MRC Team
MRC Team Biographies
Ken Parks is Development Director at MRC, where he is continuing his career of stewarding responsible community development resources to improve our planet. Like many of us here who’ve been around a bit, Ken recalls his youth along Florida’s Space Coast, experiencing the former abundance of the Indian River Lagoon. He believes that we possess the right stuff it will take to restore this place to its former wonder, even while we are exploring the next great frontier, space. Ken is an avid outdoors person who spends a few hours a week volunteering at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge; is a former U.S. Navy photojournalist who loves snapping photos of our world; is the father of two grown wonderful sons; and has been a mentor to many other people working to find their place in our great world. What we do together, is our greatest work, he believes. Ken looks forward to working with all of you in advancing the powerful and lasting mission of MRC.
Caitlin Bagnall is the Community Environmental Educator at MRC. Originally from California, she always had a love for the ocean and the animals that inhabit it. During college at UC Santa Cruz, Caitlin cared for rescue sea lions and seals at the Marine Mammal Center, and cared for and trained dolphins, sea otters, and seals at the Marine Mammal Physiology Project. After graduating with a B.S. in Marine Biology and a minor in Psychology, she jetted off to Honolulu, HI to work as a dolphin trainer, leading swim-with-the-dolphins programs and educating the public on marine conservation. It was there that she realized her passion for teaching not only applies to those with flippers, but to humans as well! Now a Florida resident, Caitlin loves being near the water, trying to spot some of her old friends coming up for a breath.
Kara McGuirk Woods is the LagoonWatch Coordinator for the MRC. She is a geologist, earning her B.A. in Geology from Cornell University and her M.S. in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University. Before moving to Florida in 1994 with her husband Mark, a seismologist, she worked for an environmental consulting firm out of Chicago, traveling the Midwest and Northeast to work on state and federal hazardous waste site investigations and cleanups. She was born and raised in Massachusetts; her parents were public school teachers who taught her the value of education and a love of learning. A summer long family camping trip from Massachusetts to California when she was 6 showed her the wonders of the natural world, and she has been an advocate of the environment ever since.