Our Team

Ocean Exchange Team

Tj Tate

Director of Conservation, The National Marine Sanctuary Foundation

Tj was recently the Program Manager for the Mid-Atlantic Blue Tech Cluster connecting entrepreneurs in the Blue Tech sector to investors, incubators and promoting growth in this sector throughout the Mid-Atlantic Region.

She is currently assuming her new role as the Director of Conservation for the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation where she leads the development and implementation of the Foundation’s strategic programs and projects that support science, conservation, restoration, and stewardship initiatives across the National Marine Sanctuary System and beyond.

Tj began her career in fisheries working at Hubbs Research Institute while pursuing her Master of Marine Science at the University San Diego. She then founded and was the director of the first brand of responsibly harvested and traceable wild caught fish from the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf Wild, working to ensure people from all walks of life had equitable access to this new category of seafood.  Her most recent role as the Director of Seafood Sustainability at the National Aquarium, involved creating a National Consumer Awareness Campaign stimulating consumer demand for responsible Aquaculture (farmed seafood).  From connecting sustainable commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico with conscious consumers to connecting food deserts in Baltimore with sustainable Aquaculture, Tj has 25 years of experience connecting environmental and social sustainability with economic opportunity.   

Tj is a Seaweb Seafood Summit Visionary Awardee, a member of the White House Task Force for Sustainable Seafood focused on the future of Aquaculture, a Fish 2.0 Impact Advisor, serves on the Steering Committee for the Coalition for U.S. Seafood Production, a Fellow in the Seafood & Oceans Leadership Institute and holds several other board and committee duties.  

When not focused on helping communities and our planet, she can be found with her amazing daughter and two furry rescues.

Contact Us

Ocean Exchange invites you to learn more about Awards Program, our ecosystem and success of our award winners and participants. Together, we can chart a powerful course to help ensure the future of our oceans and the Blue Economy.

“Ocean Exchange has a platform to enable people with information that they need to know about the ocean and then to showcase new technologies that are on the forefront of really helping the ocean and the planet.”

“The quality of the content and the people who are involved with Ocean Exchange is all high end.”

“Besides funding, Ocean Exchange provides access to a wide area network of incredibly talented people in organizations that really do just want to help people.”

“Ocean Exchange is really about helping the little guys grow and in so doing, helping the big guys be better ocean citizens.”

“Ocean Exchange seems to be much more focused on bringing to light under-capitalized, wonderful new technology ideas. And it’s all about two-way access to this new technology and to the people who can help with the experience to grow that technology.”

“Ocean Exchange is a force multiplier to enable sustainable innovation.”

“Ocean Exchange is a global, novel innovation forum that has a greater ability to attract a broader range of impactful stakeholders than any other event that’s out there.”

“Unquestionably, one of Ocean Exchange’s primary strengths is how it brings together people from different paths. That makes its event a delegator experience as well as experience for an innovator or awards nominee.”

“Ocean Exchange is entirely different from any of the other organizations that I’m involved in. It is about sustainable innovation. I think it’s also very different in the extremely broad range of stakeholders that it involves.”

“There’s nothing better than going to an event or engaging with people so you walk away and say, ‘Wow!’”