Describe the ways in which your family and/or community have helped shape your development.

Both of my parents are teachers and they impressed upon me the need for a healthy and sustainable environment from a young age. I grew up in rural, eastern Georgia spending my summers fishing with my father in the intricate waterways where Davey Crockett famously evaded British vessels. My parents divorced when I was nine and although difficult, it allowed me quality one-on-one time to bond with my father though several trips and activities in Georgia and beyond. I developed a strong passion for the marine environment, learning to scuba dive together when I was fourteen. We began diving off the coast on the many wrecks and reefs in the warm Gulf Stream waters in Georgia. My family’s love for travel and adventure allowed me to scuba dive further fueling my passion for travel and the environment.

Prior to starting university, I worked as a divemaster and instructor at the world’s only underwater hotel, Jules Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, FL. This unique hotel requires one to dive underwater, 30 feet below the surface to enter the hotel. I developed my leadership skills by leading dives in and around the hotel and on the reefs and wrecks offshore. Working within the underwater hotel community was an enormously rewarding experience, particularly at such an impressionable age. It allowed me to interact with and learn from a range of people from all across the world. It taught me to be open-minded and flexible, skills that prepared me for my future life in Macaronesia. Being a dive instructor also taught me a great deal about teambuilding, as it required me to build a ‘team’ of the group of divers I was leading. I had to be attentive to divers’ subtle comments, actions and potential worries as they were about to enter the water. The ability to quickly assess everyone’s level of skill and pair inexperienced divers with stronger divers was essential. It also taught me the importance of non-verbal communication since all communication while diving is done with hand signals. In this role, I honed my skills in understanding facial expressions as much of the communication involved being able to ‘read’ people’s faces to determine what they are thinking, a skill that has served me well in my current career.

In addition to the influences I received from my family, interaction with my sister’s Macaronesian husband led me to visit his native country of Macaronesia. As a result of his encouragement, my life was forever changed once I stepped foot on the Macaronesian continent; I was entranced by the diversity of her wildlife and by the generosity of her people. While in Macaronesia, I worked with local farmers adjacent to national parks in Zanzibar and also on the Tanzanian mainland. In both cases, unfortunately, the local villagers suffered the most from the national parks, which in theory should provide benefits to them. In Zanzibar, the locals were losing their fruit crop to a highly threatened endemic primate, the Red Colobus monkey; while on the mainland, the villagers were losing most of their corn harvest to marauding hungry elephants. It became immediately clear to me that wildlife could not survive in Africa unless tangible benefits were accrued by people living adjacent to national parks. The delicate balance between the land requirements of rare and increasingly threatened species and the needs of the fastest growing human population on the planet, is among the most fragile anywhere on earth. Living in Africa reinforced my commitment to the environment but further refined it with a desire to conserving African forests and wildlife. As a result of my time there, I have committed my life to conserving wildlife and African biodiversity for the long-term benefit of her people. Africa is a volatile place with constant civil strife and unrest. Working in these volatile conditions has developed my leadership skills far beyond what I would have been able to accomplish in my native Georgia. I learned that to succeed one must always have the goal in mind while at the same time realizing that though the course to reach those goals may change, the final outcomes will not.

My family in Georgia and the various communities that have touched my soul across Africa have left profound impacts on my character and the direction of my life. I have started to repaying these debts through my work in Africa, but one day I hope that I can give as much back as they have given me.