Albert Einstein once said, "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who no longer pauses to wonder, and stand in rapt awe, is as good as dead.”

Lisa Laraway came to us from New Orleans filled with anticipation, excitement, and dreams. It was in New Orleans, "Land of Dreams," where she attended Catholic schools for 16 years. She has four brothers and three stepsisters and most of her family still lives in New Orleans.

While at Dominican High School, she got a job working with Hilton Hotel in Food and Beverage on weekends and nights after school. After high school, she attended LSU but continued to work with Hilton hotels.  After completing her first year, she decided to take a year off to go live in New York City to just experience life, and to see "what was out there."

She returned to Baton Rouge at the end of the year and went back to LSU.  Not looking for a handout, she also returned to work part time at the Hilton. Part time meant 40 hours a week in order to pay for her college, transportation, apartment and any and all of her other needs.

After a couple years of school, she was still not sure what field of study she would pursue.  Hilton offered her a position with them in Washington, D. C., two blocks from the White House, and she jumped at it. She stayed in Washington for six years and moved from the area of food and beverage to Front Office operations then sales, catering and convention services.

She was in charge of specials events for President Reagan, who was in office at the time.  She had a security clearance which allowed her to be responsible for various functions for Heads of State that were given at the White House.

After six years in Washington, she returned to Louisiana and completed her undergraduate degree at Loyola University.  Restarting school, she decided to follow a long time dream of becoming a large animal medicine vet and she graduated with a degree in per-veterinary medicine/biochemistry.

Needing money to support herself while in school, she worked as a vet tech, and for experience she also volunteered at Audubon Zoo where she learned to work as a Sea Lion trainer.

While in school, she met a gentleman and they were married. Lisa had just gotten her undergrad degree and was trying to decide if she wanted to continue to vet school or work at the zoo when her husband at the time was transferred to Atlanta. They settled on Lake Lanier Island. Unfortunately, the Atlanta zoo was a two-hour commute, so she went back to work at Lake Lanier Island Resort.

Finally, she was able to transfer back to New Orleans when a position as a trainer opened up at the zoo. She did shows for the public with birds of prey and also worked with more than 300 children training them to be Junior Keepers and handle small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates for the public to touch.

Her job ended the day Hurricane Katrina hit the zoo, and the entire city shut down.  Only essential positions at the zoo were kept. As we all know, the hurricane brought massive destruction to the area including her home which was destroyed and had over 10 feet of water.

As the hurricane passed and the enormity of the devastation set in, back in New Orleans she and a few friends formed a non-profit organization called The Beacon of Hope. They started cleaning up where needed, and took charge of working volunteers. People from all over the country were coming to help, and they worked clean-up for free accepting donations that were used to purchase equipment that helped in more clean-up.

New Orleans City Park had an enormous amount of damage and were looking for someone to help with their mess. They had heard about the work Lisa was doing and offered her a job as a project manager to assist with the recovery of City Park, which had $43 million in damages. 

During a period of four years she worked with 30,000 volunteers, and raised more than $1 million in donations for the volunteer projects. She was promoted after the second year to director and one of her responsibilities was the complete renovation and re-building of the old Carousel Gardens Amusement park from the ground up. 

While at City Park the stress of life the last several years caused her and her husband at the time to part ways.  She is now engaged and very happy with her fiancé who is a strength and conditioning coach working with football and various other sports. Looking for a change of venue, a position opened up as the Southwest District Superintendent for Alabama State Parks, which included Gulf State Park. Lisa applied, and was hired in April 2012.

Her fiancé', who is originally from Alabama, also had a chance to move this way, and did. The position also required that the superintendent manage park law enforcement. Lisa went to the Police Academy as part of her training and is now a state law enforcement officer for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources where all park rangers are law enforcement.

At Gulf State Park, their Rangers also work as facility managers including the pier, campground, pavilion, picnic area and trails.  There are five other parks in Lisa's (Southwest) district which include Meaher, Frank Jackson, Florala, Bladon Springs and Chickasaw. 

One of her favorite people is Patti Hall, curator of the zoo whom, like herself, doesn't know the term, "it can't be done."  Of course it was a perfect opportunity for Lisa to become involved with the zoo, she was appointed to the Board of Directors and is very excited for the opportunity.

This is Lisa's third year, and she says she's comfortably home on the island.  She truly admires the previous director, Hugh Branyon, and says he's an icon. She says she has big shoes to fill, and believes she can do it.

She's an "A" type person and expects nothing but the best from her staff, and they obviously are delivering. Lisa feels her team at the park has done an amazing job. She's been nominated to be in the Sirens Mardi Gras group, and Lisa does want to become more involved in the community.

She's planning some big events in the Park for this new year, and she loves the challenge of the job.  On her e-mail she quotes, "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass.  It's about learning how to dance in the rain."

How fortunate Gulf Shores is to have her on the Island, and how lucky am I to be able to call Lisa my friend.