Spotlight on Grown up Islanders: Joe Williamson
Joe Williamson’s grandparents were dairy farmers by trade. They had seven children who would get up before sunrise to milk cows before heading off to school, and then come home and milk them again. According to Williamson, his grandparents moved to Pine Island in the late 1950s. It was after that, Williamson said, his grandfather got involved in marine construction, building seawalls, and then began Williamson and Sons, now Williamson Bros. Marine Construction, which he continues to run today with his brother, Jimmy.
Some of Williamson’s best memories of growing up as an islander include pre “net ban” commercial fishing, affectionately referring to it as the fibre of Pine Island.
“Living out in Flamingo Bay,” said Williamson, “I remember my father, my brother and I would leave early in the morning, take BB guns and hunt quail. There were so many quail on the island when I was a kid.”
According to Williamson, the dwindling quail population may be due, in part, to fire ants, since quail are a ground-nesting animal, and also, he said, likely habitat loss through growth. He said he very much enjoyed the liberty he found in wandering the island to hunt and fish. One such memory involved a cousin of his inviting him over to eat some fish he’d caught.
Williamson notes one of the biggest differences he sees in the island since then.
“I set off walking because I had to get home-I lived at the Center,” said Williamson. “I walked all the way from St. James to the Center and only passed about two cars at around 9 or 10 o’clock at night. That’s the difference in the traffic. Today at 10 o’clock at night you’d get run over.”
Williamson spent kindergarten through the 8th grade at Pine Island Elementary, his being the last graduating class of Pine Island Middle School. He recalls a real atmosphere of intimacy in his youth that came from everyone knowing everyone else, which offered a level of safety for the community’s children, not easily found in the city or even a big town.
Of all the things that can possibly influence an islander while growing up, Williamson said it made them tough.
“We worked hard, we played hard. Everything revolved around work so we grew up working,” said Williamson. “At a young age I learned to make a paycheck. There’s a world of difference when you cross that bridge and go over to Cape Coral.”
While he said no one had any wealth to speak of, how he dressed or what he was able to afford didn’t matter until he went to high school. Pine Island, according to Williamson, was a very inclusive place where you were just accepted. Some of the greatest influencers of his work-life today have to do with growing up in a close family, surrounded by commercial fishermen, the local waters, he said, the wind and tide, which relate directly to his business.
“We have seven barges, running full time,” said Williamson, stressing the importance of his knowledge of the water. “I learned how to build boats at a young age. I built all my barges, and most of my guys are from Pine Island share the same knowledge – they were commercial fishermen. We were resourceful. We didn’t have the money to pay someone else to do it, so we learned how to do it.”
In reference to employees, Williamson said, most of them have a good deal of mechanical insight, as well as an innate knowledge of the water, he admits, would take a lifetime to learn. He said that he’s fortunate in that way, having an advantage over the competition, in not having to employ and then teach, since he hires from a pool of hearty Pine Island fishermen.
“Pine Islanders are tough by nature,” said Williamson. “They’re not whiners, and I prefer hiring them.”
The intertwining of the oldest families on the island, in his opinion, is likely the biggest reason for the close-knit nature of the community, born from such things as one person, pulling a bunch of kids by boat from Cayo Costa to the school house. He said you can go years without talking to somebody but on Pine Island you have family that may or may not even be your relation, adding that islanders are cut from the same cloth.
Something that may not be obvious about him is that when he’s not working, which he confesses is a rarity, Williamson enjoys reading about business and finance. He also said he would like people to think about the reasons they came here, and enjoy the island as it is, without the need to change it into something that it’s not.
“Remember why you fell in love with this place,” said Williamson, “and then leave it that way.”