Local man up for national award

Ashley Teffer
James Dessenberg may be retired, but you won’t see him on the golf course. He’s been keeping busy with more charitable endeavors. So busy in fact that his peers have taken great notice and have nominated him for the 2008 National Marine Sanctuary Foundation Volunteer of the Year Award.

“I didn’t believe it when I got the first letter. I said well there’s something wrong here,” Dessenberg said.

Dessenberg has been nominated for his work at the Thunder Bay Marine Sanctuary where he has served for several years.

“I was thinking about retiring and I am sort of interested in shipwrecks. At the grand opening of the heritage center I was just in awe of what they had, so I said well I’ve got to retire so I can come to the sanctuary and spend some time,” Dessenberg said.

He currently works as a greeter at the sanctuary, and in addition he works the Maritime Festival, sells tickets and works on the ROV competition.

“In addition to the sanctuary, I’ve worked over two years on the research project, Pat Labadie’s research project,” Dessenberg said. “When I was working on the initial research project under a grant we were working 19 hours a week. Volunteers were requested to work four hours a week. It varies when the sanctuary is open I like to get in there at least a half a day on a Saturday once a month.”

There are 15 marine sanctuaries in the U.S. and each year every sanctuary gets to nominate one volunteer for the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation Volunteer of the Year Award. On June 3, the NMSF will be holding a luncheon to recognize the nominees followed by a leadership awards dinner where it will announce the winner of the volunteer of the year award. Invitees to the award events include members of Congress, Capitol Hill staff and federal, state and local government representatives.

“I still can’t believe it. I won’t believe it till I get there and see what’s going on,” Dessenberg said.

Dessenberg is no novice in the volunteer community. He has spent 20 years of his life volunteering with the Boy Scouts.

“My boys were in the Scouts so I just got into helping them out. Stuck with them 20 years even after they were out I stayed with them,” Dessenberg said. “I did a Sea Scout program through the Scouts for about 10 years. A couple years we took trips over to Canada.”

For those who are interested in volunteering in the community there will be a volunteer training session on Saturday from 2-4 p.m. at the sanctuary.

Ashley Teffer can be reached via e-mail at ateffer@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5689.