WHO WE ARE

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Barbara grew up in Port Charlotte in Charlotte County, having moved there in 1972 at the age of 3, and relocated to North Port in 2002.  She is a University of Florida Master Naturalist/Land Steward, a Florida Registered Paralegal and is the founder of the Conservancy.   She enjoys outdoor nature photography and provides much of the photographic content on our website and in our social media.  She has concentrated experience in real estate law, real estate transactional work and corporate law.

Sean’s employment background has been in non-profit finance and accounting. He worked for a non-profit social services company in Philadelphia, PA for about 20 years, and was Director of Finance and Operations at the time he left. He was then Financial Manager for a healthcare/hospital system for a few years before moving to the Tallahassee, FL area in 2021. He then moved to North Port in 2022.  He currently works for the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, a department of Florida State University, in a part-time accounting role (https://www.fnai.org).

Prior to volunteering with us, his volunteer time has been spent with:

· A senior housing development in New Jersey.

· The American Legion in North Port Estates (event set up and management).

Sean enjoys doing "boots on the ground" work that produces tangible results.

Charlene's passion is wildlife and she has spent a great deal of her professional career working to protect, preserve and educate others about our natural world and why we need to protect it. 

In her career she has worked for the Miami Metrozoo and Disney's Animal Kingdom where education was an integral part of her responsibility as well as daily care of animals. Thereafter she continued educating the public through her fishing/ecotour business in the Florida Keys where she had a USCG 100 Ton Master Captain license for 15 years. Locally she continued her fishing/ecotour business around Boca Grande and captained the ecotour boat KATARA for 5 years.

Volunteer work has also always been an integral part of her life. She has volunteered at the Marathon Wild Bird Center and Dolphin Plus in The Florida Keys, Mote Marine Laboratory, Rio Laguertos Mexico Flamingo Banding Project, Sarasota Audubon, Wildlife Center of Venice, Peace River Wildlife Center, and Friends of the Pelicans. 

In 2022 she started the Englewood Nature Friends page on Facebook as a platform for Englewood neighbors to share information about location wildlife.

Megan moved from New Jersey to Florida in 2021. She quickly saw the increase in building and felt the need to get involved in preserving land and wildlife. She volunteered with the Clinic for Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW) helping with grazing the Gopher Tortoises and is a volunteer with the Coastal Wildlife Club, Sea Turtle Patrol. Megan plans to become a licensed Florida Gopher Tortoise Agent by the end of 2024. Her children are a female 4 years old Sulcata Tortoise, Spud, and a Cherry Head Redfoot Tortoise, Bulleit (like the Bourbon), who is 2 years old. 

Megan has been a Private Investigator for 18 years and graduated from St. Peters College in Jersey City in 2004 with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice. She loves hiking, road trips and camping. Her bucket list includes visiting as many National Parks that she can. She has visited 21 out of the 63 National Parks. 

Luci moved to North Port in 2014 from Pennsylvania. She is originally from New Jersey. 

Now semi-retired, Luci previously worked in Elementary Education and Special Education in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida, in an administrative position for Hewlett Packard and in computer sales for New MMI.

Since moving to Florida she has started her own businesses: One Putt Designs (a ladies golf jewelry business) and Your Photo Your Gift (a custom photo gift business). Find both at:  https://www.oneputtdesigns.com/
  

Prior to volunteering with us, her time has been spent with:

· Special Olympics (coaching/management for Lycoming Co. in PA for 20 years

· Coaching for Sarasota County Special Olympics for 10 years

· White Deer Golf Course Board

· Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy Advisory Committee

· The Environmental Conservancy of North Port And Surrounding Areas 

Luci loves her dogs, the outdoors and painting and creating. 

Edie was born and raised in Miami, FL.  After moving to Harbour Heights (in Charlotte County) in 2005, she became acquainted with some of its residents, the Florida Scrub-jay and Gopher Tortoise. Never before had she known such species existed but soon after, she became an admirer and an advocate, especially once learning the Scrub-jay was Federally listed, and the tortoise State-listed, as threatened species. In 2010, she moved to North Port and found the same species resided there. In either of these areas, the two species were not truly protected.

After realizing the City of North Port had no organization that promoted wildlife advocacy, she formed North Port Friends of Wildlife (NPFOWL), a chapter of the Friends of Sarasota County Parks. The mission of  NPFOWL was, and continues to be, to raise awareness of these unique species and other wildlife, and to work with citizens and government for their protections. Today, Edie is still involved with North Port Friends of Wildlife but that organization will soon be transferred to a group of other environmentally minded individuals, some of whom are teachers at North Port High School.

Edie now resides once again in Harbour Heights, and her advocacy there was re-kindled there through her volunteer role with The Environmental Conservancy as the Harbour Heights Liason. Edie organizes annual events to raise funds to acquire land parcels in  Harbour  Heights and to raise awareness of its wildlife, native plants and trees and was successful in securing a $10,000 land management grant from US Fish and Wildlife Services and the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida for the Conservancy's Harbour Heights parcels; the work thereunder will be carried out over a 10 year period and commenced in the Fall of 2024.

Linda lived in the Midwest until moving to Florida with her husband, Dave, in 2017. She

learned much about growing flowers, trees, and shrubs from a relative in the landscape

business. As a lifelong lover of nature and plants, Linda worked her way through college as a

florist, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and an MBA from the University of Missouri.

She accepted a position as an administrator at a small private university and retired from there

to establish a career as an academic editor, assisting PhD candidates with dissertations,

eventually retiring in 2016.

Now in Florida, Linda sought volunteer opportunities here and served several years on the

Board of Directors of the local chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society. She understands the

critical reasons for preserving natural habitat and using native plants in both home and

commercial landscapes.

 David has lived most recently in the Midwest, moving to SW Florida with his wife Linda in 2017. He has earned a BA in Mathematics at West Chester State University in Pennsylvania, where he grew up. 

After serving as a Captain in the USAF, he founded and operated retail businesses in Michigan.  Moving to Kansas City resulted in an extended digital services career as a Webmaster, then Web Producer, and finally, a Digital Marketing Analyst with a bank.

David is familiar with Florida, having lived in South Florida for 8 years in the 80’s. Since moving to North Port, he has nurtured a passionate appreciation for nature and especially for how habitats and ecosystems have evolved.  Like Linda, he joined the local chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, where he served on the Board of Directors, coordinating Digital Services.