Carl Nettleton is the president and founder of OpenOceans Global. He is the past president of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation – Pacific Region and the former founding executive director of the San Diego Oceans Foundation. In those positions he energetically worked with government agencies, educational organizations, and ocean interests to develop collaborations and consensus to resolve ocean issues. Those collaborations include:

• Creating consensus in fisheries management discussions with a visual model explaining how marine populations expand and decline.
• Drafting language that guides the use and placement of artificial reefs in California.
• Developing private funding that led to the establishment of the white sea bass hatchery program.
• Conceiving a $100,000 study to review fisheries management in California. The study planted seeds resulting in new policies for management of the state’s marine resources.
• Producing a prime-time television show on San Diego marine pollution, narrated by Walter Cronkite, that used consensus-building techniques to develop a commonly held view of the situation and possible solutions.
• Facilitating a consensus on how to safely use lobster traps in San Diego in ways that minimize the risk of surfers being entangled in trap lines and drowning.

He recently guided a six-year collaboration between 13 downtown San Diego organizations, the construction industry, and agencies to mitigate the impacts of downtown construction using geographic information system (GIS) technology.

Carl has overseen a wide range of projects used to build relationships between people with differing perspectives. His career focus on collaboration has expanded over time to include expertise in advanced technology as a collaborative tool. OpenOceans Global is the result of five years of research focused on options to overcome obstacles to the development of a technology-based collaborative process that will provide long-term solutions to ocean issues.