FLASHBACK: From civil engineering to shrimp farming

 

The cover of the issue featuring civil engineering graduate Marty Williams. (Photos Courtesy of Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine.)

Marty Williams built a career as a successful homebuilder in Tampa after he graduated from Georgia Tech.

Not too unusual for a School of Civil and Environmental Engineering alumnus.

His next step, though? That would qualify as unusual.

At the request of his father-in-law, Williams, B.S. 1984, joined the family shrimping business in 1996. And, actually, he’s been able to apply quite a bit of his engineering knowledge there.

“For 60 years, the company had been all wild-caught shrimp. My father-in-law decided we should diversify and get into aquaculture — shrimp farming," Williams told the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine in 2009. “There was a lot of construction involved in building the shrimp farm and building a processing plant. I remember telling my father-in-law, ‘Look, that's my background, let me head up the engineering and construction work, ‘cause that's what I do.’”

Read more of Williams’ unusual story from Kimberly Link-Wills in the Alumni Magazine.