Andrea (Lindstrom) Anderson and Erik Anderson met at the University of Washington College of Forest Resources in 1981 and have been together ever since!

Andrea received her B.S. degree in Forestry/Land Use Planning in 1985. Erik received his BS in Forestry in 1984, and an MS in Forest Economics in 1987 (through a joint program with the UW’s MBA program). While finishing his thesis for his MS degree, Erik was utilizing Professor Gerard Schreuder’s office while he was away on sabbatical. While working on his thesis one day, Erik answered a call that came into Dr. Schreuder’s office that would change the direction of his and Andrea’s lives. The international agri-business company Louis Dreyfus Corporation (LDC) was looking for expertise regarding investing in lumber mills in southern Oregon. After some digging around, Erik advised LDC not to invest as this was at the beginning of the Spotted Owl issue, which would eventually become a huge problem for the lumber industry. Impressed with his knowledge of the market and economic red flags, LDC asked Erik to join the company as an Agricultural Commodities Trainee in the Portland, Oregon office. Meanwhile, Andrea was working as an economic research assistant for the US Forest Service in its Seattle office before being hired on as a Land Use Planner for the civil engineering firm Group Four, which she had to leave upon Erik’s transfer to Portland.

Over the next thirty years Louis Dreyfus would transfer Erik to Connecticut, Argentina, France, and back to Connecticut where Erik rose from Head Global Oilseed Trader to Commercial Director of Argentina, to President/Director Generale of LDC Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Back in Connecticut Erik was named CEO of Louis Dreyfus Commodities North America, heading its Global Grains Platform.

During this time Andrea gravitated toward her creative interests, working as a competitive figure skating coach and choreographer.  While overseas (and without a work visa), Andrea worked as a professional fine art and freelance photographer. Upon returning to the United States, Andrea studied oil painting for the next decade and has had gallery representation in Connecticut, New York, California and Washington.

During their thirty years away from the Pacific Northwest, Andrea and Erik and their two daughters always returned during summer vacations to Erik’s family cabin on Henry Island (which his father built in 1958, and which exists today exactly as it was in 1958 with no electricity, no running water and an outhouse).

Upon Erik’s retirement from LDC in 2013, Andrea and Erik moved from Connecticut to both Henry Island (where they built a home with proper plumbing and electricity), and Napa, California where they restored the original Chimney Rock Winery estate home (which was by then no longer associated with the winery itself). The idea was to spend the summer months on Henry, and the winter months in Napa (until a 2017 wildfire burned their Napa home to the ground).

Over the years, Andrea and Erik kept in touch with one of their dear friends and fellow UW Forestry classmates Tim Seifert. After a highly successful career in the pulp and paper industry, Tim was by then the Executive Director of the San Juan Preservation Trust, and also owned a cabin with his wife and daughter on Henry Island. Tim had been keeping Andrea and Erik apprised of the goings on in the islands with relation to land conservation, and especially the status of the old and beloved Westcott Bay Seafarms on San Juan Island.

A complicated property, Westcott Bay Seafarms consisted of 75 acres abutting English Camp National Park, with five of those acres dedicated to shellfish farming. The entire 75 acres was put up for sale in 2010 by the Webb family for somewhere in the vicinity of seven million dollars. After a few years with no buyer, the Webbs decided to market the property to developers for a home/condo development site. In 2013 Congress had surplus funds that needed to be spent, and English Camp National Park wanted to expand its footprint, but was unwilling to take on the continuation of the five-acre shellfish farm, which had by then fallen into extreme disrepair. In order for the sale to go through with the National Park, a buyer was needed to purchase the now disused five-acre shellfish farm. Everyone in the islands was afraid the much loved old and rickety farm would be forever lost to a developer. After hearing Tim’s recount of the shellfish farm, Andrea and Erik discussed it over a bottle of wine one evening, thinking, “How hard could it be? We farm a few oysters, sell retail in the summers…”  and the next morning they shocked Tim with the news that they would purchase the five-acre shellfish farm property.

So, in September of 2013, two months into retirement, Andrea and Erik purchased a derelict shellfish farm. The new farm would be known as Westcott Bay Shellfish Company.

Over the next decade Andrea and Erik would put a tremendous amount of sweat and financial investment into repairing and building infrastructure, reseeding the oyster, clam and mussel stocks. Knowing nothing about shellfish farming, it was a steep learning curve, especially as they would farm in a completely different manner as the prior farm. As people learned of the farm’s reopening, they came in droves, bringing with them food and alcohol, which prompted Erik and Andrea to get a liquor license, which in turn inspired them to make other food available. The pandemic and subsequent migration of the entire Seattle yachting and second-home communities to the islands required the business to turn the outside picnic area into a proper restaurant, which is what you’ll find today if you visit. In 2024, Andrea and Erik have a team of twenty-five employees running the farming as well as two on-site restaurants …and they are still married. The rest is history!