Michael Lampman has been paddling for over 25 years and
estimates
that he has covered at least 30,000 miles in the waters of the
Southeastern US in addition
to many other locations foreign and domestic.
Addicted to paddling, for Michael it is practically a
lifestyle. He goes paddling and exploring several times a week
year round. Multi-day
trips in the area are commonplace and about once a year he goes for
weeks at a time to more distant destinations such as Coastal Maine,
Minnesota's Boundary Waters, the Colorado River, or Southeast Alaska.
Michael as written numerous articles,
reviews and trip reports appearing in kayaking publications and on
various kayaking related websites. He maintains a website and
mailing list for a loose-knit paddling group of nearly 200 members, ( www.paddletally.org),
and has led more than 50 group trips for this organization which he
founded. He leads four or more hiking or paddling trips annually
for the Naturalist Society of Florida State University's Osher
Institute for Lifelong Learning.
Michael earned a terminal degree at the University of Wisconsin and
has never stopped going to school. He has since
completed more than 30 semester hours of advanced course work in
Florida
ecology, biology, history and geography and reads voraciously on these
topics. That, together with field experience, paddling, hiking,
cycling, and scuba diving have helped to make him an expert on the
natural
environments, wildlife and environmental history of North Florida.
Michael's primary business
is design and construction of custom woodstrip/fiberglass composite
kayaks, canoes and rowing shells.