Michele Finn is retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Commissioned Officer Corps with over 25 years of service in 2013. Michele supported diverse science operations, policy initiatives and stakeholder engagement activities, including marine mammal and sea turtle conservation and research efforts. She functioned as a marine biologist, remote field camp leader and logistics coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service team studying endangered species throughout the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. Michele joined NOAA’s flight program and served in many leadership positions at the Aircraft Operations Center and accumulated over 4500 hours of flight time. Several thousands of those flight hours supported SEFSC marine mammal surveys. Throughout the years, Michele also served as the Assistant Superintendent of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Chief of Staff of the National Ocean Service and the Deputy Director of the Gulf of Mexico Disaster Response Center. She has an undergraduate degree in Marine Biology from Texas A&M University at Galveston and an MS in Zoology from the University of Hawaii.

Since retirement, Michele has worked in the private sector, focusing on environmental project management, field operations planning and management and contract/grant proposal development. Most recently, she has been employed as a coastal restoration project manager by an engineering and construction firm to help the State of Alabama manage their portfolio of projects supported with Deepwater Horizon restitution funding. Michele is also passionate about volunteering in her community and spends time actively engaged with sea turtle conservation and marine mammal stranding programs in Lower Alabama.