Stewards of the Keys

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, 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

As curator and historian at Islamorada’s Keys History & Discovery Center, Brad Bertelli is a storyteller who spins colorful, articulate tales with rich factual details about life in the Florida Keys.

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.

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 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.

Captain Andrea Paulson, owner-operator of Reelax Charters based at Sugarloaf Marina on Sugarloaf Shores, has a fierce love for the remote backcountry of the Lower Florida Keys.

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.

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 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.

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.