Cherie Chenot - Rose

I would attribute my success to resilience and the ability to find opportunity in any situation, no matter how turbulent. You have to be like a crocodile - you can find opportunity in any water, no matter how turbulent that water is. That's my motto. I learned my resilience as a human being and as a female through experiences like living on a boat with 10 men at sea for 30 days in 60-foot seas, where you learn your physical limits and your strengths. Every person I've met has made me who I am today and influenced me. Whether it was working at the Barrier Island with Ken, or at sea, or surviving the jungle in Belize with flesh-eating bacteria and armed poachers, or rebuilding after losing everything in the arson - it's all taught me that you can make whatever you want of yourself and live whatever you dream yourself to be. You just have to be resilient and have the faith and courage to recognize opportunities even in adversity.

I've always worked in men's jobs, and I want women to know that you can do what you want to do. I was one of the only female women that ever made it aboard the fishing vessels in Alaska in the 90s - we were considered bad luck then, to be on the fishing boat. They didn't want me there. I was doing a man's job at a time before this was common. And then with the crocodiles, the same thing. But now there's more and more women in the crocodilian field than ever. In fact, one of our students, Marissa Tellez, had no croc experience whatsoever when she came to us, and we trained her. She now operates her own crocodile rescue program in Placentia, Belize. I'm so proud that we've raised a whole other generation of people nationally and all over who are in the industry because they got started with us. So my message is that you can do it - you just have to have the resilience and courage to push through.

The biggest challenge right now is that crocodile numbers are increasing in Florida, and croc-human conflicts are on the rise. A lot of people don't even realize there are crocodiles here - Florida is the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators coexist. People just want them out of the water and killed, but you start killing all the apex predators out of an ecosystem, the ecosystem goes out of balance. You'll have a mass die-off of fish populations. They're just like the wolves in Yellowstone - they keep everything in balance. My goal is to take the fear out of these apex predators that are extremely important, especially in Florida's ecosystems. We fear what we don't understand, so the opportunity is in education. With Give a Crock, we want to identify the animals before a croc-human conflict occurs, and teach people tips on how to safely coexist with crocs and alligators. The importance of not feeding the ducks, because you're indirectly feeding the alligators and teaching them to not fear humans, which makes them more prone to attack. It's all about raising awareness and teaching coexistence.

The most important value to me is protecting endangered species and educating people about coexistence with wildlife. The crocodiles were always our number one priority, even when we were struggling financially. We survived flesh-eating bacteria, jaguars, armed poachers, and even after losing everything in the arson, we stayed another 4 years because I still had crocs in captivity and I wasn't going to leave them. However, I also learned an important lesson about balance - I realized that sometimes people are more important than the animals. After my injury put a student in harm's way, and with my father getting sick and my grandma getting old, I'm an only child and that was all they had, so it was time to go back to our loved ones. I also value giving back - I donated my kidney to my father in 2009, and I try to advocate for organ donation because on average about 20 people die each day waiting for an organ. I want to use my platform to raise awareness about missing children and donate funds to help find them.