CEO Becomes Treasure Hunter

A story about how Carl Allen sold his garbage bag company for hundreds of millions and became a full-time treasure hunter in the Bahamas.

"Carl Allen started working at Heritage Bag, a company that makes plastic trash bags for medical waste, hospital waste, and utility items like ice bucket liners. He worked his way up from the mail room to business development, eventually becoming CEO and buying the company. He sold it for $300-400 million to a private equity firm.

After the sale, he remembered visiting the Bahamas at age 12 and loving it. He called up this 92-year-old woman who owned an island and convinced her to sell it to him, saying he wasn't a big corporation but just a family guy. He turned it into his own fishing, boating and exploring place.

Now he runs three parts of his business: philanthropy, his family office for investments, and his island/yachting business. He believes there are billions of dollars of lost treasures in the sea from 3 million shipwrecks. He met a treasure hunter who had made millions finding treasures in the ocean and became fascinated by it. Now he searches for lost treasures like King Philip's lost Spanish armada. He's already found things like a long gold chain and other artifacts which he displays in his museum on his island in the Bahamas. He keeps the island open to the public where people can visit and park their boats."