Grady Leavins is a self-made man. Growing up in rural Bagdad, Florida, he sought out opportunity at every turn. He spent a couple of years at a community college but was anxious to work. He worked part time at the Arizona Chemical Research and Development Laboratory in Panama City and commuted to Apalachicola to work extra hours harvesting oysters. In 1976 Grady moved to Apalachicola. Living there, he immediately recognized opportunity in the oyster industry. He started small, but he was soon selling the oysters that he caught all over the state of Florida.

Monica Lemieux comes from a family of fishermen. Her grandfather, her father, and her brothers all earned their living on the bay. Her father, Bill Martina, is believed to have commissioned one of the first shrimp boats in the area. He named it the Irish Town after a neighborhood in Apalachicola, and the boat still hauls shrimp today. Monica's brother, Kevin, is its captain. Monica did not work in the seafood industry until she was an adult. She went to college and got a job outside of the industry. But when the company she worked for closed, she, too, looked to the bay for work.

Carl McCaplan's family has relied on of the Apalachicola Bay for generations. Born in 1968, Carl practically grew up on the water. He remembers going out to oyster with his father when he was just eight years old. As a teenager, Carl moved away, looking for a different life. But the people and the place drew him back. He returned to Apalachicola and invested in his future. In the late 1980s Carl worked with the Oyster Association to replant the oyster beds. Twenty years later, oystermen are now harvesting those areas.