Rick Gomez
University of Miami
Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences

I am the Diving Safety Officer at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. My assignment on this mission is to identify and count the local reef fish population for Dr. Steven G. Smith, who is a co-Principal Investigator on the project.

I was born and raised in Coral Gables, Florida (a suburb of Miami) and spent a lot of time in and around the water while growing up. I started diving back in the early 1980s with my friends. With the nation's best reefs just off the coast, strangely we managed to do most of our diving in the canals around Coral Gables, looking for golf balls and practicing spearfishing by shooting mullet.

Although I spent much of my youth in the water, my real passion while growing up was soccer. I played on 4 state championship teams in the youth ranks and traveled all over the country playing in tournaments. I attended and played soccer at Christopher Columbus High School in Miami where I was chosen as an all county selection. After a successful high school career I was given an athletic scholarship to attend the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. At UNC Charlotte I played every game of my college career, 76, which was a school record at the time, and made various conference, regional, and national teams. Along the way I also earned a B.A. in Communications. I was inducted into the UNC Charlotte Hall of Fame in 1994. From college soccer I moved on to a season as a professional in the American Professional Soccer League and played for the Miami Freedom. After the season my life changed dramatically and I found myself in the Bahamas, not as a soccer player but as a research diver.

I worked for the Caribbean Marine Research Center (CMRC), a NURC facility on Lee Stocking Island, Exumas, Bahamas. Originally employed at CMRC as a research diver for a PhD student and later a staff researcher, I spent most of my time on the island as the Diving Safety Officer. There I learned the "in's and out's" of what it took to run a scientific diving and small boat program. The experience I received there was invaluable as I had to deal with everything you can imagine. This experience helped prepare for my current position as Diving Safety Officer at the University of Miami.

When I'm not diving I am probably spending time with my wife, Betsy and son, Trey. I still stay active playing soccer but have also raced in several triathlons and adventure races.