Press Kit Stories
Danilo Alayon: Steward of Sustainable Artistry
Danilo Alayon is a fifth-generation “Conch” born and raised in Key West, an avid diver, a self-taught artist and proud grandson of the creator-painter of the island’s famed Southernmost Point buoy.
Matt Bellinger: Steward of Family Fun Fishing
Captain Matthew “Matt” Bellinger grew up in Sandy Springs, Georgia, studied marine science at the University of Tampa, traveled as a divemaster after college and clearly remembers the aha! moment that prompted his move to the Florida Keys.
George Bellenger: Steward of the Natural Backcountry
George Bellenger, who co-founded Key West Eco Tours with wife Carla in 2006, believes that even a five-minute commitment helps to preserve the Keys’ natural backcountry and dense mangrove islands.
Lisa Lee Herman: Steward of Keys Marine Life Through Art
Marine artist Lisa Lee Herman, owner of Gallery of the Arts Islamorada, is known throughout the Upper Keys for her gyotaku — the ancient Japanese art form for traditionally recording a catch.
Erin Muir: Steward of Mote Marine’s Coral Restoration Outreach
Erin Muir, a sixth-generation Upper Keys native, is a descendant of two founding Florida Keys families — the Albury and Lowe families that settled in the Keys in the 1860s — whose roots run as deep as those of the mangroves lining the island chain’s shoreline.
Autumn Blum: Steward Who Created Reef-Safe Sunscreen
Autumn Blum, the founder of Stream2Sea reef-safe skin-, hair- and body-care products, is a part-time Key Largo resident, an avid diver and a cosmetic chemist who developed sunscreen products billed as the world’s only ones proven safe for saltwater and freshwater fish and coral larvae.
How to Become a Steward of the Keys
Florida Keys residents are as deeply rooted in the island chain as the surrounding mangroves, choosing to live among the Keys’ natural wonders and striving to preserve their satisfying lifestyle.
Dave Dipre: Steward of the Keys’ Fish and Wildlife
Captain Dave Dipre, Marathon-based operational captain with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Division of Law Enforcement, oversees 32 patrol officers and operations from Key Largo to Key West.
Harry Appel: Steward of the Keys’ Endangered Wildlife
Harry Appel co-owns Big Pine Key’s eco-friendly, boutique Deer Run on the Atlantic, the Keys’ only designated “Four-Palm” Green Lodging Property earning the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s highest designation for protecting the state’s natural resources.
Jeanne Selander: Steward of the Florida Keys Sheriff’s Animal Farm
Jeanne Selander oversees the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Animal Farm at the Stock Island Detention Center — believed to be the United States’ only facility of its kind on jailhouse property — and the care of 150 animals including 17-year-old Mo the Sloth.
Sarah Fangman: Steward of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary
Sarah Fangman, superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, is a Minnesota native whose impressive career as a marine scientist has spanned the United States. She’s conducted more than 600 dives in Keys sanctuary waters, holds a U.S. Coast Guard 100-ton master captain’s license and is certified as a submersible pilot.
Samantha Zeher: Steward of Islamorada’s Wildlife
Captain Samantha “Sam” Zeher, solo captain and one of only a few Florida Keys women who are charterboat owner-operators, believes in captaining her own fate.
Elena Muratori: Steward of the Upper Keys’ State Parks
This month Elena Muratori celebrates 25 years with the Florida Park Service. With two decades of working at John Pennekamp Coral Reef and Dagny Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical state parks, she’s one of the longest-serving stewards at any Florida Keys state park.
Rob Oliverio: Steward of the Keys’ Backcountry
Rob Oliverio traded life as a road warrior — a corporate manager in his early 20s, launching House of Blues openings in Boston, New Orleans and Los Angeles — for life as an eco-entrepreneur and owner of Key West’s Mellow Ventures, with backcountry eco-tours, a café, nine boats and 30 employees.
Kelly Grinter: Steward of Keys Wild Birds
The wild bird sanctuary at Marathon’s Crane Point Hammock Museum and Nature Center has 11 habitats, about 40 permanent residents — including Oliver the osprey and Mr. Black-Bellied Plover — and staffer Grinter, although 20 loyal volunteers such as friend Dee Dee Schmitt assist.
Daniel William Davis: Steward of Environmental Artistry
Florida Keys artist Dan Davis of Layton, owner of the online Florida Keys Ocean Gallery, uses the ancient Japanese art of gyotaku to create prints from fish he catches in Keys waters.
Misha McRAE: Steward of a Rare Botanical Garden
A military brat, accountant, ballet and jazz dancer, trucking company executive, Key West lighting store owner and botanical garden advocate, Misha McRAE hasn’t let the grass grow underneath his feet.
Stephen Frink: Steward-Photographer of the Underwater World
Renowned photojournalist Stephen Frink is perhaps the planet’s most prolific published underwater photographer. He says he may never outgrow his “yondering years,” those years of his 20s, living in California, Hawaii and Colorado before landing in the Upper Keys.
Mike Goldberg: Steward of Islamorada’s Coral Reef
The life that Mike Goldberg — co-founder of I.CARE and owner of Islamorada’s Key Dives — created in the Florida Keys is a long way from his previous life as a Bear Stearns money manager, raising $100 million a year.
Jessica Ann Cecil: Steward of Marine Life Through Art
Talented Islamorada artist Jessica Ann Cecil, 30, is self-taught with a unique flair for capturing marine life with colorful personalities — and she’s on a mission.
Clinton Curry: Steward of Key West’s Heritage
Clinton Curry is a seventh-generation Key West resident or “Conch” whose ancestors arrived some 180 years ago from the Bahamas’ Green Turtle Cay. The fifth generation of his family to be born on the island, he has lived there for all but two years of his life.
Stewards of the Keys: REEF’s Alli Candelmo
Alli Candelmo, Ph.D., has remarkable experience in conservation outreach, from surveying reefs for marine parks in tiny Malaysian fishing villages to studying manta rays in Hawaii and netting lionfish in the Turks & Caicos islands.
Steward of the Keys: Matt Sexton
Matt Sexton, 34, a “retired” professional kiteboarder, owns and operates the new Grassy Flats Resort & Beach Club that opened last spring. With a zero-waste program and on-site sustainable amenities, the resort features a bar hand-tooled from locally salvaged wood surrounded by aeroponic tower gardens for flowers, luffas and garnishes; uses biodegradable and plant-based soaps and detergents and accessible water filtration systems; and bans single-use plastics and Styrofoam.
Patrick Garvey: Steward of the Keys’ ‘Fruitful’ Future
Patrick Garvey owns and operates Big Pine Key’s 2-acre fruit farm Grimal Grove, billed as the first breadfruit grove in the continental United States. Breadfruit is a starchy cantaloupe-sized fruit that can be used like a potato, bread or even as a custard when ripe.
Artists are Stewards of the Keys’ Natural World
Perhaps even more than others who live among the Florida Keys’ natural wonders — including the continental United States’ only living coral barrier reef — local artists are deeply aware of the unique environment that surrounds and inspires them.
Mark Hedden: Steward of the Florida Keys Audubon Society
Mark Hedden, executive director of the Florida Keys Audubon Society and artist-in-residence at The Studios of Key West, is perhaps the Keys’ best known "bird man."
Ken Nedimyer: Steward of Reef Restoration
Ken Nedimyer, an Upper Keys–based director of Reef Renewal Foundation International, is globally recognized as a father of reef restoration, creating strategies and techniques to rebuild coral reefs around the world.
Allyson Gantt: Steward of the Keys’ National Parks
Allyson Gantt inspires others to care for the Florida Keys’ two national parks and their unique environments. She’s overseeing a year of activities for Everglades National Park’s upcoming 75th anniversary of its founding Dec. 6, 1947.
Jordan Budnik: Steward of the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center
Jordan Budnik, executive director of the Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center in Tavernier, has already achieved at age 29 what she hoped to accomplish perhaps in her pre-retirement years.
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