Staff Spotlight, Laura Suthar
Environmental Specialist, Laura Suther
Laura Suthar was born in North Carolina but spent most of her life growing up in Florida. Laura’s Florida native parents encouraged her love of the outdoors by taking her snorkeling on Florida’s coral reefs, teaching her the names of birds and seashells, camping, and boating.
She became interested in conservation work in high school. She started an environmental club at her school and competed in annual Envirothon competitions. The first Florida state park she fell in love with was John D. MacArthur Beach State Park where she liked to kayak through the mangroves.
After earning a degree in biology from New College of Florida, Laura began working for Florida State Parks through the AmeriCorps program at Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin. She went on to graduate school and a brief career as a high school science teacher in St. Johns County. After six years of teaching, Laura returned to public service as an environmental specialist at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. She then relocated to Gainesville with her family and began working at Devil’s Millhopper Geological State Park and San Felasco Hammock Preserve State Park.
Laura is the park services specialist at these two parks that she loves for their historical, ecological, recreational and geological significance. She can often be found in the field documenting and treating invasive plant infestations. She loves to participate in prescribed fire, and she hopes to help keep both parks in a healthy rotation of regular, safe, prescribed fires.
You also can find her giving interpretive programs like the Saturday ranger guided hike at Devil’s Millhopper. Laura’s goals are to remain at these two parks for many years and work to improve the trails, the habitats, and the public outreach and educational programs.
Alachua County has many nature lovers and many beautiful parks to visit. Laura would like to see these two parks become the crown jewels of Gainesville and Alachua.