BY: Charlotte Twine
Retired Keys Fisheries vice president took a small-town fish house into the big leagues In 1967, 22-year-old Wisconsin native Gary Graves was asked if he wanted to cut bait at Keys Fisheries. He was working the night shift at a Marathon ice plant, and he figured, what the heck — he might as well do it. So he took a leap of faith and took the job. And little did he know, when he started at Keys Fisheries, what a mark he would leave on Marathon, the Keys, Florida, the United States…even the world. Over his 54 years at Keys Fisheries, Graves made the fish house with six commercial boats into a successful worldwide institution. “He built an international business,” said his boss and part owner of Keys Fisheries Stephen Sawitz. The Sawitz family has also owned Joe’s Stone Crab Restaurant in Miami Beach for four generations. “Keys Fisheries was to provide stone crab to Joe’s. That was its sole purpose: Get fishermen, and run a fish house. Gary grew it way beyond that, in physical size, in products, in machines, in equipment, in fishermen, in contacts around the world. … it just reached out and had tentacles around the globe.” Keys Fisheries has handled more lobster in Florida than any other facility — a million, or even 2 million, pounds in a good year. This achievement was through Graves’ direction of the fish house as vice president, the position to which he rose from cutting bait. In addition, he added other businesses to the company to make it more profitable, including a restaurant and bar, an internet
Gary Graves is a pillar of the Marathon seafood industry. CONTRIBUTED
The festival is great for Marathon because it shows people where seafood comes from, and it shows who does the cooking and serving.”
— Gary Graves
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2022 Original Marathon Seafood Festival
