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The Clam Industry in the Marshalls

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about the islands of Micronesia

 C.L. Cheshire           Micronesian Seminar , Micronesian Counselor #51 (August 2004)

This article is an analysis of Robert Reimers Enterprises' (RRE) effort to commercially develop giant clams in the Marshall Islands from 1986 to the present. The purpose of this analysis is to explore what succeeded and what failed and why. It might be that the lessons learned from RRE's experience will show us how to better support and assist this kind of business development in the future.

History of Robert Reimers Enterprises

Before we can understand how RRE was established and how it operates, we need to look first at Robert Reimers, the founder of RRE. Robert Reimers' most telling characteristic may have been what can only be described as his entrepreneurial spirit. Despite his many successes, Robert Reimers was, according to his son Ramsey, "always on the lookout for what he referred to as 'new money.' While he was managing stores for the Japanese on Jaluit and Wotje before the war, he was also making a local "vodka" from pandanus and selling it to them. While he was working at the U.S. Navy boat pool, he came in contact with a Hawaiian who could ship consumer goods from Hawaii. Together they formed a partnership to import fabrics and perfume from Hawaii.

From the time Robert Reimers was old enough to hold a job, he was building his own business. Through his position as store manager for the Japanese on Jaluit and Wotje, he learned how to sell retail goods on outer atolls in exchange for copra. He combined this knowledge with his experience building boats and importing consumer goods from Hawaii to import goods and sell them to outer island communities. Over time, he expanded his line of imported products from fabric and perfume to include food and other consumer goods from Hawaii and the US mainland. By 1960, Robert Reimers' import business was large enough to require a store with enough freezer space to store whole container loads of frozen food. When he applied for a commercial loan (the first commercial loan granted to a Marshallese) to build his store, Robert Reimers was not entering business; he was merely expanding the business he had been developing in one way or another for more than three decades.

Part of the explanation for RRE's success in general retail was Robert Reimer's ability to find people who could develop new ventures, such as a hotel, a restaurant and a bottled water business. Ramsey Reimers underscored the importance of people when he said: "the most important single requirement for developing a successful business operation in the Marshall islands is finding the right people." This includes local Marshallese as well expatriates, and it involves not only finding the "right people" but also matching people with the jobs they are best suited to do. This is difficult for any business owner, but it is particularly difficult on a small, remote Pacific atoll, where the labor pool is small and the working conditions can be very difficult. Yet, Robert Reimers was consistently able to find and recruit the "right people"-people who possessed the training, the experience and maturity to manage what became a large, complicated, diversified business with a predominantly Marshallese workforce and clientele.

Reimers was also successful in developing management strategies that addressed the particular challenges of doing business in Micronesia. In the Marshall Islands, it is difficult for island business owners to say no to customers who expect local business owners to share what they have. To survive as a business, RRE needed to limit its use of credit just like any other store, but this often required saying no to requests for credit purchases. Rather than turn down his customers personally, Robert Reimers found that it was culturally more acceptable to hire an accountant or a manager from "the outside" to tell family, friends and customers they could not have any more credit.

Giant Clam Development in the RMI: 1986-2002

When Robert Reimers decided to go into aquaculture in 1986, he had already built a large retail store, a hotel and a restaurant. Although there was no pressing need for RRE to develop a new industry, Robert Reimers said that the decision to grow giant clams was prompted by articles coming out of Palau: "I saw news from Palau about giant clams . . . . They are cheap and easy to grow, so I said 'why not do it here?'"

Dr. Gerald Heslinga at the Micronesia Marine Development Center (MMDC) in Palau noted that "giant clams are a high-value food commodity" that could be mass-produced in captivity. Heslinga's general enthusiasm for the future of giant clam aquaculture in Micronesia was echoed by the public media in several newspaper, magazine, and newsletter articles that came out at the time. These articles consistently described giant clam farming as low tech, low cost and profitable.

Heslinga offered to all of the islands in Micronesia a development strategy based on growing giant clams. MMDC in Palau would sell seed clams to the marine resource development departments in each of the island states. These facilitating agencies would then distribute the clams to farmers on atoll islands where it was determined that giant clams would grow well. In three years the giant clams would be harvestable. The farmers could then sell the clams in the local food market and/or export them to generate an income for themselves.

By the time RRE got into the giant clam business in 1986, it was following rather than leading in an industry that was already at least a year old in the RMI. As such, giant clams farming could hardly be characterized as "new money", but it was consistent with RRE's overall growth strategy of diversifying into local products that complemented RRE's existing businesses. When RRE decided to grow giant clams, it planned to sell the clam meat at RRE's stores in the Marshalls as well as export it to Japan and Taiwan.

RRE's decision to go into giant clam farming was also influenced by the site it owned on Wau Island in Mili. The lagoon in front of the island is large, far from any populated areas and filled with giant clams. At the time it appeared to be an excellent site for a commercial clam farm.

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