Born in Lafayette, LA and growing up in the Texas Hill Country, Daniel Wangler has always been obsessed with seafood. In his early years you would find him doing pop-up crawfish boils, setting trotlines down the Guadalupe river or bay fishing off the Texas Gulf Coast.

In his twenties, Daniel began working with an Asian fish market in Houston’s Chinatown where, 2 years later, he led the market to its most financially successful year in its history. This achievement awarded Daniel a trip to Kodiak Island where he ventured deep into the Bering Sea on a vessel to catch enough Halibut and King Salmon to feed him for 6 months.

Over the next 20 years, Daniel would ascend the leadership ladder and become the Regional Seafood Director for Whole Foods Market, where he led all aspects of the program for 47 stores across four states. This experience further cemented his passion and provided operational experience in purchasing, marketing, product management, leadership development and culinary creative direction achieving multiple leadership recognition awards. 

Today, as The Seafood Dude, Daniel is taking an independent path to more directly inspire responsible appreciation of seafood among the world’s consumers and to provide real-world, actionable best-practices to the industry.