The Lobsta Guy: From Offshore Rigs to Manchester’s Docks

In Manchester, everyone has “a guy”—a trusted local for whatever you might need, from fixing a leaky roof to finding the best garden mulch. 

For lobsters, that person is Will Doucette.  Together with his wife, Christina, Will runs “The Lobsta Guy,” a direct-to-consumer business selling live lobsters fresh off their boat, the Mad Dog, every week at Morss Pier in Manchester’s Masconomo Park. 

The “ah” in “lobsta” is totally by design.  And customers know to watch their phones; when the Doucettes post on social media, they come on down.

Roots in Manchester, training at sea

Will, 34, is the latest in a family that runs deep in Manchester.  His father, Jim Doucette, grew up in an extended family steeped in construction, and serves as a lieutenant and first incident commander at the Manchester Fire Dept., where he’s been for more than 30 years.  True to form, Jim runs his own weekender lobster boat. 

Then there’s Will’s grandfather, Bob Gamble Sr. (on his mother Susan’s side) who built a marine outfitting business in Magnolia back in the 1970s, “Seacoast,” and helped bring the iconic sea outfitter Grundens brand from Sweden to Cape Ann. 

Despite all this, Will’s earliest fishing memories are actually on land, casting for stripers from shore at great fishing spots like—where else?—Masconomo Park. 

It was really that early experience that sparked Will’s love of the sea.  And that interest drove what became some very heady maritime training.  After graduating from Manchester Essex Regional High School, Will became the first in his family to attend Massachusetts Maritime Academy, earning his U.S. Coast Guard chief engineer license.  He spent over a decade working on oil rigs off the coast of New Orleans, honing his skills in some of the most demanding marine environments. 

Remarkably, all three of his younger siblings followed him to Mass Maritime.  It’s a career path that mirrors another milestone—when Manchester resident Dianne Rodier was among the early female graduates of the academy, which began admitting women in 1977.

Returning home, starting something new

Will met Christina in kindergarten.  After college, their paths diverged—he went offshore, she built a career in New York.  They reconnected years later in Utah, married, and eventually felt the pull of home.  Today, they live in the downtown village neighborhood, across the street from Will’s parents, and are raising their daughter, Madeline.

After 12 years offshore, Will wanted a shore-based job and landed a role as plant engineer at a semiconductor company in Beverly through Mass Maritime alumni connections. 

That itch to get out on the water persisted.  The couple bought the Mad Dog and launched The Lobsta Guy.  Christina handles branding, marketing, and operations while Will fishes, sells, and maintains the boat.  The first Facebook post inviting neighbors to the dock brought a crowd, and within weeks, regulars were texting orders.

Starting meant navigating the tight lobster licensing bureaucracy.  With new licenses no longer issued in Massachusetts, Will had to buy one from a retiring lobsterman—an unpredictable and costly process.  He also needed a retail permit, traps, bait, and the boat itself.  And any lobsters not sold at the dock go to Cape Ann Lobstermen, a Gloucester-based cooperative.  That means none of Will’s catch goes to waste.

Continuing Manchester’s lobster tradition

The idea behind The Lobsta Guy may be traditional, but the whole vibe and operation is right in line with new businesses that today are driven by personal technology and can quickly turn an idea into a business, or a side hustle. 

Christina and Will naturally understand marketing, business, and customers who love authentic, local products.   They also know their own community of family, and friends (new and old).

This idea really works in communities like Manchester, where residents are generally “upscale” but the town has tried—not always successfully—to hold onto its commercial base.  After all, Manchester’s working harbor is more than a backdrop—it’s an economic engine.  The town consistently ranks mid-tier statewide for commercial fishing licenses, all of them for lobstering. 

Manchester Harbormaster Bion Pike has leveraged that fact into money that benefits everyone.  In fact, several years ago Pike was able to secure a multi-million-dollar state economic development grant to renovate the very spot that The Lobsta Guy sells on, Morss Pier.  The money was part of a Massachusetts state push to support mid-sized working harbors. 

And you can see the benefits every week, as Will and Christina’s work adds to that important local legacy of commercial fishing while also showing how a younger generation blends that tradition with entrepreneurship.

Will reminds anyone who asks that The Lobsta Guy wasn’t born from a 10-year plan, but from something he loves to do.  Together with Christina (and often with little Madeline in tow, who reportedly just got her first Grundens and likes to back up her dad’s selling with her own charm offensive), they prove that all you really need is interest, expertise, and a good idea to build a business.

"You never know what something will be until you do it," Will says.

Of course, the big thing is the doing.  And the Doucettes are finding out what that something will be—right on the dock.