Brady Booton, Marine Operations Supervisor

Tell us about yourself and your work at NOS.

My name is Brady Booton and I am a Marine Operations Supervisor for Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. I manage a team of diving and boating professionals that maintain a network of hundreds of mooring buoys throughout the 4,539 square miles of sanctuary waters. My work includes operating vessels, diving to install seafloor anchors, and cleaning or replacing missing buoy systems.

Every year, thousands of visitors come to the Florida Keys to enjoy the incredible ocean environment and marine life. Our mooring buoys allow boaters to safely tie up their vessels, while diving or fishing, without needing to drop heavy metal anchors on the seafloor, which can damage sensitive marine life. These NOAA buoys protect the overall health of the entire Key’s ecosystem.

Tell us about your journey to where you are in your career.

After graduating college, I moved to the Florida Keys for an internship with The Nature Conservancy. I spent a lot of time out on the reef, became a divemaster, and eventually earned a U.S. Coast Guard Captain’s license. While working as a divemaster, we often used mooring buoys while diving on the coral reefs and I realized that becoming one of the professionals that maintains the buoy system would be a fulfilling career path. I liked the idea of earning a living while contributing to the preservation of the marine ecosystem that I had come to cherish.

What is most exciting about your work?

Spending my work days out on the ocean is exciting and always an adventure. When diving into the marine environment, you never know what you may come across, and the coral reef is a beautiful place filled with diverse lifeforms of all kinds. I find it rewarding to know that the work I do protects this place from harm, and I am proud to contribute to the community of boaters that use our moorings on a daily basis and are thankful for the service that NOAA provides.

If you could suggest one class or experience that inspired you in your career path, what would it be?

SCUBA classes, of course! SCUBA and marine biology are the classes that really inspired my love for the ocean and prepared me for my career with NOAA to protect our precious ocean ecosystems.