ORANGE BEACH, AL – Nick Cantrell, new Coastal Programs coordinator for the City of Orange Beach, likes to help out when he can.

And for years he had a job that allowed him to do just that.

“I have to have that feel-good, that intangible, that I feel like I’m doing right by somebody,” Cantrell said. “So when I was a FEMA contractor I was doing right by all these families, individuals and communities.

“But not my own family and my own community.”

The job helping others required him to travel all over the country and sometimes spend months at sites of weather events surveying damage and reporting it to FEMA. Those reports decided the level and scope of help FEMA would provide to storm victims.

“I was in New York for six to nine months and that was what did me in,” he said. “I had my wife and kids move up there with me for the next six or eight months.

“Finally I said I was coming home and coming home to stay.”

He tried to find something local with emergency management agencies in Baldwin and Mobile counties, but the call backs never came.

“I’d been trying to find ways when I got back to contribute,” Cantrell said. “When I initially got back I vowed I’m not traveling, I’m going to be with my wife and my kids and I’m going to be involved with my kids and my community.

“I put in applications at Emergency Management Agencies in Baldwin County and other entities and I wasn’t getting much traction.”

He then turned to his painting. Cantrell is a highly successful local artist and his staples are marine life in watercolors.

“My artwork is doing well,” he said. “I’ve gotten up a lot of steam with that.”

He hopes the new full-time job with the city still allows him time for painting and family, but it is also a way to give back.

Right now he’s in the midst of planning for the influx of nearly 300 kids coming to the city’s Wind and Water Learning Center’s Sail Camp. Monitoring registrations, taking names for beginner, intermediate and advance classes.

As a teenager Cantrell was a sail camper himself when it was operated by The Point Yacht Club. Orange Beach took over the camp in 2004. Members of The Point Yacht Club are still involved with the camp and have donated boats to the center.

Cantrell has been a volunteer with the program in years past.

When former Wind and Water Learning Center director Caroline Harris left for a job in New Orleans, she said Cantrell would be the perfect replacement.

“Through my involvement doing that, helping her with the website, I’ve been involved here for several years,” he said. “She recommended me for her replacement but said ‘he probably won’t do it.’”

But there he is at the Wind and Water Learning Center sitting at a computer tracking enrollment. Giving back.

“So that was my initial take,” he said. “I loved being involved, I wanted to do everything I could over there.”

His new job involves more than just the Wind and Water Learning Center.

“They want this person to look after the canoe trails, be able to help on the Backcountry Trail, be able to help shoreline cleanup, beach ambassadors and all that stuff,” he said.

So from being a sail camper to volunteering with the camp, Cantrell wants the program to enjoy continued success and even grow.

“I wanted this program to be a success, I wanted it to go on forever and ever,” Cantrell said. “Jeanne Fitzgibbons deserves all the credit for getting this facility here. She was amazing. The fact that she was able to get the city to use this property and get this facility built, that’s a legacy that’s going to last a long time.”

All of his instructors for this summer’s session are former sail campers, too.

The head instructor is Nick O’Farrell and there are two positions for assistant instructors. Tristan Hazebrook and Gage Downs will work part time to fill one of those slots and Taylor Lanford will be a full time assistant.