“It was cool to see, as someone deciding what kind of career direction I might want to take,” she recalled. “It’s cool to see interdisciplinary fields like that, and get an idea of all the different skills at play. And 4ocean is a leading company in that way and what they’re doing. So it’s really cool to just get an inside look to how they do things. They’re pretty transparent about their methods.”
Toomey was also impressed with the mission enough to leave the non-profit space to join the company.
“I have worked in the non-profit, mission driven space my entire career working for world class organizations creating positive impact for people, communities and the planet,” Toomey said. “I joined 4ocean in 2024 and lead the Sustainability Partnerships team.”
Finn Mullins, a marine science student from Sarasota, Florida, said he enjoyed his reintroduction to 4ocean on April 2.
“In biological oceanography, I had kind of seen some of my friends wear [4ocean] bracelets,” Finn said. “I always thought it was a cool idea that you can turn trash into something useful because there’s so much trash in our oceans. It’s one thing to remove it and take it to a landfill, but you know eventually that, because of how landfills are run in America, that it all gets back into the ocean. As I went on to sophomore and junior years, I kept seeing more events for them. They’re picking up track traction. What I saw at the event was really, really inspiring, because they started as a much smaller organization, but they’ve really grown, which is really, really nice to see.”
In February 2026, 4ocean celebrated a major milestone—50 million pounds of plastic removed. The milestone celebration took place in Boca Raton, Florida, on Feb 20.