Our Board of Trustees represent a wide array of backgrounds and experiences, but we all share a passion for ocean conservation, education, and citizen science. Learn more about this dedicated team below.
Anna DeLoach - President
Ned DeLoach | James P. Dalle Pazze, Esq |Byron Bishop| Marta Bonatz - Chair| Janet Camp |Tamsen "Tamie" Gray DeWitt | Scott Heppell, Ph.D. | Mary E. "Mel" McCombie, Ph.D. | Chun T. Wright
Paul Humann - in memory
Anna took an early retirement from her mainframe computer career to work with husband, author Ned DeLoach. She started shooting underwater video to assist him in studying and documenting fish behavior for their book, Reef Fish Behavior: Florida, Bahamas, Caribbean. Her comprehensive video footage proved indispensable for analyzing fish behaviors detailed in the book and series of articles that she and Ned write for diving magazines. In 2011, she was inducted into the Women Divers Hall of Fame. A REEF member since she participated in the very first REEF Field Survey in July 1993 in Key Largo, Anna has taught many fish identification classes, co-led multiple REEF Field Surveys, participated in some of the first lionfish research trips in the Bahamas, and joined the Grouper Moon Project in Little Cayman in 2018. She created the Introduction to Fish Identification teaching DVD used in REEF’s Caribbean survey starter package. She also produced Sensational Seas I (2004) and Sensational Seas II (2010), DVDs that debuted at dive industry film festivals and were sold as fundraisers for REEF. Anna chronicles her adventures with Ned on their website, blennywatcher.com.
Shortly after graduating from Texas Tech University in 1967, Ned moved to Florida to dive. During his 20-year teaching career in Jacksonville, Florida, Ned was active in the Florida cave diving community and wrote many articles for popular scuba diving publications. In 1979 he formed New World Publications and published The Diving Guide to Underwater Florida, in print for 40 years. In 1985, Ned, recently appointed editor-in-chief of Ocean Realm magazine, invited Paul Humann to join him as co-editor. After two years they left the magazine business to independently publish marine life field guides. Their first publication, Reef Fish Identification, Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas appeared in 1989. It was during the work on that first book that Ned and Paul and co-founded REEF. Over the years Ned and his wife, Anna, have written a series of columns about marine life for diving magazines in the United States and Asia. Currently their writing and photography appears as a regular feature in Alert Diver. Their dive travels are chronicled at BlennyWatcher.com.
Jim was one of the first people consulted by Paul Humann and Ned DeLoach in 1989, when they had the idea for forming REEF. As a long-time diving friend and corporate attorney for their company, New World Publications, Jim served as sounding board, and provided wise counsel as they created their vision for the organization. He knew immediately that the time was right to incorporate and establish the organization as a 501(c)(3) charity, and guided them through the process. Jim serves as a founding Board member, assisting with budgeting, financial transparency, and legal matters. Originally from Princeton, New Jersey, Jim and his wife Jan live in Delaware, where he has practiced law since 1979. He is an active diver and underwater photographer.
Byron participated in his first REEF survey in 2017 and was instantly hooked. He was intrigued by REEF’s combination of both in-the-water conservation work and public outreach efforts. A software engineer by training, Byron started his career at Microsoft. While there he was a founding member and lead engineer of the group that would create Expedia, Inc. He brings to REEF a broad range of corporate and non-profit experiences from large established corporations and non-profits to small startup for-profit and non-profit organizations. Byron is a former chair of both The Nature Conservancy of Washington and Eastside Preparatory School, and has also served on the board of the Seattle Aquarium where he currently works as a volunteer diver. In addition to working for the conservation of nature, he also enjoys the outdoors and has worked as both a divemaster and a ski instructor to share his passion with others. Byron lives in Seattle with his wife Sheila where they have been in the area for 40 years.
Originally from Terre Haute, Indiana, Marta lived all over the East Coast during her work as a sales executive with DuPont. She and her husband Paul now call Key Largo, Florida, home (just a few miles from the REEF Campus). She joined REEF in 1998, initially to improve her fish ID skills. In 2005, she and Paul took their first REEF Field Survey trip to Guanaja, Puerto Rico, and she was hooked on fish surveying. She is an Expert-level REEF surveyor and achieved her Golden Hamlet recognition of 1,000 surveys in 2023. Marta brings vast expertise in business models, finance, and donor relations to REEF. She also serves as REEF’s Key Largo Volunteer Coordinator, helping our local volunteers with events, garden club, and more. In addition to her service on REEF’s board, she is a board member of MarrVelous Pet Rescues, an animal rescue organization in the Upper Keys. Marta received her BS in Chemical Engineering at Purdue University and her MBA at University of North Carolina.
Growing up in land-locked Oklahoma, it would seem unlikely for Janet to become an ocean lover; however, with a native Floridian as her father, Janet became a certified scuba diver as a teenager, almost 50 years ago. With a BS in Chemistry and MS in Engineering Management, Janet worked as a Semiconductor Research Engineer developing processes for creating microchips at Texas Instruments for many years before she and her husband, Doug, traded their “corporate, city life” for rural entrepreneurship, owning and operating a Bed & Breakfast in Taos, New Mexico for nearly a decade. After meeting Paul Humann while diving in Fiji in 2011, Janet immediately joined REEF and participated in her first REEF Field Survey Trip. She has since gone on to become a prolific surveyeor and is an Expert in six regions. She became a member of the Golden Hamlet Club with her 1000th survey in March 2023. Having worked with nonprofits for over 40 years, Janet brings finance and budgeting experience to the Board. She also serves on the board of La Puente Home, a Colorado nonprofit that provides assistance to homeless and hungry. Janet founded The Pelton Charitable Foundation, Inc. in 2005. When they are not traveling, Janet and Doug split their time between Austin, TX and Colorado.
Tamie has always been inspired by the ocean. It may be because her parents are both from Rhode Island, the ocean state. She was raised as an army brat and was fortunate enough to go to junior high and high school in the Canal Zone in Panama, Central America. After moving back to the states and getting her masters degree in International Education she taught ESOL for adults in Maryland. In 1986 she went to Korea where she taught English for three years. She always knew that she needed to be near the ocean in some way. She started working at the Invertebrate Exhibit at the Smithsonians National Zoo in 1992. Her job at the Zoo was the opportunity of a lifetime. As Assistant Curator, she was able to not only care for and learn about the 99% of animals on earth, but to be able to educate the public on lesser exhibited animals including Giant Pacific Octopus, Nautilus, cuttlefish, mantis shrimp, spiders and butterflies! She maintains reef tanks at home and is involved with MonarchWatch.org. In 1994 when Tamie became a Smithsonian Scientific Diver, a whole new world opened up for her. Through her local aquarium club, Washington Area Marine Association, Tamie and her husband, Bob found REEF and the amazing work that they do within a community of enthusiastic citizen scientists. Bob and Tamie began diving all over the world and discovering the diversity in the different areas where they traveled.
Scott has been active in the marine conservation field for almost 27 years, and as a REEF Board member his work supports the organization’s mission at the nexus of science, conservation, and the public. He first became involved with REEF’s programs in 2005 when he joined the Grouper Moon Project research team to assist with fish tagging. Scott now serves as one of the Grouper Moon principal scientists, and values his role in a project that serves as a showcase example for how marine conservation in the Caribbean should be done. He also serves on several ocean-related regional and federal organizations, and has a strong belief in the value of citizen science and the role that non-profits like REEF play in the conservation and management of our marine world. His research interests include the physiological ecology and conservation of fishes. Scott and his wife Selina (also a fisheries biologist) established the Heppell REEF Marine Conservation Internship scholarship fund to support traditionally underserved populations to participate in REEF’s internship program.
Mel joined REEF in 1993 and did her first field survey in the Dry Tortugas, where Paul Humann and Ned DeLoach taught the fish ID course. She joined the board (along with husband Harris Friedberg) in 2015. McCombie is a longtime academic who has taught art history and American Studies at Smith College and The University of Connecticut; she co-directed the American Studies graduate program at Trinity College for twelve years, taking a year out as a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, then taught in the graduate program at Wesleyan University. Administrative and professorial work in the academy has taught her much about managing people. She and her husband live part of the year in Bonaire, dive as much as possible, and believe passionately in the power of citizen science and cooperative projects to improve the environment.
Chunnie is the owner of the Law Office of Chun T. Wright, a Washington, DC-based boutique law firm, which focuses on intellectual property (trademark and copyright), emerging technologies, and adventure travel law. Chunnie has been a litigator at major law firms in the San Francisco Bay Area, a federal prosecutor in Washington, DC, and vice president of anti-piracy legal affairs at a DC-based trade association. Chunnie has been a REEF member since 2008. She also serves on other boards that focus on conservation, nature, and adventure travel. Chunnie received her BBA from the University of Texas at Austin and her JD from the University of California Berkeley School of Law. She is an avid diver and traveler.
In Memory
Paul’s pathway to REEF began in 1971, when he left a successful law career to own and operate the Caribbean’s first liveaboard dive boat, the Cayman Diver. For the next nine years, as captain of the vessel, he amassed a notable collection of fish and invertebrate images, many taken in their natural habitat for the first time. Soon Paul, in collaboration with marine taxonomists from the Smithsonian, Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and the California Academy of Sciences, began collecting specimens to help document identifications. These early efforts lay the groundwork for his enduring collaboration with the scientific community. In 1989, Paul and co-author Ned DeLoach published their first marine life field guide, Reef Fish Identification—Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas. While assembling material for this book, Paul and Ned were surprised by the lack of comprehensive species distribution information. This planted the idea of establishing an organization, powered by trained volunteer divers and snorkelers, for gathering much-needed data. They founded REEF in 1990. Paul’s service and legacy demonstrate the power one individual has to change the world. Despite “retiring” from the board, Paul continued to serve with distinction and excellence; attending events, participating in programs, and providing counsel to our staff and board.
Read more about Paul's legacy here - www.REEF.org/remembering-paul-humann