Board of Directors

Jerry Walker (Board Chair)

Lyn Ciocca (Vice-Chair)
Lyn Ciocca McCaleb’s passion for diving began in 1987 in Cozumel.  The next year on an Earthwatch trip to Bonaire, she sat at 100 feet for 17-minute stretches drawing meter-by-meter squares of coral, sparking her passion for coral reefs and ocean preservation.  Since then she travels whenever she can to coral reef destinations, enjoying every breath underwater.  In 2002, she became a Director of the Coral Reef Alliance, an international non-profit that helps to create local marine parks. From 2006 until early 2010, she was CORAL Board Chair.  Lyn is now honored to be on the Teens4Oceans Board, helping to transfer her love of oceans and their stewardship to the next generation.

Lyn has over thirty years in marketing, management and market research, blending classical consumer package goods and entrepreneurial experiences.  With a strong background in marketing strategy and positioning, Lyn brings consumer insight to ongoing products, new product development and other business issues.  In her consulting company, Wellness Resources, Lyn works with major consumer package goods companies, pharmaceuticals, educational facilities and non-profits.  Her corporate responsibilities included Vice President of Marketing positions at Wyeth Consumer (Advil) and Rhone Poulenc Rorer (Maalox).  She has an MBA in Marketing from New York University and a BA in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.  For the last decade, her consulting work has focused on marketing research preparation, execution and analysis with consumers, professionals and other stakeholders. She is currently expanding her practice to include coaching for professionals in transition.

Lyn moved from New York City to Boulder, Colorado, where she now lives with her husband, Rob McCaleb, an ethnobotanist.

Graham Casden (Treasurer)
Born in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Graham moved to California as a child and quickly developed an insatiable love for the water. After eighteen years on the ocean, he moved to Boulder to attend the University of Colorado. Graham has traveled far and wide and had the privilege of seeing much of the world by the time he finished college. For him, the importance of traveling is in its rewards: knowledge, insight, and experience.

Graham is a CU alumnus from the Leeds School of Business, a Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) Master Scuba Diver Trainer and an underwater photographer with hundreds of logged dives around the world. In 2005, he founded Ocean First Divers, an environmentally conscious dive operation created to cultivate concern for the plight of the oceans while establishing an industry precedent for accountability and sustainability. As the business progressed, Graham realized there was a tremendous need to improve marine science education across the board, among divers, students, and working professionals. In 2010, Graham joined Teens4Oceans and helped create Ocean Classrooms to design and deliver a highly engaging, innovative approach to teaching key educational disciplines. As a sentient being and small business owner, his goal has been to create products and experiences that enhance lives and afford the opportunity to witness the same magic he has been fortunate enough to experience.

Trevor Mendelow
Trevor Mendelow earned his Master's Degree in Molecular Ecology from Humboldt State University. He has seventeen years of experience in education and administration. He taught college for nine years until finding his passion as a high school teacher.

Trevor founded Teens4Oceans in 2007 at Kent Denver School in Denver, Colorado. He hoped that he and his students could engage youth in a stewardship mission to preserve their natural marine heritage. Over the years the mission of Teens4Oceans has evolved to include education, experiential learning, scientific research, and innovative technologies. Trevor has worked hard to select projects for the T4O program that challenge students to think outside of the box, and this has carried over to the organization's educational and outreach programs.

Trevor is the imagination and inspiration of T4O. He started the organization with a home-made website. Beginning with the success of a school project in the Florida Keys, The Goliath Grouper Research Project (GGRP), Trevor has assembled a wonderful team of student ambassadors, a network of scientists, non-governmental organizations, and concerned citizens who are working together to scientifically address conservation issues. He has formed partnerships and alliances all over the nation with The National Parks Service (NPS), The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), The National Marine Sanctuaries (NMS) and The Aquarius Reef Base (ARB).

Trevor is also the Executive Director of Teens4Oceans. One of his main goals is to create T4O chapters all over the nation. He loves working with young people and believes that if students experience and can understand the wonder and beauty of the ocean, they will become advocates for marine resource preservation. Trevor drives his T4O student team to excel, and he has proven that bright, engaged, passionate kids can do magic!

Don DeMaria
Don DeMaria is a commercial fisherman/diver who lives in the Florida Keys. In the late 1980s, Don spearheaded an effort to conserve a species of fish that was once common to the waters of the South East US, the Goliath Grouper. He became aware that the fish had become critically endangered, primarily due to overfishing during spawning aggregations.  He wrote letters to every preservation agency he could, explaining what he had discovered, and as a direct result of his efforts, the Goliath Grouper was placed on the Endangered Species List, giving it protection. Today, two decades later, the Goliath Grouper populations have become healthy and robust, and Don has become an inspiration to all of us at Teens4Oceans; he is proof that every-day Americans can make a difference!

Don brings an incredible wealth of experience and insight to Teens4Oceans, and has served as an advisor, volunteer, advocate, and dear friend to all of us. He has assisted in benthic surveys and coral transplantation projects, collected invertebrates from marine waters for the National Cancer Institute, and worked as a research assistant for the Coral Reef Research Foundation in the South Pacific.  His work involving the collection and photographing of marine invertebrates for the National Cancer Institute from areas around the US and outside US waters (Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Palau, Micronesia, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Bahrain and Australia) make Don one of T4O's most valuable advisors.

Don has worked with many different organizations on various fishery research projects including Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (State of Florida), several offices of the National Marine Fisheries Service, Caribbean Marine Research Center (CMRC), and the National Geographic Society. He has done deep wreck diving (200 to 350 feet) in the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas areas, and has located and identified World War II wrecks and several other older shipwrecks in deeper seas using mixed gas.

Don was the Lead Advisor for Summerhays Films, an environmental film-making organization based in San Diego, California, and is a member of many organizations, including the State of Florida, Fish and Wildlife Commission Marine Life Working Group, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Grouper Advisory Panel since 1990), the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Marine Reserves Advisory Panel since 1999), the Tortugas 2000 Working Group (helped establish the Dry Tortugas Ecological Reserves), the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council (elected vice-president of board for years), the Monroe County Marine and Port Advisory Board (appointed to the board by the County Commission), and the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Reef  Fish Advisory Panel).              

In April 2000, Don was awarded the Environmental Hero Award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Mike Park
Family and friends of Mike Park always knew he would fulfill his childhood dreams of pursuing a career in nature and ecology.  These interests became a reality while at the University of Colorado where he worked for the Biology Department, maintaining the lab’s aquariums for research and breeding programs.   From his education and hands on work experience, Mike’s knowledge expanded greatly in Boulder as the owner of Aqua Imports, a retail store which specializes in sustainable collection, aquaculture, and captive bred livestock.  It is through his business that Mike first became aquainted with Trevor Mendelow.

As a member of Teens4Oceans, Mike is instrumental in designing, building, and installing the webcams, housings, and LED lighting systems.  His knowledge about marine life and coral is extensive. His creativity and openness to new ideas, combined with an outgoing personality are the kind of leadership qualities students relate to easily.  He enjoys spending time in the field and now dreams of establishing a small research station to support marine education. Mike is a pivotal member of our team, working countless hours on our program on top of working his full time job.  

He has traveled extensively with Trevor Mendelow and his crew, and recently accepted the position of Director of Field Operations and Project Management.  He will work directly with students and mentor them on projects they develop, in addition to contributing to the web page. Mike was originally from New York and now lives in Boulder, CO and where he earned his baccalaureate degree in Environmental, Population and Organism Biology from the University of Colorado.