March 30, 2005

Greetings,

My name is Mr. Robert H. Bardach. I am a teacher at the Caribbean International Academy on the island of St. Maarten. The topic areas in which I instruct are Language Arts and Earth Science. I hold a both a BA and MA in the field of education from the University of Colorado and am currently a Doctoral candidate working in the field of Organizational Management and Business Leadership. It is also my extreme privilege and honor to be the sponsor for our school's Marine Research Team.

The Marine Research Team at the CIA is a non-profit organization dedicated to the exploration, study, and furthering of marine environmental understandings on local and global scales. The MRT uses many theories of research, logistics, finance, and marketing designs to further these understandings of our ocean world. Our 6^th-12^th grade students are able to perform vital training and scientific research in an underwater environment using various research techniques including SCUBA. Our goal is to become one of the world's premier high school marine research organizations.

To these ends, I have contacted the Nature Foundation Marine Park's manager Andy Caballero regarding a proposal for a research project we wish to undertake. I met with Mr. Caballero today and informed him that myself and several of my MRT divers had recently visited the Reef Ball site of the Caribbean Cargo off the coast of Divi Little Bay. My students were immediately intrigued by this project and began to research the possibilities for the establishment of our own Reef Ball initiative. During our meeting I presented the Team's desire to utilize the Reef Ball molds already on our island in a limited, non-commercial research science project for our high school research team. I also relayed that my team is very interested in assisting with the coral planting on the Reef Balls already in place at the Caribbean Cargo.

Mr. Caballero informed me that he would fully support such an initiative and would even assist us with training programs in the utilization of these molds. He informed me that I would need to make contact with your company for final authorization with regard to this project. The Marine Research Team is highly organized and extremely motivated to undertake such a project. We will fully fund this project through private donations and fundraising activities. We would like to become comfortable with the Reef Ball creation process from start to finish, and possibly turn this into an ongoing and far reaching high school level coral reef study program within our school's curriculum.

I encourage you to imagine not simply the impact that our project might have on the overall reputation of your company, but also the impact that this "real-world" scientific research will have on the lives of these wonderful young students. Once again, it is our goal to become one of the world's premier high school marine research organizations. We would be proud to include Reef Ball among our partners, and our friends, as we pursue this goal.

Very Sincerely,

Mr. Robert H. Bardach