Coastal Commitment: An Oral History of Volunteers at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium

Abstract

Coastal Commitment is an oral history project conducted in June and July of 2015. The interviewer and curator for the project was Jason Harris, a History undergraduate and Mote summer intern. Jason came from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. The project was coordinated by Robert Rogers, Volunteer Coordinator, and supervised by Alyson Gamble, Librarian, at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida. The participants for this project include, in order of interview date: Joseph Mathis, David Bowman, Virginia Sanders, Cathy Marine, Dwight Davis, Tommy Vaughan-Birch, B.J. Peters, Virginia Miller, and Lin Vertefeuille. These volunteers were selected for their hard work and long-term commitment to volunteering at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium. Their experience and contributions to the institution are highlighted in these interviews. Of course, it should be stated that there are many other volunteers at Mote who have also provided years of dedication and service. Participants were given an interview protocol for review before sitting down to the recorded session. Transcriptions for each interview are presented here, representing a faithful facsimile of the recorded audio. In some cases, the transcriptions were edited by request of the participant. Digital recordings of the oral histories are available.