Rachael Z. Miller, Rozalia Project co-Founder and Executive Director, has spent her whole life in, on or interested in the water. She grew up in Saratoga, NY swimming and sailing on Saratoga Lake then went on to some great adventures during college studying Navigation, oceanography and maritime history with Sea Education Sea Semester on the schooner Westward Great Barrier Reef ecology, rainforest ecology and Aboriginal culture with the School for International Training on the northeast coast of Australia Marine Mammal Research and Conservation with The School for Field Studies in Baja California Sur, Mexico then graduated from Brown University with a degree in Anthropology and Underwater Archaeology.
After college, she was part of a Brown University/National Park Service submerged cultural resources team in the Dry Tortugas, studied maritime history at the Western Australia Maritime Museum and went on to run the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center in Burlington, VT acting as their Executive Director for 6 years. After LCCSC, Rachael started Stormboarding to teach wind and human powered water sports (snowkiting, windsurfing, kitesurfing and stand up paddleboarding). At the same time, in order to connect more people to their underwater world, she and James used an ROV to take guests on Lake Champlain to explore the amazing, intact shipwrecks without getting wet. This was the third worldwide and first tour of its kind in the US.
Rachael works with VideoRay to develop training and certification programs for ROV pilots and trains everyone from Navy Reserve Explosive Ordinance Disposal Units to volunteer Search and Rescue organizations how to properly operate the VideoRay ROV's and accessories. In addition, Rachael is an active Instructor and Coach Trainer with US Sailing and serves on their National Faculty and Training Committee helping to develop curriculum and deliver training programs.
She holds a US Coast Guard captain's license and SCUBA certification and feels very strongly about the protection of the sea and the creatures living in and playing on it.
