Mote Marine Laboratory

The Lady, the Sharks and the Lab they Founded

By: Dr. J. "Coz" Cozzi

A tiny marine research station that began as a Vanderbilt family vision soon became Dr. Eugenie Clark’s groundbreaking work. Today, it stands as a great legacy to its namesake, William R. Mote. Thanks to their vision, hundreds of scientists and thousands of students and volunteers have
enriched our knowledge of the marine environment and helped the public marvel at its lessons.

Dr. Clark arrived in January 1955 on a parcel of Vanderbilt land with a 12-foot-by-20-foot building, a dock, and a 21-foot Chris Craft, Dancer, named after Alfred G. Vanderbilt’s favorite racing horse, Native Dancer. With the help of local fisherman Beryl Chadwick, the fledgling lab caught its first sharks on Jan. 26. Specimen jars were scavenged from the defunct Bass Biological Station, and the locals started stopping by to see what was up at the Cape Haze Marine Lab’s shark pen. The lab incorporated on June 13, 1955. It was a humble, but important beginning.

In 1960, the lab moved to the south end of Siesta Key with the National Science Foundation funding half the cost of a new building because the agency admired the staff’s publication record. Fortuitously, the Mote family – William, his wife Lenore and his sister Betty Mote Rose – arrived in 1967 to replace the Vanderbilts as the lab’s primary financial sponsors. That year, Dr. Perry W. Gilbert assumed the mantle of director. Bill Mote’s considerable business acumen and boundless energy transformed the lab in size, while Perry Gilbert reorganized to pursue research in biomedicine, microbiology, neurobiology and behavior, ecology, and environmental health, while continuing its studies of sharks.

Eleven years later, the lab moved to its current location on City Island. In 1978, Dr. Bill Taft took the helm as president as ambitious growth in environmental research and educational programs continued. The Marine Science Center – now known as Mote Aquarium – opened under his leadership in 1980. Dr. Kumar Mahadevan, who was inspired by Mote’s work as a youth in India, took over the directorship in 1986 and today serves as president.

Today Mote has 9,000 individual and corporate members, and some 400,000 people visit Mote Aquarium each year. Volunteers, so much the lifeblood of the aquarium and laboratory, now number 1,500.

Mote science has grown at an even quicker pace. The lab now boasts a staff of 240, including 40 Ph.D. scientists and is organized into seven research centers. The lab also operates a fleet of vessels from its main campus and has a 200-acre aquaculture park on Fruitville Road, Sarasota. Field stations are also operated on Pine Island, Summerland Key and Key West, and public outreach continues through Mote Aquarium and a diverse group of programs offered through the Education Division.

But today, Mote Marine Laboratory’s greatest assets are still its people – the people who have never lost sight of the vision held by the Vanderbilts, Genie Clark and Bill Mote: That of quality scientific research that addresses important environmental questions and teaches the answers to the world.

Coz Cozzi is Mote Marine Laboratory’s nautical archaeologist and the husband of Dr. Eugenie Clark’s daughter, Hera Konstantinou.

You, too, can become an asset to Mote and the environment. Click below to make a contribution today that goes towards helping ensure the health of world waters tomorrow.