Town environmentalist accepts Rookery job
Keith Laakkonen is working his final day for the Town of Fort Myers Beach at Town Hall today.
The FMB Environmental Sciences Coordinator since 2008 has accepted the director position at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Naples. He begins his new post next Monday, July 27.
“It’s a pretty big career move,” said Laakkonen. “This is my dream job. If someone asked me if I could have any job, I would have said this one. The fact that I could land it is very humbling.”
Rookery Bay Reserve protects 110,000 acres of coastal lands and waters at the northern end of the Ten Thousand Islands. The Reserve employs nearly 40 people in various capacities, including research, stewardship, education, coastal training, facilities and administration.
The move will allow Laakkonen to work closer to home (he is a Naples resident) and supervise like-minded people.
“I will be managing a really talented dedicated staff of coastal management professionals, including a research staff, stewardship coordinator, coastal training program coordinator, an educational coordinator and a coordinator for their environmental learning center,” he said. “I will be working with everybody there to help research, protect and manage the resources there and also help them implement their education, outreach and training programs. I will also be working with the aquatic preserves on the west coast of Florida, including Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve with Cheryl Clark.”
Each national estuarine research reserve is designated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help represent the local ecology of a region, says Laakkonen. There are only three NERRs in Florida.
“Rookery Bay is designed to represent the mangrove ecology of the subtropical mangrove swamps of Florida,” he said. “I not only will be working locally with local government down in Collier County and other counties around the area, but also on a state-wide level with the Florida Coastal office, which is a division of DEP and on the national level. I will try to coordinate all these national monitoring efforts and will be using the national estuarine research reserve nation-wide as a system to compare and contrast trends and conditions among different estuaries across the nation.”
Laakkonen replaces the retiring Gary Lytton, who worked at Rookery Bay for 29 years
“I have really big shoes to fill. It’s an honor to get one of these positions,” he said. “Obviously, this is a once-in-a-lifetime position.”
After the Fort Myers native and 1998 graduate of the University of Florida left college, he began his career managing coastal resources with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Coastal Aquatic Preserve program. Through those assignments, he has worked in Crystal River, Charlotte Harbor and Rookery Bay, where he worked under Lytton’s tutelage.
“I had the pleasure of working for Gary at Rookery Bay as the stewardship coordinator for three years,” Laakkonen. “This literally may be the last job I ever have.”
While working for the Town, Laakkonen has been well respected and received several accolades to show his worth. He received the 2014 Florida Shore & Beach Preservation Association’s Environmental Award for significant contributions to the environment in the cause of beach preservation. The award cited his development of a partnership program for beach nesting birds as well as an innovative management plan with DEP for beach vegetation, the latter regarded as the first of its kind in Florida. Back in 2011, Laakkonen was the recipient of the Audubon Society’s prestigious Guy Bradley Award for his groundbreaking and innovative work in creating a plan and partnership to enable birds to nest on private beach areas.
Besides monitoring birds at Little Estero Island Critical Wildlife Area and the beaches at the southern terminus of Estero Island and leading the development of a partnership program with the Town, Audubon of Florida, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and several private property owners, Laakkonen has acted as the Town’s Environmental Code Enforcement Officer, ensuring compliance with environmental sections of the Land Development Code, particularly the sea turtle lighting ordinance, beach raking and dune management regulations. He represented the Town on the Estero Bay Agency for Bay Management and the Management Committee for the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program as well as coordinated with other local scientists to make recommendations to the South Florida Water Management District and Corps of Engineers on management of the Caloosahatchee Watershed.
Laakkonen was the coastal manager for the Town and has led the development of a coastal management plan for all of the island that provides information such as coastal bathymetry, local geologic conditions, sediment budgets, evaluation of alternative technology and local and regional processes that coastal managers can utilize for long-term beach management. He is certified by FEMA as a Certified Floodplain Manager that allows him to implement floodplain regulations and outreach that benefits the Town’s natural systems.
Laakkonen was asked what his town experience taught him to help fulfill this position dream.
“I have learned a lot about coastal management, beach nourishment and the way that beaches sort of fit into the overall eco-system of southwest Florida,” he said. “I now understand how the direct coastal management and engineering can actually have positive benefits for the environment as well as people too. Coastal resiliency is helping build eco-systems and local communities to be more resilient in the event of storms and sea level rise.”
Through it all, Laakkonen has learned that collaborative efforts are vital.
“The only way that we accomplished any of that is through working in partnerships with other agencies and Town staff as well as Town Council and the residents on the island. I don’t think any of those are my accomplishments. Those are Town accomplishments,” he said. “I am just happy to have been a part of those and to work with the partners to make better informed decisions.”
Partnerships will continue to serve as important in the road ahead.
“In the environmental field, nobody does anything in isolation,” he said. “You have to develop partnerships to do all these things. No agency has enough resources to do everything.”
Laakkonen would like to express “huge thanks to everybody whose taken the time to work with me on a variety of different projects.” He believes the future is bright for the Town.
“It’s been a lot of fun. We have accomplished some pretty interesting and amazing things,” he said. “I am pretty excited to have worked with those folks.”
Even during his last week of work on the Beach, Laakkonen is still impressed with Beach surroundings. He found a wild American Flamingo wading in Estero Bay (see that photo under Through Your Eyes in this issue). A week earlier, he assisted in moving an alligator back to the water.
“Maybe that was the Town and environment’s way of saying that we still have some amazing stuff here,” he concluded.