled.jpg 2017w, https:\/\/divcomevents3-static.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/02\/4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde-236x300.jpg 236w, https:\/\/divcomevents3-static.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/02\/4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde-807x1024.jpg 807w, https:\/\/divcomevents3-static.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/02\/4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde-768x975.jpg 768w, https:\/\/divcomevents3-static.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/02\/4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde-1210x1536.jpg 1210w, https:\/\/divcomevents3-static.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2026\/02\/4d6f7fb7-4d19-4787-b8bd-26da65e60dde-1613x2048.jpg 1613w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2017px) 100vw, 2017px\" \/>","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speakers\/95849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speakers"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/speaker"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"speaker_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.seafoodexpo.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/speaker_category?post=95849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}