Frank Oakes, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Stellar Biotechnologies, has more than 35 years of management experience in aquaculture, including a decade as CEO of The Abalone Farm, Inc., during which he led that company through the R&D, capitalization and commercialization phases of development to become the first profitable and largest abalone producer in the U.S. He is the inventor of the company's patented method for non-lethal extraction of hemolymph from the keyhole limpet. He was the principal investigator on the company's Phase 1 and 2 SBIR grants from the NIH's Center for Research Resources, an NSF grant, and a California Technology Investment Partnership (CalTIP) grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Mr. Oakes has consulted and lectured for the aquaculture industry around the world. He received his bachelor of science degree from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is a graduate of the Los Angeles Regional Technology Alliance (LARTA) University's management training program.