Saving the Oceans, One Dive at a Time.
D.J. grew up near the beach in New Jersey and was always in or on top of the water surfing or boating. He finally looked under the water, literally by accident while visiting Key Largo in 1999 when the resort mixed up a reservation and offered to make up for it with a Scuba Diving trip.
Fate intervened again right after Sept. 11, when a Marine Colonel offered to sell his dive boat to D.J. as he was shipping off to Afghanistan.
Over the past 20 years, as Rainbow Reef grew, D.J. personally witnessed the decline of the coral reef, not just here in Key Largo, but in other critical reef locations around the world.
Starting as far back as the early 2000’s, D.J., and his co-workers and friends worked with and were influenced by people and organizations working on a variety of reef restoration efforts including Ken Neidermiyer, The Coral Restoration Foundation, Mote Marine Laboratory and many others.
In 2021 D.J. and the Rainbow Reef team realized that more had to be done, and after reflection, concluded that based on the size of professional dive staff and the large fleet of boats, they had unique position to materially help, and perhaps even succeed in completely restoring the coral reef in Key Largo. As D.J. likes to say “If we can’t do it, who will?”.
The OCF launched with a unique combination of resources to not just make something happen, but succeed in aiding the scientific work of others by exponentially accelerating getting their work out onto the reef with the goal of restoring it. D.J. is the founder and serves on the board of directors.
After 30 years in international finance, Elliott followed his love for the ocean and mentoring and changed his life into a professional career in scuba instruction. Although Elliott has lived all over the United States, he has always been brought back to the ocean and has found his life in Key Largo helping to lead the process of restoring the reef tract. As with us all, Elliott is deeply disturbed with the state of our oceans and is driven to help improve them for generations to come.
After graduating with a degree in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston, Bridget moved to Fiji to begin her career in marine conservation. She spent almost four years studying the health of coral reefs in Fiji to better understand the dynamics between reef species in order to help local communities identify missing components in their reef systems and develop plans to restore them.
Bridget is very passionate about teaching others about the marine world, as she is confident in the belief that if more people become aware of the crisis our oceans are facing, the better chance we have at saving them.
Ocean Conservation Foundation
100 Ocean Drive
Key Largo, FL 33037
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info@oceanconservationfoundation.org
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