Foreclosing on Banks, Climate Resilience & the Conservancy of SWFL (Renee Stoll)

I love that you have your own espresso making machine here as well. It's fantastic. Yeah, that is critical. That is something really special. Only because my father, who is the original Robert

When he was sick, he passed in 2015, but when he was sick in the last couple years of his life, he would invite me over on a text and he would just send a picture of an espresso cup because that was a thing. He would just have espresso on his back deck all the time. And I just got some great times with him during those last years. And then not long after that, they had these machines that they can put in. They have car dealerships everywhere now that can make the full cappuccino. It's not quite the same as when you get it good and, at home. Yeah, right, right. So grinding the beans really great. And we get, so every time I'm saluting to my dad every time. I love it.

So yeah, part of the process. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I remember going years ago to, there was a wedding that was at the conservancy.

Do they still do that? We don't do weddings anymore. But yeah, a few people have told me that. I think we have one staff member that actually got married on the property as well. Really? I've had a number of people tell me that they got married either it was out on the dock or it was on the deck or that. So that's really interesting. Yeah, I bet it was beautiful. Yeah. Oh, it was. Yeah. Yeah, and I had never, I don't think I've been back since. I mean, we might have dropped an animal off there before, but since then, but it's been a while. A lot of people forget that we exist, to be honest with you. And before I started working there, I kind of forgot to for a second.

I went on school field trips there. Yeah. But I think when I was looking for a career change, I really wanted to make an impact in my community and to me conservation with them as many hours as I work. Might as well do something you really enjoy doing. So luckily I was able to get in with them. But it is really amazing the amount of work and boots on the groundwork in Collier Lee and also Charlotte, Hendry and Glades County. We are one of the few organizations that really were out there in sweating, doing the research, doing the science. So it's it's really an amazing organization. I'm so happy that I work there. What is the organization? Because I still don't even know.

Really? Well, it's so interesting because people don't know that we are we're right next to the zoo too. When they say, oh, I don't know where the Conservancy is. I'm like, we're right next to the zoo. And they're like, oh, really? So a lot of people forget that we're there. We're kind of tucked away as a hidden gem. But the Conservancy of Southwest Florida is a 62 year old organization that's a nonprofit that's been here. And it is here to really protect our water, land, wildlife and future of Southwest Florida. And we do that through our four program areas, which are environmental education.

We have research and science, which is a lot of the Python work and the sea turtle work and the mangrove work we talked about. And then we also have policy and advocacy. So that's a lot of getting policies changed at the government level or working on House bills or Senate bills that are introduced that might not be great for our area. And then we also have the only wildlife clinic, wildlife hospital in Collier County, which is the monarchs Wildlife Hospital. So we have those four program areas that we work together to preserve our wildlife here in this area.

Yeah, we actually started really interestingly enough by a group of citizens and they were trying to build a road to nowhere is what they called it a road through Rookery Bay. And citizens got together, went to the county commissioners, rolled out a really long scroll that had all the people who didn't want it and said, now tell us who wants this road. And that is how the Conservancy was born. Sixty one years ago. Sixty two. Yeah. Sixty two. Yeah. So that was in Collier County. And then with the Collier County commissioners at the time in the 60s. Yeah. Wow. And then it evolved over time into being to a physical space that they have.

And then the wildlife hospital part is one aspect of it. Can you tell me more about that? Because that's what I have memories of. Yeah. A lot of people may not know a lot about the Conservancy, but they'll be like, oh, isn't that where I dropped a bird off or I had a raccoon or something along those lines? And the Von Oerichs Wildlife Hospital has we've been taking animals since 1979. We've been working to do whether it was with veterinarians in the area. I actually have a great veterinarian that is a volunteer with us and does some work on our Python team. He was Dr. Noble was one of the original vets in the area that would work on animals for us.

And there was just a group of veterinarians who would do this work in Collier County. And eventually we wound up building a freestanding facility, which later got remodeled, I believe it was in 2011 with the help of the Von Oerichs family. And we're even looking we're going to be doing some new work because, as I had mentioned, we're we're closing so we can reopen as a new experience. And one of the parts of it is people want to know about the wildlife that we protect and that we take in and we try and nurse and get back to health and release. We've taken close to 4000 animals a year, native animals and all kinds of animals.

I picked up a great horned owl maybe a month ago and a massive, massive owl. Somebody had called and we all care very passionately about where we work. So if I get a call at seven o'clock at night and somebody's got a magnificent, beautiful animal like that is injured, I'm probably going to go out and get it. And you can bring the animals to the Wildlife Hospital 365 days a year. And we have a vet vet on staff, Dr. Kendall Carlin, and she will do we do surgeries in-house. We have a whole care team made up of wildlife rehabbers and also volunteers in the area. If you love working with animals, it's a great place to volunteer. And we recently we got two eaglets in.

Yeah, we get some really spectacular animals. How does that happen? They're abandoned or something? No, all different ways., it's really the average person who sees wildlife in their area like you and I and you see an animal acting kind of out of sorts. And you think something's wrong with it. Always give us a call because we can decipher, hey, maybe you should try and pick the animal up and we'll tell you how to do that safely. Or maybe we'll be able to send somebody out. And in these two cases, I don't recall exactly what the eaglet in these two cases, but I know we had an eagle once before it was in an industrial area.

It was actually the day before I think we were getting a hurricane. And there was an eagle in off of Shirley Street in the industrial area. And we got a call from just some folks who had a factory out there. Our vet went out in the middle of the storm, grabbed the eagle, took it back to the hospital and the eagle wound up being able to make a full recovery. And she had determined the eagle probably had gotten in a fight with another bird. So that's why it was injured. And if an animal is injured enough for you to pick it up, it's most likely needs to come to us.

Well, that's good to know. Yeah, we operate like a trauma unit. Yeah. So are there animals that you don't take or don't see? Yeah. So we only do native animals. So as far as any kind of non-native species, we don't treat those. We don't treat cats and dogs. And we thought about the ducks. Yeah. Well, those are not native. Yeah, they're not native, right? Yeah, they're not native. So we wouldn't be able to take care of those. But we can give you here's the thing. If it's not a native animal, we're not going to leave you stranded. We're going to tell you who else you can call. If you call us and we say, hey, it's not an animal we can take care of.

But here's another place you could try. Yeah.

Yeah, we do a lot of that. We don't do we don't do like sea turtles. That would be something Sanibel Captiva or I'm sorry, Crow might be able to do or Sanibel Captiva Conservation. But we don't do that type of animal, but we do just about everything else. Yeah. Native. Oh, I noticed over the years, we used to just have this. Well, I used to call them chameleons, but they weren't their anoles or whatever the little lizards are. But more recently, there's all kinds of lizards that we have here, from iguanas and all that stuff. Those are not native. Those are not native. Yeah. We have a group in our science department that researches non-native species.

We haven't gotten too deep into some of the lizard species yet, mostly because

We have a small team. And if we're looking into it's usually something that's doing a lot of destruction, which is the snake, right? Which is the python. Yeah, the python has depleted a great deal of very large animals. The white-tailed deer is one of them. And the panther is also wanting that same item as, yeah. So they're competitive for the food source and we don't want that with the panther because there's only about 120 to 230 panthers left. That's it. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So we want to be able to protect our native species while eradicating the invasive species. So with the pythons, for instance, our team goes out, they have trackers. They put in 40 scout snakes.

We just released them one a few weeks ago and basically these trackers are put into the snake, male scout snakes. Then during... What is a male scout snake? So it's a python snake that they capture. Okay. Or it could be one that's bred from captivity, but these are all captured.

And they implant a tracking device. And then they release the python back into its natural habitat where it was found. And then they're able to track. We have about more than 13 years of tracking data and also data on just tissue samples of every python that we have ever captured. So every season our team goes out and our main scientist on the project, Ian Bartizak, will go out. He'll go up the plane. He'll get all of the telemetry points for the pythons that are out or scout snakes. Then they go on the ground by foot into about a 300 square foot area of the Western Everglades and it's needle in a haystack to me, it feels like.

But to them, they have their tools that are telling them their satellite devices. And you could be standing, and this literally happens, standing on top of a python and you're like, but where is he? Because they're so camouflaged. They're underground sometimes. They're using gopher tortoise burrows. They're really adapting to, like when we have a cold snap, they've learned to adapt to a lot of these things and they're actually pushing more north because of that. So our team will go out and during breeding season, they look for that male scout snake that is now usually breeding with a female and you want to remove the females because they can have dozens of eggs.

So we remove the breeding females. And the last time I went out with the team and we had a trip like that, we caught seven pythons in one pile and it is grabbing the pythons, bagging them. Every single python has a tissue sample that is done of it because they're scientists and researchers and they're trying to see if the eradication methods are working. So there is, there's just a ton of information that we have on the pythons that we are constantly working with other scientists and organizations to really get to the bottom of how can we eradicate the species from eating our native wildlife. Yeah. Is the state involved too? Do they? On many different levels. Yeah.

So Florida Fish and Wildlife and I'm sure you've heard about the Python hunt and things like that. We're not associated with the Python hunt, but there are a lot of teams who are doing that. And a lot of those types of events are run or in conjunction with either Florida Fish and Wildlife or, different members of Florida. So when you went on, you've gone on these missions before. How do you dress for something like that? Just like this. No, no, it's which if you're listening, she's got a dress and heels on. And yeah, no, actually, we have taken a few supporters out who didn't get the memo not to wear the dress shoes. So yeah, it's very interesting.

But you are promising around. I say promising, but you're really you're going around in some areas that to me, even as somebody who loves being in these areas, I'm carefully walking because I'm like, are there other poisonous snakes that I need to be worried about? But you really you just go in a swamp buggy or they have an airboat, huge truck that we go Yeah. And well, yeah, we just we go where we can drive in the truck and the rest we walk. Yeah, they've had some interesting experiences. I'm glad I wasn't there for when they ran into a bear den or the bees.

But it's yeah, it's definitely these guys are are lifting thousands of pounds on their back during season every week. It's just Python, Python, Python. So who are the these are people on staff that are scientists, biologists, wildlife, biologists, wildlife, biologists. Yeah. And they this is their calling in life. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They love snakes as much as I do more.

Has Florida Gulf Coast University been helpful for you as a partner? Because we've always been here and we work with Florida Gulf Coast University a lot. In fact, our CEO is on their their water school board as well. And it is it's a great partnership with them. In fact, there's a lot of times where we have pythons we just had we have all different kinds of school school groups, but we just had one group that came in to help us do necropsies on the Python so they could practice. It was a nursing group so they could practice some of their skills.

And then we've had groups from FGCU that we work with just so they can understand a lot of the processes of what we're doing as well. And just there's so many great agencies in this area for conservation. It's so great to partner with other people who like us are we're in the communities and we're doing the actual work. Our scientists are doing the work. So they get it on the same level that our teams get it. How does this organization work with government? How does that work?

Because they seem like to be to be, whenever somebody's running for office, whether it's city council or county commissioner, they are pro growth, not pro growth, limited., there's always these sides. And how does this agency how does this organization fit in with that? How does that work? I know it could seem like there could be a lot of this a lot of going back and forth. And there can be.

You know, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida is not anti growth, but we're about smart growth. That means that your resources can keep up with the growth that you are planning. And so there's been instances where maybe we didn't agree with that growth and we took action and action for us can look like a lot of different things. It can be our policy action alerts that when people sign up for a newsletter, it allows a direct link to the person who is making that law or rule and allows you to tell them exactly here's the reasons why I oppose it. So that's one of the actions that they can take. Plus, we have our policy team is working on a lot of different plans.

We don't we're not hired by the city government to make these plans, but we see deficiencies possibly in, say, certain things like we see flooding in certain areas. And now we want to maybe do some research on why is flooding happening at these certain areas? And what are the types of plans that we could propose to not just Naples, but any any city or municipality that's experiencing similar things? Because it could be maybe there's a pitch in the road or there's some kind of thing that is making this a flood zone. Other cities might have the same issue.

So what can we make as a tool that allows not just Naples or any other city in Southwest Florida, but other cities to use these tools as well? We have one that we're working on right now. It's called Nature Based Solutions. And it is it's really interesting when you think about things like a seawall, you think of a gray concrete structure, right? Well, there's a lot of different types of seawalls. There's living seawalls which can tend to come back from storms a lot better than possibly a concrete structure that can wear away.

So there's a way of using nature or hybrid solutions, nature based or hybrid solutions to deal with some of these climate resilience issues that we have like flooding, like heat. So that's one of the projects that we're working on right now. And we've developed a tool on our website that shows where people are doing it in other places in Florida. For instance, we were talking about oysters. So oyster beds, how oyster beds can be used to help with flooding and who's doing it and how successful has it been? How much did that project cost? What did you learn from it? What are the resources you needed?

We put all this in one place so other cities could see it, see that it's working and get as much information because there's no true database for some of this. Get as much information as possible to see if they want to employ it in somewhere else. We're trying to create that library.

Use the term climate resilience. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. Well, it's one of those things where there is a changing world. How are we going to be combating or coming back from that? It's hard to say that our world isn't quite changing when we see that it's getting hotter, storms are getting more intense, a lot of these things. What action can we take in our community to protect ourselves? And keep Naples, Naples. I know. Right. And keep Naples, Naples. Exactly.

We don't want to see some huge lock put in place to keep the water out. We want to be able to do it in a way that keeps Naples just as beautiful and spectacular as it is. We talked a little bit about wetlands.

What is that and what does it mean? It's one of my favorite things to talk about.

So wetlands are an area that are underwater at some point. It could be seasonally, it could be all the time, it could be part of the time. And wetlands are an area that because of the makeup and because they have water and they have dryness, they have just different species that live there, different animals that live there that have changed from hydrology. So wetlands are one of the most important aspects of just Florida in general, but southwest Florida, especially. One acre of wetlands can hold one million gallons of storm water for free, flood water. So when we have flooding, think about an acre holding one million gallons of that.

And it also acts as the kidneys to our drinking water. So wetlands filter all of carbon. They filter out anything out of the drinking water that then goes down to the aquifers. So I mean, they're just so essential. And we are changing the way southwest Florida is when we get rid of our wetlands. And our team, our policy workers and scientists have done studies on the percentage of wetlands that have gone away in Lee and Collier County over a number of years. And I don't recall off the top of my head. I remember one number being 33 percent, but it is quite significant in our neighborhood. There's there's a chain link fence behind our house and it's a preserve.

I guess it's all behind us. And in the summer, it's it's all it's got standing water in it. And in the winter, it's dry right now until the rainy season comes.

And, we're not allowed to touch anything there. It's a preserve. Is that a wetland? Is that like a designated wetland or it could be, I guess I would have to know exactly where it is. OK. I mean, it's off Livingston, but it's like there are a lot of color. Yes. Yes. So as a matter of fact, Nicole Johnson, who is the director of policy, that was one of the first projects she worked on at the Conservancy when she joined more than 27 years ago. Was preserving. They wanted to make more ball fields at North Collier Park. And she worked to say those wetlands are some of the hardest working wetlands that you have. So you're better off keeping them.

And she was able to convince the county to take another look and they were able to keep the wetlands. So that's a connection that Conservancy has directly to the wetlands that affect you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's a fascinating area because we're right close to the park, too. But then on our backside, there's this area that I.

You know, I see every we have a bobcat that comes back and forth and bobcats go in the water. I didn't know that they hang out back there. We hear coyotes at night sometimes and just it's great for wildlife to see it, but it's right there. But then we also have whichever community as is these retention ponds in the middle, which is.

But if you have a good wetland area, you don't need as much of the retention pond. Is that part of the thing?, I would I would I wouldn't comment because I'm probably not the, I think I probably even my description of wetlands, I might have to reassess. But, I would say that.

Regardless of, whether it's it's something that is a swale, a manmade swale, which manmade is not a wetland, but or if it's a true wetland, the really the idea is that we have sometimes more water than we can handle. And how are we really dealing with some of that? And the wetlands are a nature based solution that are really one of the most fantastic ways to deal with it. So your background, how did you end up here in this position?

So I did I end up here?

I wound up well, I grew up here in Southwest Florida. I've always been attached to our environment here. I've always really enjoyed it. Went to the Conservancy when I was in grade school. We did field trips. I will never forget Miss Walters class in fourth grade at Benita Springs Middle School. And she took us on a wet walk. And that changed my life, I think, probably because when you're in fourth grade and it's a really wet walk, you have to swim because it's a little deep and you're only four feet tall. So I remember that experience immensely cut to, going to school and, getting a career going.

I was a news reporter for a long time and I worked here at Wink and in their Collier Bureau and also at Fox for in their Collier Bureau. That is one of the best ways I've loved being a news reporter for my life. It's one of the best ways to get to know any area you drive all over. You meet people of all different types of different socioeconomic factors and you really get to know the community. So I really appreciate that time that I got to spend in Southwest Florida doing that. I did that for many years in other cities and eventually came back to Florida.

And I started a business at the time doing something similar to Zach and I owned a video production business and enjoyed it quite a bit. Went back to working world and I said, OK, now, if I'm going to what am I going to do with my career? Because I enjoy what I do, but it wasn't the topic I wanted to do it on. So I at the time I said, I want to go into conservation and I found some groups I really respected and the Conservancy was one of them. And I wound up landing here. And it has been it's been really eye opening because you get to learn your area in a whole different way through the science as size.

And you get to talk to other groups who are also doing great, great work in this area. And it's really inspiring, especially right now. I think that we're we're at this interesting intersection of environments and the community. And I feel like the community here in Southwest Florida, as long as I've lived here, it is really grabbing hold to the environment right now and realizing how special it is. So it's so amazing to see people interested and wanting to learn more. So I'm getting to rediscover the Conservancy in that way every time and see it through somebody new who just moved here and see it through their eyes. Yeah.

All the way back from your fourth grade experience. I'm telling you, I'll never forget Miss Walters. Yeah. Do they still do that?, I think they did. Does the Conservancy still go outreach to schools? Oh, yes, we do. God, I think we had twenty four thousand children that we educated last year in one year. So we do tons with the school system. We work with the Collier County School System with field trips that come out. We have a filter marsh on site. So we have a learning lab that goes out also. We call it the we call it the lab. It's a learning adventure bus or I like to call it science on wheels. And it goes out to in July to all the camps.

It will be going out to the summer camps that exist now.

Yeah, we do a ton with kids. And it's really it's really special when you see a kid's face light up because they're touching something like like Clifford, the hermit crab in our touch tank., they get to see it in a whole different way. We forget how fun it is when you get to do it with them. Yeah. Well, in impacting their life the same way your life was impacted. So we're trying to make those mini conservation and scientists now. Yeah. We're trying to get them in there now because the more that you learn about something likely, the more you are to protect it.

So you're getting ready to close. Yeah, we did. We did. Yeah, May 1st. May 1st. OK. So our closure, our closure is only to the public amenities. So that's the nature center. It is not at all to our wildlife hospital. So you can still all through all phases of construction, you will be able to bring a wildlife animal to us.

So that is I just want to let everybody know that. But we are closed. Our nature centers closed May 1st, and it's going to be through the end of the year. And what we're doing in this time, in fact, I believe today was the first day of actually a swing of, a hammer. We have a fencing up and everything. But it is the transformation into the John and Carol Walter nature experience. By the way, I told John that I was going to be here and he said, I got my haircut there before. So yes. So he was telling me, John and Carol Walter, they've lived here for a while and they really wanted to do something that was a positive outcome for the community.

And we thought, how can we really reach more people? And we saw our nature center as it is now is wonderful. We have so many great exhibits, animal encounters. We have a an eco cruise on the Gordon River. There's so many great aspects to it, but we knew it could be better. We knew that we could tell better stories. So luckily, John and Carol came and they gave us a 25 million dollar grant. So this grant is a blessed our way to have people like that. And to call them friends. And they really are friends of the Conservancy and they truly do care about this community. It's very special.

In fact, we just had the groundbreaking not that long ago at our Earth Day so we could have the whole community engaged and know what we're doing. And the word is slowly getting out, but it is we're going to transform into a destination where you can really learn about our environment here in southwest Florida. Why is it special? What makes it special? How does this system work with that system? And what if we do this, then how does that affect that? So all of that, but like make it really fun to at the same time. So we are we are actually in the process now of the new space. We'll have a 7000 square foot new exhibit welcome center.

And that is going to be where we show you what our challenges are, what some of the solutions are and what some of the outcomes we hope and where we're going and how you can help us in those outcomes. So it'll be a place where you can really truly take action in your community as well. We're going to have an outdoor amphitheater for more learning because we have so like I said, so many classes that come through and we're doing it on the deck in the sun. So we're going to have a covered amphitheater.

We're expanding our whole deck area about four four hundred square feet because it is one of the most popular areas is the deck and overlooking with all the trees and the water that we sit on. We're also going to have more electric boat rides because we know that is a crown jewel and people really enjoy that are the electric boat rides down the Gordon River. Oh, from where you are on the Gordon River. Correct. I didn't realize that we have in fact, it's quite special. We have this little cove that we've even had manatees come give birth and they're way up there. Yeah. Because it is it's protection for them in that area.

In fact, that's why when we get a hurricane, we get two feet of water across the campus as well, which is one of the reasons why we're also making a half acre storm water retention lake. So that is us trying to show best practices of nature based solutions. What do you do with for climate resilience? So we're building a half acre storm water retention lake. So that will help with a lot of the storm water and flood water that we get during storms. We're also making a new preserve trail. We have a couple of acres of

Florida scrub. It's one of the most interesting habitats. It's something that you see and it gets paved over all the time. And you may not realize it's special. Well, it has we have I think it was last count at least of animals that are living in there, some of which have never been identified anywhere else in the United States. So that preserve trail will create a whole walking loop for the whole campus that people were looking for. We'll have a new picnic area with a food truck. And so when we have families and everything coming, we don't have that now. So they'll have a place that they can have their lunches and get food.

Parking garage with solar because the best practices is really to build up for that out for parking. And we'll have all new programming and it's really going to be a place for the community to get informed and for visitors to learn about us for the first time. That's so exciting. I mean, to live here all my life and to most of my life and to

Really still forever be in awe of where we live and the environment that we're in. We have so many people who come visit us to the salons or to my family, parts of life. And all walks. What a great place for them to go. Like almost like an attraction, but to really get to learn about how special it is. Because I have vivid memories of moving to Florida from Philadelphia. And it was so radically different than anything I knew.

The concrete jungle that I came from to come here in this, this beautiful place that was so, so different., the rain and the clouds and it could rain on one side of the street, not the other street and the animals that were here and the, seeing an alligator. Oh, no, not at all. It never gets an eagle and seeing the birds that we have here. Just you can see an alligator 10 million times, but you see one in and driving by. It still feels new every time. Every time. It's just as exciting to me. And same with the wildlife. When I see an eagle, I just I just stop wherever I am when I see a bald eagle.

You're so lucky to live on a preserve because that is truly I mean, the amount of things that you can see just in that area and such a small area. And like you said, bobcats. Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting. And it truly never does get old. And to learn about some of the animals that we have threatened and endangered species and what's going on with those species has really been interesting to me, because like you said, I didn't know until I started working there how few Florida panthers there really were.

I didn't know a lot of the history of how they got the numbers up by by bringing in the Texas cougar and having them mate with the Florida panther because the panther numbers were even lower at some point.

But then, they're still completely threatened and they just they need a lot of space to roam. They need not just to thrive, but just to maintain. It's probably why I've never in all my years seen one. Oh, you buy a lottery ticket if you've seen one because that's a big deal, right? Yeah, people don't normally do that, right? Now, do they track them or they have a lot of panthers are I and I don't know for sure if it's all panthers. I would have to ask my policy team, but they a lot of them are tracked. And it is it's just really interesting because we have access to some of that tracking that we've put available on our website.

And it's the telemetry of all the dots of where these panthers go. And you can see in the areas that are being built. Wow, that there's really so you can see that on your website right now. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. I didn't know that. Yeah. So you can sad but cool. And you see that we're building on top of where they. Yeah. Yeah. And you can see all of the places where they've been before.

And, we're watching it happen. But we do have a choice in any of these things. I know that sometimes it can seem like that things happen. We're all busy. How do we get involved? But I'm too I have kids. I can't get involved., there's a lot of things that go on. And then you turn around and you see something being erected. And you're like, wait a second. I didn't I don't like this. Well, it's too late when the bulldozers are in your backyard. It's really. And that's one of the things that we say, follow our alerts or follow just follow our Facebook page.

It gives you a lot of information about what is going on., for the next legislative session, we'll be looking at what bills will be introduced, what bills we want to follow

All that stuff, because it really starts there, really starts at the policy level. And that we can follow that information. What's going on on Facebook or your website? Sign up for our newsletters at Conservancy dot org. And we will put you on the newsletter list and we give you all the updates from all our program areas so you can really have whether your thing is wildlife or climate resilience or smart development. There's something for everybody there. Yeah, that's great. It's so I'm so excited about this new facility. That's awesome. I'm great, man. So, so pumped about it. Yeah, it's it's really going to be more than just ecotourism.

It's really going to be for me as a local. It feels like a gift to the. Yeah, that's what I'm excited about. I was looking at it before talking to you. I was like, yeah, great. I had no idea. Well, and that's the thing. And I didn't know before I got in to working with the Conservancy, how water tables work, I'm no scientist, but I can understand at a certain level. And I want everybody to have that understanding because it changes your perspective. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well, when is it going to be ready? It will be ready if all goes well. We built in time for hurricanes and things like that, but it'll be ready early 2028.

So in the end of 2027, that's when we'll start doing our soft openings. We'll probably invite our friends at the hotels, all our partner agencies. We'll have you guys out there, all of our our influencers and all of our groups that we work with because we want to test out the facility and we want to get feedback. And we're just going to be so thrilled to show it off to. Yeah. I'm so glad we were talking about this because it's exciting for me. It's like it's like having our own little Disney world here. And it's so funny.

I know when I talk to people and they feel that way, I sometimes I think it's only me because I've been I've been doing it for, a while and like trying to get people excited about it. And then when I tell people, they tell me they're excited, too. And I'm like, yes. I'm so proud of where we live and what we have here. And I love when my friends and family come from up north and get to visit and get to show off the stuff that we have. Isn't that right? I have a cousin who from Long Island who just moved to North Fort Myers and got a vacation home with his wife and they live on a preserve, too.

And the animals that they see, they are just always struck by because I used to always just send them the text messages with the snakes and the pythons and everything. But now they they get to see some of the wildlife in their backyard. And it's the same. It's like when you see another person get that experience, it's like, yeah, isn't that great? Yeah. The wildlife part, it's staying open right now. The wildlife rescue part. Yeah. So do they also have there where you can see some of the rehab wildlife?

Well, I'm so glad you asked that because that was one of the things that came back from a big survey that we did was that folks really want to see more and we want to give them more. We just don't have the staff, the funding, the volunteers to be able to do more sometimes. Plus, we have a lot of permits and licenses as a rehabber that you have to abide by. Yeah. But we did find some ways that we're looking to make that experience more tangible for when we reopen with some kind of virtual feeds that show you the baby room. So like right now is baby season where you get a lot of orphaned baby possums, birds, raccoons. It's it's just baby season.

So we had I think in one week we got 30 baby animals come in. And so that's an experience that people would love to see. But we have to do it in a smart way that makes it best for the animals being rehabbed, because that's the number one thing, because you really don't realize

Just the littlest amount of stress can can kill an animal who's going through trauma. So we have to do what's best for them first. But then being able to give some kind of feed that gives you a live look inside. It would really be fun for people to have. Yeah. That makes sense. I didn't think of it from that perspective. Like they're not it's not a zoo. Well, yeah. And, sometimes I say things to the vet like I want to get an update on an animal. And she's like, well, I'm working on them today. I was like, oh, well, I can go hang out with you while you do it. And she's like, yeah, that's stressful for the animal.

And you don't really think because these animals, we that's another thing is that I think on social media.

Getting rehabbing an animal can be romanticized. And truly, it's a very difficult job. And not every animal will make it through because we are a trauma unit, basically. And when people bring animals to us, they are not always in

You know, shape that they can be rehabbed. So I think that it's it's going to be an eye explorer for the people who are watching, because it's something for them to get a look inside where we can really show you. We want to be able to tell you these things, but we have to do it. What's best for the animal. Yeah.

So you.

As of now, there's not like a because I was looking at pictures, I think it was on the website, these giant birds. I don't even know what I just remember seeing the claws of one of the birds. Right.

So those aren't in public, they never were in public cages where people know not animals that are rehabbing, but we do have and we will have when we reopen is our ambassador animals. And we're actually getting to new animals. I don't even know if I'm allowed to say it yet, but we are. We're getting to barn owls. And we also have Donna Tella, who is our diva gopher tortoise. She travels around in a grass, a grass cart. We have Jackson and we have muffin and bagelchip. These are all turtles and tortoises. So we and we use our ambassador animals for education.

So as we're closed right now, we're not we are nature centers closed, but we took all of our our wares on the road, basically. So right now, although we're not in the nature center, we took all our programing on the road and we are offering it free to the community right now. So whereas you would have to come to our campus, pay an admission, we're let's do this as a gift to the community while we're closed. And we have at least five events every month through the end of the year on our website from nature walks, where you'll be with a naturalist or a person who is able to point out the flora and fauna that you see.

We just had our first weekend with family events at parks and libraries.

We have little explorers. We have nature navigators. And then for the adults, we have a monthly education session, nightly education session. And our first one is one of our first ones is coming up on the 13th. And that is just the history of the Conservancy. Like I said, we're a 62 year old organization. Not everybody knows about us still, but it tells you about some of the work we've done to the Conservancy has been a part of preserving 50 percent of the coast of Collier County. And I don't think a lot of people realize between Pecun Strand, Barefoot Beach, Pelican Bay, Clampass, Rookery Bay.

That's more than 50 percent of the coastline that the Conservancy's had their hand in at protecting.

Who runs all this? You have a board, you have a staff. Yeah. We have a small team. We're roughly about 65 people. And we have a small team that is made up of our president and CEO, Rob Mohr. He started there interning. So he's been there for 27 years. And Rob is just a great leader in general. People who meet Rob, they easily fall into the mission because he believes all the work that we're doing and he knows it intimately. And he just can have really great conversations with you, regardless of how you feel about some of the things.

So he's he's an excellent leader. We have our board of directors who are very involved, actually. Our board is a working board. We do we were just planning our next yearly field trip because we take them out on a field trip to areas that we're really experiencing an issue. And we give them a whole tour and explanation because we want them to understand because there are ambassadors who go out and talk to people as well.

We have an army of volunteers. We have, I believe, about 400 volunteers during the summer. And that goes down because every a lot of people go back north. So we're always looking for more volunteers. But we have volunteers in all different areas. The wildlife hospital is obviously one of the biggest areas. Plus, we have anywhere up to 30 interns at a time who actually live on our campus. So above live on the campus. Yes. There's housing there. Yes. I never knew that. Right above my office. Yeah. So this was something really cool. A few years ago, they reconstructed. They took down an old dorm building. I heard it was a little creepy.

And then they put up a new building and we have state of the art in a gorgeous dorm and safe entry for all of the interns and they get a stipend. So, yeah, our internships are pretty cool. So students check out our website for internships. And had no idea that was there. Yeah. Off good little road. Right. Yeah. I know. I know. You'll see soon because there's a there's you'll see the sign on the road change., you'll see a lot of things changing over the next year to two years. And by change, I mean good change. Yeah. It's exciting. I'm thrilled for that. I'm glad. I know. I am too. It brings like you said, when you've lived here a long time, it brings it all full circle.

You mentioned interns and how your CEO or your president. Is that his title? CEO, president and CEO. He started as an intern. Did you start in the media industry as an intern too? I did. Yeah, not here. I went to USF. I went it's really actually. You're a bull before they had football. Did they have football? No, they had football then because yeah, one of my my friends at the time wound up playing professionally who was playing for that. Right. Yeah.

But it was he was a friend actually from high school here. But USF first of all, not greater. What's up? Anthony Henry. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so I haven't seen him in a very long time since I lived in Tampa, but there USF was a fantastic school to go to and especially for broadcast journalism is what I majored in. I did a lot of schooling before I picked a major. So broadcast journalism wound up working out excellent for me because we had WUSF, which had Florida focus, which they also have here at WGCU, which is their nightly program. Not run ours was run by students. This one's run professionally here at WGCU.

But really just great access to internships and things like that. And I just fell in love with not being in an office and being doing something that was out in the world and talking to people. And I love video storytelling. Storytelling is the it's you can just move people so well. What's good storytelling.

And then I worked in news for a long time and I love being an advocate for people. And a lot of the organizations I worked for, it was about holding the powerful accountable. And I did some really, really fantastic storytelling and eventually decided I needed a change and still did storytelling. Just wanted to do it in a different realm. And at the Conservancy, there is no shortage. And that's why I feel truly blessed there. There is no shortage of beautiful images to look at of where we live, of the work that we're doing in the actual communities.

It is a content maker's dream. Yeah. Oh, true. Yeah. Like the way you say that. Yeah. You what most people might know you for have seen you for is this story that went very viral. Yeah. The man reverse. What did he do? What happened? So yeah, I did a story trying to remember what year it was. And it's funny because Todd Allen is still a local attorney here. And I still talk to him every once in a while that story has got to be it's more than a decade old. I think it's probably between 12 and 16 years old. But what happened was there was a group who owned their own house, their house outright in the estates. They never had a mortgage to begin with.

Bank of America fouled up some paperwork said they had a mortgage and foreclosed on them for not paying their mortgage. Well, they flipped it on Bank of America. And Todd Allen, their attorney came to Bank of America with a moving truck and deputies to foreclose on Bank of America. Because the judge had said, hey, listen, you never had a mortgage. Bank of America owes you now. And they never paid. So then they flipped it on them and foreclosed on Bank of America. That's great. And I know that Todd still talks to those homeowners. And every once in a while, because I think at the time, the story wound up getting aired on the Daily Show. It went all the way to the top.

And it was something that struck a chord with a lot of people, so much so that it crashed Todd Allen's website. I remember that weekend. Yes. So I think it's really interesting because it was a great story. And we always say every time it comes back around, I think at 100 million views initially years ago, and every time it comes back around and it has a couple million views, we're like, should we do something? Should we have a reunion?

And that was a special-- It really did-- It captured a lot of the emotion that was going on in society at that time. It was about 2008, 2009. So that was the bubble burst. Yeah. It was like good. Because I was in that situation too. I had a foreclosure on me and Bank of America, they didn't listen. They didn't listen to anything you had to say. They just weren't talking to people. And just it was so great to get them back in a way. It just felt so justified or something with that. A lot of people did with that story. And it's a story that lives on in infinity.

I have seen it come around on TikTok now. I've seen it come a few different places. So it still strikes a chord with people.

I was watching an interview that eight years ago, and you and the person interviewing you were talking about how the news industry has changed. And this was eight years ago, and you guys were talking about the YouTube and all the social media at the time. But everything you said there was even going back eight years because so much has changed in even eight years. But you were kind of ahead of the curve in a lot of that. And the fact that even when you left the news, it was like time to before things had changed too much. Yeah. I have to say I have great connections with a lot of our local journalists.

Some that I worked with that are still at some of the stations doing amazing work. And I asked them, how hard is it now? Because there's so much misinformation that gets thrown out around. A lot of people use the term fake news in a negative connotation with them. So it's all those things that I don't know if I would have the willpower to keep going. Because it's a lot that they're facing right now. And they have to be super, super stringent with what they're doing and the facts. And when I was a news reporter, we were just getting social media at the time to post our stories. And I remember being told, you have to post eight times a day.

So it was just learning how to use these new tools and how to use them to our advantage. But now it is definitely part of their system, how they are required to do their work. But it's also interesting because one of the cool things I thought was that when we were learning how to use these systems to our benefit is how they can get information at a live scene from the geofencing of the social media around them. So being able to get pictures, say it's some kind of accident or something like that. Being able to get the pictures they need and stuff like that. It's a tool not just for putting out communication, but also for them to get what they need and return.

Well, you had something about you that enabled you to... You had to relate to all kinds of people to get a story. You had to work your way in the back door and talk to different people. That was how I got all my jobs too. You had to convince people.

That is one of the most... And I try and do it now as much as I can. I am so thankful for my time as a news reporter is in being able to talk to so many different people.

It's like doing a survey, a long-standing survey in your community, because you're talking to people about the things that matter to them and why they matter. So you get to learn a little bit about a lot of things.

So many different businesses. You get to travel to so many different areas. You learn about niche stories that probably will never make it on air because it doesn't have the right visuals. And that's the unfortunate thing about the society that we live in, is that sometimes you can't have a story because it doesn't have the right visuals. One of those stories for me when I was working in news was mental health. My brother died from schizophrenia. And so I always wanted to do mental health stories. And because there wasn't enough sexy video for TV, you couldn't do them as much because it would be graphic heavy or file video heavy.

So I think that sometimes we miss out on some good journalism just because the video content isn't fantastic that goes along with it. Yeah. Do you think with the openness of so many platforms now that has also opened it up to be able to display more things like that? I think so. I also think that sometimes, and this is probably

Anybody who works also in a corporate office, you get so much information thrown at you on a daily basis. And what do you pay attention to and what do you don't pay attention to? As a marketer, I think the same thing. How am I getting my message across about what we're doing at the Conservancy? What's my hook there? Fortunately, I've been a part of the Florida Public Relations Association, Southwest Florida chapter for a while now. And what a great group of people if you're in marketing, communications, advertising, PR, any of those things, because you really get a group of people to talk about new ideas and how to work through some of these challenges.

Like email used to be the best way to get a hold of somebody, but now people aren't even checking their emails. So what are some other ways to do that? And what are the new ways? And a lot of technology that maybe normally if I wasn't in this job, I might be a little, what I call, fofo, fear of figuring it out. So I might be a little bit like that, but I have to force myself to do it too, because people may not like AI, they may think certain things about AI, but it isn't going away either. So how can we use that for science and research? How can we use that for getting our message out of the Conservancy? How can we use it to help better treat animals?

How are you, the fact that you bring that up is great, because I am embracing it fully. And really, it has really changed my life in a lot of great ways. How are you using it and also working in your life? And what do you think about it? I use it in a lot of different ways. So for me, sometimes it can be a great feedback tool too.

We have one that is built in with our organization's main database, basically.

So if I'm looking like my files, I'm looking for something specifically, and I can't recall it, and it can find exactly where that file is in my files. I love that. It's a simple thing. And that's a simple thing. It matters a lot, because I never know where I put stuff. I have thousands of files over the years. Right, but you remember what it's called. I do.

Or you remember something about it. Yeah. That's just a simplified way. But if you think about things like, say we want to put out a solicitation to our members about being a donor for turtle season. Well, I might have it know my audience, and I've loaded all of my demographics, typographics

Everything that they do to this bot, basically, that is then going to read the piece that I am going to mail them. Read it as if you are that person. And it can give me generate feedback of what struck a chord with them and what didn't. Oh, that's pretty cool. I like that. Yeah. So that's a great way that I enjoy using it. Sometimes it's really quick things, too. I can tell you that I worked in a hospice organization before, and the way they used AI was really interesting to me. And this is a couple of years ago, where it wasn't AI. People were more afraid of AI, I think, even then, because it was so, so new.

But they used it to determine the last three days of life for hospice patients with 97% accuracy. And that was amazing. And it was really a game changer, because the last three days are when you want the most resources there, not just for the patient, but also for their family. So it allowed us to schedule a lot better. So that's just one of the ways that it can be used as a resource tool. How can you better use the resources that you have? And I thought that was amazing.

So you have that in your background, too, hospice work. Yeah.

I feel like it's just a little hodgepodge of everything,? Yeah. Yeah. Well, who had a big influence on your life, and had you be who you are? Who's somebody who really impacted you growing up?

Wow. Well, I mean, naturally, I would go to my parents.

I-- it's funny, because I was just having this conversation with two friends that I've known since grade school. And the conversation went along the lines of, you've got to have thick skin to be in your family. And I think as just a native New Yorker, my parents are from Brooklyn and Queens., when you get to our house that they're from Brooklyn and Queens., it's just the mannerisms, the talk. And I think that there was just not a lot of-- you had to figure things out. You were expected to do well. And I think that expectation, although at the time, I probably was like, oh my gosh,? Now I thank it. I'm glad I had it.

I'm glad that they were tough, because it made me really have a lot of drive in my life, and want to do civic duty more than anything else. So I think that was-- now I look at it, I'm like, OK, give me a break, guys. OK., now they're on me for working too much. Yeah, of course. But no, I'm so grateful, because I see just a lot of kids who are growing up, or people who are about to go into the work market, or I have Gen Z folks that I manage. And it is different. And you really have-- they didn't grow up the same way we did., I didn't grow up with a screen in my hand. And we didn't have to deal with some of these things. And it's a whole different world for them.

So really, I have to take what I think, use some of that, the wisdom, but you have to really harness it for them. It's not just the way we wanted it, because that's the way it was when we grew up. It just doesn't work like that anymore. Yeah. You got a whole different mindset. Yeah, who was your person?

Yeah, that's a good question. I never answered that. I've asked it, but I haven't answered it. Well, I would say one of the most influential-- he just passed when my mentor was the guy who hired me first for my first job at the Ramada Inn on Vanderbilt Beach, which is where a condo is now. But right next to Wiggins Pass Park, there was a-- Yes. Ramada Inn there. Yes. I-- Which then became the Vanderbilt Inn. Yeah. When we moved here, he hired me to wash dishes at 12, because I lied about my age. You too? I changed my birth certificate to say I was 16 instead of 15 to work at VideoWay. Do you remember VideoWay? Yes, of course. Yes.

Well, you were eager to earn and work and hustle too, right? Yeah. Yeah, so that guy, he stayed with me throughout my life and has just been somebody who impacted me always, because he taught me how to work hard. He believed in me. He was like a second father to me, but he also-- it was tough on me too, though. He wasn't easy, but I was so thankful for that at the time. Sometimes I didn't like it. Yeah.

And I had one of the greatest blessings of my life was that I got a call from him two months ago to say that he was in hospice. And I hadn't seen him for 35 years or so, but we stayed in touch on the phone and such, or Facebook. And my wife had me-- what I said to him was goodbye, basically, on the phone. And I got off the phone. My wife said, you have to go see him. You have to go say goodbye in person. And she booked a flight that night. The next morning, I went out at 7 o'clock, flew to Virginia, got there, spent the day with him, and just reminisced and laughed all day, fed him this chocolate brownie at night that he loved, these chocolate brownies.

He had a stroke that night, and that was the end of it. But I got to say goodbye and thank him for-- Aren't you glad you did that, Jeff? Oh, it was the greatest thing I've ever-- yeah, I just wouldn't change it for the world. It was-- It's worth it to make that extra effort for people. Yeah. We don't do that as much anymore. We don't make a lot of extra efforts for people. And it's a weird space to be in, but I wish we did more of that. Yeah, it was life-changing for me, and it's such an honor to get to celebrate him. And he had a letter by his bed in the facility that he was in, and it was framed.

And it was a letter I had written him 15 years ago thanking him for what he did for my life. And it was his legacy. He was so proud of that because he didn't have children. And so I was like his son, sort of. So yeah, it was a beautiful thing. But now that you asked that, I'm present to that. So thanks for asking. Yeah. That's amazing. I have to say that Hospice was-- and I was a marketer in communications. And although I was talking about assets and stories and everything before in the Conservancy so rich in them, it's a different thing with Hospice because it's a lot of rich stories, but not everybody's ready to tell them.

And when you see a family go through what we would call a good death, it is-- I mean, I even get chills thinking about it. It is so special to be invited to be part of that family's going away for somebody. Yeah. And I've been there for some important people at the organization I worked at. And it just is life changing. I can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Hospice has been gracious. And I've been blessed with the opportunity to say goodbye to good people in my life. We're all going to die at some point. Hospice has been very great at managing that process for the people in my life.

I remember one time my best friend's mom, who was sort of like my mother in a way, and she was in Hospice. And I went to say goodbye. And as I was leaving Hospice in Naples, this woman was yelling out of her room and nobody was going to her. So I went in the room and she could barely talk, this woman. And I said, is everything OK? What do you need? She said, peaches. Peaches. She wanted peaches. All she could say was peaches. So they were busy. Other people were busy. So I left and went to the store and got these canned peaches and brought them back. I'd never met this woman, had no idea who she is to this day. And I fed her these peaches.

And the nurse came in and she said, I said, is it OK? And she said, of course, of course, it's OK. Fed her these peaches. I went back the next-- she was just mumbling and barely eating the peaches. But I went back the next day to see my friend's mom and she had passed. And her family was all around her. And I got to share with them what her last night was like, because they weren't there. And to tell them that she was-- and they said, oh, she loved peaches. Peaches were her thing. And I said, it was a beautiful moment that I'm grateful for hospice for. Anyway. And a beautiful moment between two strangers. You can care for a stranger completely. And yeah.

And that's the other thing about hospice, was that they take care of a lot of people that would die alone otherwise. And you think about that.,? Yeah. That's not a pleasant idea. So to be able to have the care-- I mean, I already know who would be my hospice nurse at the organization I worked at. Because there's-- we call it a hospice heart. Because it's just a different type of nursing. Yeah. There's this special humans that handle that. Yeah. They just got a grace in a way and a heart that is not normal. Yeah. In a way. I'm grateful for that. Special people. Nurses are in general. And caregivers are-- Are special people. Yeah. Yeah. They give in a way that we need.

And I'm grateful for. Yeah. Isn't that great? Which is-- I'm also fascinated by your story. Because you-- the whole full circle thing and how you got to be you, which is important to me. I do this, this podcast that we do, because we have so many gems in our community. We have so many wonderful people. I know. I know. We're so blessed. And there are so many great people that believe in it, that love it, that are passionate about it. Instead of what most people are attracted to online is the failures, the catastrophes, the drama.

It's fun to watch that. But to celebrate the good humans here and the people that are making a difference. There are a lot of them. And if we just keep it-- the whole community, a lot of change is happening around us. So that makes us all feel a little bit uneasy. But where we can keep it the same is how you and I treat each other and how we respect each other. And that's just where I'm centering myself through all this change, is how can I still be respectful to people regardless of-- if I agree or don't agree with them, how can I still find what I always call-- I can build a bridge with anybody.

Because I think there's always some commonality that we have that we can build on. And that's a lot of the work that we do with the Conservancy, too. We have a lot of people who don't know anything about our natural environment. They only get to know us because they find out that they have somewhere they can bring their child. And so that's how they might get introduced to us. And so really just when people come in, whether you've lived here a long time and you don't have the intelligence of what goes on here, we want to give it to you. We want to give it to you. So that's the thing is that we want people who want to learn about their community.

Everybody is taking a new interest in it, I think. And so wherever you are in your education about what we do, we will meet you there so we can tell you how you can be effective in seeing the kind of community you want to see.

Back to you as the fourth grader for a minute. Yeah.

Your mom and dad are here in South Florida. What's your mom's name? Valerie. Valerie? Yes. Valerie and Willie. How would she describe you?

Well, yesterday, I don't know.

You know, my mother will tell you that I work too much. That's the first thing she'll tell you. I work too much.

But my mother will tell you that she knows how passionate I am about things. I am not a gray area person.

If it's of my interest and I'm involved, I'm seeing it all the way through the end. And how big can we make it? Or what's your goal? Let's reach your goal. And she knows that once I get attached to a goal, not necessarily the outcome

Or maybe so the outcome and not the goal.

But she'll know that I'll get it done and I'll get it accomplished. And I hope that they depend on me like that. I think they do. But I think she'll also tell you I got a big mouth.

That's the New Yorker. Yeah. I think actually, a lot of people tell you I got a big mouth.

Let's work to your advantage then., I stopped caring what people thought about my big mouth, I think, is that I've always been an advocate for people who didn't have the platform when I was a news reporter.

And that's, yeah, I actually did it ever since I remember being a child and crossing the street when there was a war between the kids going on and being like, "No, we can't talk to each other that way." Not that I'm some peacemaker, but it's, again, there's a bridge always to be built with everybody. Yeah.

Going back to how you got to be you and who you are, how would you say, if you were to rewind in time, because you're almost a native

Via New York, like I'm via Philadelphia, what's something you miss? About New York? About this area here, back in the day. (Sighs) I miss it not feeling like I'm stuck in my car to go nine miles. I have lived always between nine and 13 miles from my job. And during season, when it takes you more than an hour sometimes to go nine miles, it can be mad. Yeah. Yeah.

I miss that. I miss it, again, I still think of it as our little secret place

But I definitely miss a little bit of that.

I'm lucky enough I also serve on the Art and Public Places Board in the city of Benita Springs, and I get to be around some of the people that I used to interview back in the day. And just having that camaraderie of having lived in Benita Springs for so long, and knowing people's parents who own that store, whatever, that feeling, I think, goes away a little bit more when you start to grow.

But I do miss a little bit of that, yeah. Because I think we're growing.

We're growing. Let's say that we're definitely growing. I hope it's really responsible on our resources, though. And that's where I think that we could get into a little trouble. Aside from being known who's someone who works too much, what do you do outside of that? My favorite thing to do, you will catch me every single weekend for the last, I don't know, maybe the last 12 years. I go to Lovers Key and I walk the trails every single weekend. My favorite place to be in the world. Lovers Key has two amazing two and a half mile trails. You have the scrub on one side and you have the water on the other.

There will be manatees, dolphins catching fish, an alligator on the trail. I mean, gopher tortoises, you see it all. They did get pretty rocked after Hurricane Ian. They were closed for quite some time. But they've been reopened and they've done a lot of work. The FWC officers who were there are fantastic. They really, really care about the area too. You will catch me on a trail somewhere. I mean, I know that it's not very exciting, but I love that trail. And I love, one of my new favorites is, I only discovered it within the last two years, is the Highland Hammocks Tour up in Sebring. That's another gorgeous, gorgeous trail to be on.

I just like being outside and even on the hottest day, just enjoying some nature and being an explorer in my own backyard. Yeah, I think that's great. I think so many people, myself included, I don't take the time to appreciate or enjoy where we're at, where we are, things like that. Go to Mount Lachey, go to St. James City, go to Sanibel, Captiva, Goodland, go to Stands, check out something you haven't seen in a while. Actually, I haven't been on Bonita Beach Road on that side, going up for years, since before the hurricane, well before. I will tell you, I go to Fort Myers Beach just about every weekend since

After Hurricane Ian, I went to volunteer to do cleanup at a mobile home park that got really, really decimated and people were still trying to live in their mobile homes there.

And Fort Myers Beach has always been a very special place for me. It's where my family has spent a ton of time. It's also where my brother passed away on Fort Myers Beach. So I love that area. And I will spend my money there every weekend with those businesses so they can keep growing. And some of my favorite restaurant workers are there, that I want to put my money somewhere where I think it matters right now. Yeah. And I love where's Kia's, where you go. What's that?

Where you go. Is where on that route to Fort Myers Beach. Right before the bridge. Yes. So if you go to the Bonita way, you get to go over on Little Carlos Pass. And then you go, oh, you know where the dog park is, the dog beach. There's also a dog beach right there. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. And it's, first of all, you're going over the bridge and you're like, do I really live here some days on the weekend? Because it could be eight o'clock in the morning, but boats are out., people are doing their paddle boards and it's, jet skis are out. People are fishing on the bridge. It's, it's truly feels old Florida.

If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what do you think you'd be doing in life?

I would probably still be a news reporter. I just loved that job a lot. Never paid well, but I love, I just like talking to people. I would, I would still work in storytelling in some way. I've done documentary work before. That's my true passion. And I'm actually working on a documentary with the Conservancy right now. It's a crazy story too. It is, I mean, it's how the picky and string came to be.

And it involves hair oil salesmen who were developers and, sold swampland and made kazillions of dollars and ruined the hydrology permanently almost for our area all the way up into present day and how the Conservancy was involved with helping make that a state park and getting it. They just did the ribbon cutting for, for that area in January. So the restoration project. So our part in that restoration project, it's, it's got all the different twists and turns. And we have a scientist, Kathy Worley. She is a treasure. She has been with us 30 years doing scientific work in the mangrove areas in our area. And she tells a story like nobody can.

So it's going to be a good one. So it's in the making. Yes. And where will we be able to see it? Well, hopefully it'll be done in the next year. We will definitely be having different showings for it and whatnot. I'm hoping because I was fortunate enough when I did a documentary last time that they put it in the Naples Film Festival. So I'm hoping maybe the Naples International Film Festival might consider this one. But we have a lot of partner agencies that we would explore to, to share it with.

Any books or podcasts that are on your current list right now?

I actually just got a few different books on my Audible.

So when I'm on my trails, that is one of the things I really enjoy doing. But I don't read fiction. That's the only thing.

I'm pretty boring when it comes to that kind of stuff.

My last book that I downloaded was Economics for Dummies, because I wanted to understand world economics a little bit better than just my MBA class gave it to me.

And let's see.

I had one that's on my nightstand right now. So it's about managing stress and how you need to fully go through the stress cycle to be able to manage your stress. And then there was another one.

I'm trying to think it was a podcast, Change Management. That's what it was.

Because at the Conservancy, we're going through a lot of change, a lot of transformation. So how do you make that easier, more effective for the staff who've been there, some of them, many, many years?

How do you get all of this to work in the most cohesive way? So Change Management has been another one. I'm really boring when it comes to stuff like that. And then you just fund this quest to lifelong learning. You just keep feeding money. I do. I do feel that way. Yes. I'm like, why wouldn't people want to keep going to school and get more education and learn more things? Yeah, I don't read fiction either. I mean, sometimes it probably should. Right? Right to relax a little? Yeah. But I always say truth is stranger than fiction. Yeah, right. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Change Management is the last one you said.

Yeah, that was the podcast I was listening to because I'm relying on some Lean Six Sigma principles I learned at FGCU when they do the Lean Six Sigma credentialing. So yeah, it's just interesting ways to use logical tools to get to the bottom of a problem rather than just thinking like, why do people think this and make a bunch of reasons? Let's really get to the problem.

Yeah, Six Sigma, that's a whole world in itself. Yeah. Yeah.

But super, yeah, it was super useful tools, though. Yeah. And you self-taught a lot of that? No, I was fortunate enough. We did a training at an organization I worked with where they had us all get trained to be Yellow Belts and Lean Six Sigma. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So listen, if there was free education at any place I worked, I was taking it. You want to give me tuition reimbursement? I will find classes to take. I think, and I don't, I mean, I get it. It's work. I don't have kids, though. Let me preface that. I don't have kids. Somebody who has a family might be like, yeah, sure, she can say that.

But after I got my MBA, I went and got my APR with the Florida Public Relations Association. But now I'm like, I've been working in this area. I'm like, what's my next degree, biology or political science?,? It sounds like one of them. Where do I use? What do I use next? But all those tools, again, it's really, it's just exploring what you don't know.

Do you have a hidden talent?

I'm learning to play trombone. I played trombone at Benita Springs Middle School. Jeff Swartout, I will never forget, said, I don't want to play trombone by myself. I was going to play saxophone. And he convinced me to go play trombone. So I did it for a while. And now I'm looking for just relaxation output. And so I'm going back to trombone. So have you always had one? I had to buy a new one. And I actually forgot. I didn't buy a bass clef. I bought a B flat one. So now I've never played B flat, only a bass clef. So now I got to learn kind of all over again.

And what's the difference in these things? One's like a higher pitch. And the bass clef is kind of like the one that you think of where it goes really low notes. But the only reason why I love playing it so much is because it has that spit valve on it. So then if there's somebody you don't like, you just open up the spit valve on their shoe. I forgot about that spit valve.

How long ago did you start on that quest? I've been on a quest to-- music was one of the first things I went to school for. Actually, I went to school for fashion design and merchandising. I can make a three-piece suit for you.

Sew it. Yes. I got my first sewing machine at 11. And my mother taught me how to sew. There were times I made really stupid clothing that I wore to school. How fun is that? That's great. Yeah. I'm glad I have the skill now. And then I went to school for music. At the time, there weren't as many professions as I knew available, like music therapy.

So I didn't last long for that. But I want to get back to some kind of artistic endeavor like that. So I tried left-handed guitar for a little while. I used to play a little bit of that. It was just too hard to jump back in again. So now I'm going to trombone. So on the subject of music, I like to find out what's on the current guest playlist. Because we're building a spotlight on good people. Spot a playlist of just what's on your current list. So right now, I'm in a mood. And I have a few artists that-- some new and some old. But I'm in a mood. So I've been playing a few things in a row. First of all, I love Lake Street Dive.

They are a group that I discovered through Pandora. I love Lake Street Dive. They're like a bluesy Bonnie Rae sound. It's really great. Honey Drops, the California Honey Drops. That's a new one that I was listening to, too. How do you find them?

I have a well-trained Pandora, I guess. Oh, and it serves you different songs. Yeah, yeah. To give me some new tunes sometimes. Like Harper O'Neill, that's another one that I absolutely love. You know who's a local group that I really, really like? I saw them.

I saw them last year when we partnered with the Canoe Races of Naples. And they brought back the Canoe Races to benefit the Conservancy. And we have that going actually this Saturday. And they had a band there called Moonstone Riders. And the singer was fantastic. And all the instrument players were fantastic. So then I saw them at Sugar Shack in Benita. And then I was like, we need to hire these guys for Earth Day. So we wound up being able to hire them for Earth Day. And then recently I was at Sugar Shack and they played there again. So it was like, oh, they're a local group who is fantastic. Have they published anything on Spotify? I'm sure they have.

I haven't bought anything off there, but I'll have to take a look., some days I need Rage Against the Machine though. There you go. I'm looking to learn I'm Housing. Housing, the song Housing on my trombone. So I'm looking to learn that. Awesome. Will that be? We got to bring you back. Yeah, right. No. And then I like to get the old school. I like just to mix in, I don't know, all of my parents' music with it in there. So what? What? Oh, I don't know. Everything from on the weekend Sundays, I like to listen. I have what I call Frank Sinatra Sundays. So you just put on your jazz music. I love jazz music.

And then like Sly and the Family Stone and, some of those groups. Yeah. Yeah. Sly Stone was in Naples one time. And yeah, he played it. It used to be called Chapter 11, which is down by where the Cove is. Somewhere, somewhere down there. It was an old place a long time ago. And we were there and he was there that night. He had gotten up on stage and done one thing. And then we went to 7-Eleven after and he was there and asked us for a ride. And it gave him a ride in my Celica GT that I can always claim to fame. It's Sly's set in my car. One day I had to give Mark Arubio a ride in the backseat of my car. Yeah. Really? Yeah. In Tampa. Yeah.

I can't tell you about that story.

This is pre- This is pre-news days. Yeah. Oh, pre-news days. Yeah.

Yeah. There's a lot of people that somehow- Mark was in your car. Can wind up in the backseat of your car.

Yeah., it's just a crazy world. This was in your college day? This was in my college days in Tampa. Yep. And I went on a really bad, it was like a blind date. This is before Tinder or anything like that. Yeah. And I went on a blind date. And I brought my girlfriend because they were going to bring a friend. And the blind date was horrible. So then it was like a restaurant bar. So we went around- Because then it was truly blind. You can't do any research on people. You can't look at painting, right? You got nothing. It's blind. And it was an interesting date that I said, "I'm going to go to the bathroom." And we left.

But that is how- He did your date. He did. And that's how we met. That's how Markeru got in the back seat of my car that way. Oh, okay. Yeah. But it's a long story.

Anyway, but yeah, it's, I don't know. It's interesting, just the things that go on here in Naples. You'd be surprised at some of the people and things that you see. I remember I had a boyfriend that we were, I think, on the other coast. And we went to this, just like it was like a nighttime concert fair. And there was like nobody really there. And then it was Sly and the Family Stone, his brother and his children. And it was every song that you absolutely love. And there was only like 10 of us in the audience. What a cool experience. And I still have the t-shirt that they threw to me. Because I was like, "When are you ever going to see this again?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

How cool is that? In our little Naples. Southwest Florida area. I know. It's an interesting place, but-

My final question, which is, kind of sums it all up. What is it that you love about your life?

I think in this phase of my life, I love

Caring a lot less what people think about me. I think I spend a lot of time on TV and people tell you their opinion in a heartbeat. You don't have one of your pinky nail painted and they see it, they'll tell you, they'll be horrendous.

And it does create thick skin. But I have to say that the moment you really care a lot less about what people think about the words coming out of your mouth. I mean, I'm not saying act reckless. But the moment you take some of that away, you live such a freer life to also be more giving to others. Because sometimes you don't share your time, your talents with people, because you're afraid of that first initial step of making contact or volunteering or reaching out or just being curious. A lot of times people just don't ask questions because they don't want to be looked at or be scrutinized or they don't want the attention.

But the moment you start just putting a lot of that to the side, and just if you're honest and you're trying to make true connections, that's the best you can do. And I think that in this phase of my life, that's been the best part. Because like I said, I don't have children. I can go eat at a restaurant and go hang out by myself, but I have to be okay with doing that too. Not everybody is. I think if you just get out and you have more conversations with people and just show kindness

I mean, it sounds ridiculously easy than it is these days sometimes. But I think that has been the best part of this phase of my life. I love that.

I'm glad I got to spend time with you and meet you and recognize somebody who believes in and is passionate about where we live and this community and is a good soul. Thank you for what you do. Thank the whole family of people, John and everybody else who's a part of making this special. Yeah, I'm glad you're on that campaign. I am too. I am so excited for the community. Yeah, it's great for all of us. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Zach. Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you. That was fun. Yeah.