Lobsters: A Tale Of Success

As a child, Bob Bland was enchanted by the sound of roaring tides on the coast of Kennebunkport, Maine.

He played in the surf, awed by the mysteries of the sea and the creatures he called “sea bugs.”

“They looked like bugs,” Bland says with a thick New England accent, referring to those red-shelled crustaceans most know as lobsters.

Nearly 30 years later, Bland is selling those sea bugs in the Spokane Valley.

He’s the Valley’s “Lobster Man.”

Bland owns Bob’s Lobsters, a Valley wholesale business that brings live Maine lobsters to eateries in the Inland Northwest. Area customers include Chapter 11 in the Valley, Red Lobster in Coeur d’Alene and Swan’s Landing in Sandpoint.

“I consider Spokane home now,” says Bland, who moved to the area with his wife and three children during last year’s Ice Storm. “It reminds me of home around here. It’s a lot like Maine without the ocean.”

A sea-lover at heart, he became a merchant seaman at age 18. In 1981, Bland started working as a NASA diver, recovering the solid rocket boosters after space shuttle launches.

Doctors forced him to stop diving after finding a tumor in his throat. He later suffered back injuries as a truck driver. That experience inspired him to start his own business.

Bland says it was a gamble deciding to sell live lobsters in Spokane, after considering other markets in Taos, N.M. and the Lake Tahoe area. “You wouldn’t believe the risk,” he says. “It’s kind of like opening up a Mexican restaurant in Mexico.”

But he says the risk has been worth it. Bland sells about 400 live lobsters every week to eateries in Spokane and Coeur d’Alene. He only makes about $1 per lobster, but his volume continues to increase.

Each week, the lobsters arrive in gel-packed styrofoam containers. Bland promptly puts them in one of three 15-foot-long, air-conditioned, salt-water tanks. That “revitalizes” the creatures.

He operates his wholesale business out of his Valley home. Since starting the business, his sales have reached about $200,000, he said.

When ADT came to install his home security system, Bland did some bartering. Instead of cash or credit card, he paid with … guess what?

This Sunday, Bland will host his first booth at the Spokane Bridal Show at the Convention Center downtown. He’s growing a beard and plans to don a yellow rain slicker and a corncob pipe for the event.

He’s even clawed into the crab market a bit. As a loyal lobster man, Bland had never sold crabs before.

That changed last month when Fairchild Air Force Base contacted him, asking if he could arrange a crab bake for local dignitaries. Bland didn’t want to lose the order, so he quickly found a Seattle source for Dungeness crabs.

Selling lobsters is hard work, says Bland, who makes numerous daily deliveries, accompanied by his black lab, Jenny. But being able to spend more time with his family, and watching them get involved makes it all worthwhile.

And for Bland, it’s a return to his youthful years, when he spent long days playing in the tides.

“It’s something I enjoy,” says Bland. “I feel like a young kid again.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo