Meet The Team
For as long as I can remember boating has beean a centerpiece to my life. Some of my first memories were sitting in my Dad’s lap driving our 1990 Ski Nautique around… I have been hooked ever since.
In 2014, while sitting around the fire after a long day on the water and an empty boat, my Dad and I were talking about who had to go fill up the boat the next day, a problem every boater knows all too well. Guess who lost that battle! Little did we know at the time this was the night that Mobile Marina would be born.
Fast forward a year later and we had launched Mobile Marina, with the purpose of making sure boaters like us could spend their time on the water instead of worrying about whether or not there was gas in the tank.
Since then we have continued to grow Mobile Marina and launched our second location in St. Petersburg Florida in July, 2023. We could not be more excited to be servicing the greater Tampa area and making boating even easier for boaters just like us.
Our Story
In 2014, Dean and Dustin Talley, father-son duo, launched Mobile Marina in the vibrant city of Seattle. With a lifetime of boating experience, we understood the challenges boaters face, especially the inconvenience of an empty gas tank. While sitting on the dock, after a long day on the water, we started thinking: there had to be an easier way to refuel boats… Just a few months later, Mobile Marina was born!
Over the years, Mobile Marina has been dedicated to saving boaters both time and money by offering the most convenient fueling solution. Gone are the days of waiting in marina lines or dragging fuel hoses across your property. Our unique solution? We bring the fuel to you with our one-of-a-kind, U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) certified fueling barges.
After a successful six-year collaboration with the USCG, Mobile Marina moved its headquarters to St. Petersburg, Florida in 2021. We aimed to bring our unparalleled convenience to the boating community here. In July 2023, we launched our first vessel in Florida, marking a new chapter in our journey. With our second vessel just arriving in St. Petersburg, Mobile Marina is excited to continue expanding and serving the waterways of Florida, keeping boaters on the water instead of at the pump.
Dean (Dino) is a serial entrepreneur and information technology specialist. In addition to 35 years of software development work at Microsoft, he has successfully built, launched and led several businesses.
In 2015, Dino partnered with Dustin to address the challenge of fueling his boat on Lake Sammamish. Dean built the IT platform that drives Mobile Marina today and developed Mobile Marina’s proprietary, user-friendly app. Today, he oversees the tech stack behind Mobile Marina, which includes proprietary scheduling and route planning to enhance efficiency and simplify the fueling process. Dean has his B.S. in Computer and Information Systems from the University of Puget Sound.
Growing up on the waters of Northeast St. Petersburg, boating was Erik’s passion at an early age, and working in and around boats became second nature as a teen. Known as ‘the boat guy,’ Erik has spent four decades sharing his love for safe boating with family and friends. As a Partner at Mobile Marina, he brings over 27 years of business Sales, Marketing and Operations experience to the organization.
As president of Mobile Marina, Erik is responsible for strategic growth. Erik aims to bridge the gap in knowledge and operations with boat owners so that his customers can spend more time on the water enjoying safe boating experiences.
His experience includes business management work with a range of Fortune 100 companies and small businesses in the automotive and consumer retail spaces, using customer profiling and data to identify market pain points and develop scalable marketing campaigns and solutions that reach a targeted market with a direct path to revenue. This includes work for global brands like GM, Chevrolet, McDonald’s, BMW, and more. He has served in a variety of agency roles at advertising agencies large and small, including Arnold Worldwide, Lowe Worldwide, Zimmerman Advertising and Agency720, including JMG Marketing. He also served as vice president of automotive for iHeart, and client director for Ampersand.
Erik is a graduate of Florida State University and holds an Executive MBA from Rollins College. He possesses a USCG Captain’s License and is pursuing his 100+ Ton Master certificate. He is certified in First Aid and CPR and has captained — and owned — various motor vessels.
As a Captain and Chief Operating Officer of Mobile Marina I have been helping boaters find an easier way to keep their boats fueled up and ready to go for 8 years. I have been friends with Mobile Marina CEO Dustin Talley since high school and spent summers on Lake Sammamish, Washington wakeboarding and wake surfing with Dustin and his dad Dean.
One evening we wanted to go for a sunset wake surf session but discovered the boat was empty. We didn’t have enough daylight left to go to the gas station, fill gas cans, drive back, carry all the cans to the dock and then fill the boat. That missed sunset surf session had us searching for an easier way to fuel up the boat and the idea for Mobile Marina was born.
8 years, over 1000s of happy boaters and thousands of fuel transfers later, I am loving living in St. Petersburg Florida with my wife Raquel and 3 year old son Lucas. I am excited to have an all-new vessel design, the culmination of 6 years work, optimized to best serve the St. Pete and Clearwater boating communities.
My favorite part about working on Mobile Marina tank vessels is getting to meet our customers and knowing we can take “get gas” off of their boating to-do list permanently.
When not captaining a vessel or training new captains I love kiteboarding with my wife Raquel and fellow Mobile Marina crew Dustin Talley and Michael Kovacs and enjoying Florida’s beautiful beaches with my son Lucas.
I grew up on lake Sammamish boating and have been on the water my entire life. Everything from jet skis and wake boats (every possible lake I can find) to fishing boats (Puget Sound and San Juan Islands) and now fuel boats. I have nothing more I’d rather be doing than boating on the water. When I'm not able to be on a boat I am in the mountains fishing in the summer and skiing in the winter.
My Mom very fortunately one day was on the dock when Doug came by to fill our boat. She had explained how I had always seen the fuel boat on the water and loved the idea. It worked out that they were looking for someone to run the Sammamish location and we started talking. Once Dustin called it was something that was too good to be true and the entire time it has continued to be better and true.
As the captain running Sammamish, I have come to love the conversations and community boating brings on top of just the convenience I can give delivering fuel. I love being able to go the extra mile and make sure the service is the best around.
Any day on the water is a good day and I hope to be able to meet you dockside while keeping your watercrafts fueled.
