Mary Grigsby.
Courtesy of Mary Grigsby
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mary Grigsby, a 43-year-old who moved from New York City to Baja, Mexico, and is the founder of The Fish Ranch. The following has been edited for length and clarity.I was raised in Oregon and took a non-traditional route that led me into policy work and, eventually, finance. I was working in Manhattan when the pandemic hit, and I decided to visit my dad and brother in Baja, Mexico, where they spend a significant amount of time enjoying the climate and culture.I fell in love with Agua Amarga, a little town on the Sea of Cortez, and decided to move there.After a year working my finance job remotely from Mexico, I resigned and opened a fly-fishing business, The Fish Ranch, with custom trips and a fly shop in town. It's been a wild ride.I traveled and chased waves in my early yearsI left Oregon after high school and traveled the world, surfing and sailing places like Hawaii and Tahiti. I did a six-month stint in Baja and ultimately landed in Southern California, where I studied landscape architecture.When the big earthquakes hit Haiti in 2010, I volunteered and found a calling in disaster relief and international relations. I began studying Arabic at a community college in California, then transferred to Columbia University, where I completed the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies program. I traveled for school and spent summers studying and working on grants in numerous countries.Finance was never on my radarThat changed when I had a random conversation in passing with a man about my studies. He offered me a job on the spot. I was burned out on policy work and was between gigs, so I took a chance and entered the business world.
