Mandy Bellasalmo met Dr. Tom Kazo through Broward County's Kevin Carter (who is interviewed elsewhere in this issue). "I was getting extra credit for (Kevin's) science seminar class. He told me about this cool guy he knew that helped organize waterway cleanups and I thought that would be fun." Mandy met Dr. Tom soon after at Broward County's Rev. Samuel Delevoe Park in December of 2001. This is the staging place for canoe-based cleanups on the North Fork of the New River in Fort Lauderdale. WRT's canoes have just been unloaded of many bags of trash. On right: at Broward Community College, Mandy took many classes with Dr. Bruce Sharfstein (in blue shirt). It was through Mandy that Dr. Sharfstein came to be part of WRT, and now serves ably on our Board of Directors.

On left, in April of 2002, Mandy, and guide Craig Doyle helped out Dr. Tom when NOAA's Audra Livergood toured our Matheson Hammock/R. Hardy Matheson Preserve habitat restoration project. On the right, in March of 2003, Mandy, Craig, and Dr. Tom gave a tour to The Trust for Public Land's Amy Wolf Condon and her associate (sorry, her name seems to have been lost in our files). TPL was developing the Biscayne Bay Access Plan, and appreciated WRT's accessibility to fragile habitats. In 2007, TPL published 30 Years/30 Stories: Conserving Florida's Natural Legacy, and Mrs. Condon used this excursion for her beautiful story honoring Dr. Tom, "Healing Biscayne Bay." She kindly sent copies to WRT and to Mandy!

A native of Melbourne, Florida, Mandy has always loved the water and boats. When only 17, she "was first mate on a tour boat at Inlet Marina in Sebastian, and worked with the park rangers doing tours of Pelican Island (the first National Wildlife Refuge in the U.S.). When we were not doing tours I was teaching (paddling) and renting canoes and kayaks to locals and tourists to enjoy the Indian River Lagoon." On the left, Mandy and guide Robert Council are waiting for "Doc" (as they always called Dr. Tom) to take the photo so they can get in the water. On the right, they are showing off a container of material hazardous to the environment which they wrestled out of the tidal flats and loaded into their canoe for proper disposal.

Left: had to include this one, because it was one of Doc's favorites. He always admired a girl with spunk, not afraid of getting dirty when there's work to be done, and that sure is our Mandy! On right: in February 2003, this excellent work crew shows off their muddy splendor after a day of extracting fallen mangrove logs from a Matheson Preserve tidal corridor. Somehow Mandy always launders the mud out of her WRT shirt no matter how filthy it gets! From left, Paul Austin, Doug Andrade, Adrian Andrade, Nolan Cooper, Mandy, Jessica Addeo.