Education/Training Specialist II

352.273.1680 – oceanus@ufl.edu

Ryan’s primary responsibility is to instruct courses offered at the T2 Center. He spends most of his teaching time in the Pilot Escort and Flagging program leading many virtual and in-person trainings.  When he is not actively leading a course, he is developing additional training courses on varying subjects and discussing the training needs of T2’s clients.

Ryan has a varied background that has become a great help in his work as an instructor.  He has worked as a classroom science instructor for high school students, as a field technician in industrial air quality testing and regulation, and as an industrial and heavy equipment operator. These positions have honed Ryan’s ability to learn complicated materials quickly and be able to teach them to others in varying techniques to best suit their learning styles.

During high school, Ryan worked on charter sailboats and helped facilitate corporate team building while racing those boats.  Being able to not only foresee problems occurring with the boat performance but also how to explain the solutions for those issues effectively to the clients taught him great patience and customer service skills. Working with clients in a positive way to bring out their best and help them discover better solutions to challenges is first and foremost for Ryan as an educator.  

Away from the office, Ryan likes to have a running list of projects to work on; with this list, he can quickly see the status of everything, which allows him to stay on task and switch projects when needed.  Ryan loves the sense of accomplishment in removing completed items from that list.

Ryan’s personal projects range from 3D design and printing, vehicle and vessel restoration, yard improvement projects, and metal art creation. He gets a great sense of fulfillment from taking an idea or concept in his mind and making it exist in the physical world.