The Sarasota Bay Estuary Program is seeking to fill its top position — executive director.
A notice for the post in SBEP’s Bay Reflections July newsletter read, “The successful applicant will have demonstrated experience in … fostering and maintaining collaborative approaches to complex environmental issues; the ability to facilitate consensus among diverse and sometimes conflicting stakeholders; success in raising funds from public and private sectors.”
The new hire will succeed David Tomasko, who started with the SBEP more than four years ago at the environmental organization dedicated to “to restoring our area’s greatest and most important natural asset — Sarasota Bay.”
In a July 16 post on LinkedIn, Tomasko wrote, “Our bay is not pristine, but it’s cleaner now than it’s been in many years, and we’ve just recorded a 19% increase in seagrass coverage, nearly 2,000 acres of new fisheries habitat and more food for manatees and green sea turtles.
“However, it’s time for me to step aside, which was my intention when I was hired. It’s time for a new director to take the reins, and make sure that our hard-fought progress doesn’t slip away from us again. I’m going back to the private sector, to look for opportunities to help other systems in other locations.”
Tomasko added, “I loved my time as director, and so will the next one, I’m sure.”
For more information, go to sarasotabay.org/careers.
To reach SBEP, call 941-955-8085.