Spartina: It’s All in a Name

spartina-all-in-a-name

As we’ve all experienced, the process of naming something we care deeply about, whether an infant, product, pet, or business, is not always an easy task.  Part art, part science, the ideal business name concurrently conveys values, experience, and an expression of individuality. Luckily in the case of Spartina, it was pure synergy and serendipity between the founding partners.

Spartina was originally Dave’s idea. When he proudly shared the brainstorm for the new company’s name, Jen and Tony had to laugh, almost in surprise – it was as if he read their minds. Not only is spartina grass a symbol of what matters to them most, family and community, it’s also the name of the street they live on.

Dave first encountered the name Spartina years ago when he was in school in Seattle. Everyday waiting for his bus, he would encounter The Spartina, a 1938 wooden Herreshoff sailboat being restored. A sailor himself, the name evoked beautiful but provocative imagery, as clusters of spartina grass not only knit shorelines together to prevent erosion, but serve as food and shelter to a cornucopia of marine life, incubating in a sense, before swimming on to deeper waters. Spartina is where life begins.

For Jen and Tony, who lived and worked for large corporations in Washington DC for nearly 10 years, Spartina was a homecoming. After earning their masters degrees, building their careers, and having 2 children, (and meeting Dave!), they moved to Rhode Island with the dream of raising their family and building strong community by the ocean.

Like the Spartina team, spartina grass functions because of strength in numbers. It is a catalyst and a service to the larger marine ecosystem and the strength is drawn not from one blade, but from the cluster.  For the Spartina team, this business analogy is sheer poetry – our strengths as individuals are maximized when collaborating with others and forging a strong and generous network of connectors.  The power of collaboration is our experience as individuals, our belief as business owners, and the value that we bring to the organizations that we work with.

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