Mike Barnaby graduated from Northeastern University with a degree in Spanish in 2010, then spent most of the next six years working abroad. After living in Portugal for a year, he worked for a sailing charter company on Hamilton Island, Australia and Paihia, New Zealand for two years. He then entered the super yachting industry, joining a ship which embarked from San Francisco before making its way to Croatia across the Atlantic. In 2016, Barnaby completed the Pacific Crest Trail, walking from Mexico to Canada. He earned his Masters in Business from the University of New Hampshire in 2018 and worked at a tech startup in Boulder, Colorado before joining the Pristine Seas team.