My name is Gary Liebmann, and I was born in Livingston, New Jersey.

My father was an avid outdoorsman and shared his love of hiking and backpacking with me. I spent most of my childhood in the outdoors, hiking, backpacking, and camping all over New England. I became involved in scouting at a very young age and by the time I was 18 earned my Eagle Scout award with the Boy Scouts. While growing up in NJ my family would often spend summers enjoying the Jersey Shore, I can always remember the smells and endless beaches of the Atlantic. I would regularly visit my grandparents who lived in Stuart, Florida, and always looked forward to spending all my time hunting for shells along the surf and staring out into the vast ocean, curious as to what may lie under all of that dark blue water.

After high school, I joined the United States Marine Corps. I went to bootcamp in Parris Island, North Carolina, and finished my Infantry training at Camp Geiger. My orders were to report to Marine Corps Base Hawai’i in 1995. I spent four years in Hawai’i as an Infantry Marine and traveled to several countries such as Korea, Mainland Japan, and spent one year in Okinawa, Japan. I left the Marines in 1999 as a Marine Corps Sergeant and moved back to the mainland with my beautiful wife, Temple, and our three children. We relocated to Chicago to be near family where I began working in the collision repair industry. While working as a technician, manager, and regional manager, I mastered all aspects of the collision repair process from paint preparation to technical, structural, and diagnostic electrical/mechanical repairs. I also became a certified instructor for I-CAR for more than 13 years and am certified to instruct over 80 classes and all four of the welding classes. In 2014, I left working in the shop to work with my wife in our business, Autobody Professional Services, Inc. handling the business and bookkeeping for body shops.

I attained my bachelor’s degree in business administration with Grantham University in 2006 while working full-time in the shop and helping raise my family.

Okinawa was where I really found my true love for the oceans. In 1998 while stationed at Camp Hansen, I took my Padi Open Water Course with Tsunami Scuba and continued straight through to Rescue Diver. I was amazed at the beauty of the soft and hard corals in Okinawa and the crystal-clear water. Many years later, after moving back to Hawai’i, I continued my education in scuba diving. In December 2022, I finally earned my Padi Dive Master and was awarded with my certification in January 2023. 

Since 2023, I have been working as a Dive Master for a local shop on Oahu in my spare time and continue to dive for fun every opportunity I can get. I am always observing and trying to educate the tourists and visitors who come to the island about the importance of reef conservation and stewardship of the Island and the oceans that surround it. I also enjoy traveling with Temple in our motorhome visiting our family and beautiful sights the mainland has to offer. 

ODA has become a very important part of my life. I am passionate about its efforts and what we do to help to protect the environment, specifically the reef system and its inhabitants. There are few things that bring me more joy than to help untangle the endless web of line and lead that are poisoning our delicate reef system. Bucket by bucket, I commit to continue to help clean our oceans and shores so that I can help leave a cleaner environment for my children and grandchildren.