Kim Gorton can trace the seafood in her DNA for five generations. In 1849, her great-great-grandfather started what is now Gortons of Gloucester, but her grandfather sold the business in 1928 and founded Slade Gorton & Co., one of the largest seafood companies in the country. It buys and sells about 100 million pounds of seafood a year, with annual sales of $325 million. Gorton, 44, is its first woman president. She started on the loading dock, left to get degrees at Colby College and Harvard, and returned to the business in 1992. Her father, Michael, remains chairman and CEO, and her two younger brothers are also in the business. (An uncle, Thomas Slade Gorton III, was a US senator from Washington state for 18 years.) On the eve of the annual International Boston Seafood Show, Gorton spoke to us about all things piscine.
Q. Who do you sell all that seafood to?
A. Almost all of our product in the US goes to supermarket chains and club stores and food services like Sysco and large chain restaurants, including Red Lobster and Legal Sea Foods. And some independent wholesalers.
Q. Whats it like being a woman in an almost all-male business?
A. Im fortunate to have a tremendous management team and staff who have been here a very long time and who have taught me a great deal.
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