Across the street from my MBL office, where I worked for three summers as a public information officer and science writer, is the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Down the street in either direction are other government and private research centers, including labs run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Woods Hole Research Center. It is a budding science journalist's dream town.

After the first summer wound down at the MBL, I found work as a reporter at the local tri-weekly, the Falmouth Enterprise, and two years later returned to fill in for the Cape Cod Times' science reporter, who was on maternity leave.

There are very few places as special as Woods Hole. Indeed, Saluda, N.C., where I now live, is one of the only comparable communities I can think of. Note that my first office for my first job was located just behind the model ship sailing out of the side of second floor of building at left.

That office is where I was introduced to the non-profit communications business, to which I have returned again and again.

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