Lau­rra Lyden-McGregor of Lyden Shell­fish didn’t start out to be a shell­fish farmer, but she was drawn to it by her love of nature.

As a child, she spent week­ends and hol­i­days at her grand­par­ents’ shell­fish farm in Tot­ten Inlet. “It was always a busi­ness to them,” Lau­rra says, “but to me, as a city kid, it was a mag­i­cal place in which to escape and dis­cover the world of nature around me.” Lau­rra took a scientist’s approach to the beach, spend­ing hours hov­ered over one-foot holes she’d dug, record­ing the con­tents and count­ing and mea­sur­ing clams.

Lau­rra took over the busi­ness in 2000, and today she sells her annual pro­duc­tion of 100,000 pounds of Manila clams and 10,000 dozen oys­ters into high end mar­kets in Seat­tle. She’s quick to say she owes much of her suc­cess to her man­ager, Mark McCor­mack, whom she hired when she took over the company.

Lau­rra is now a self pro­claimed “very happy mother of two.” She often brings her young son Lach­lan and daugh­ter Mahrin with her when she works the Olympia farm.

Laurra’s ded­i­ca­tion thrust her into the lime­light when Organic Mag­a­zine named her “one of eight extra­or­di­nary women who are…in the process of mak­ing our coun­try a safer, health­ier, and more beau­ti­ful place.”

In Laurra’s own words: “Life is very, very good.”