Armando “”Mandy” Rodriguez

By Jason Koler

Everyday, hundreds of people visit the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key for a close encounter with a bottlenose dolphin. They eagerly plop down a few bucks and make their way along a brick path towards the Gulf of Mexico. After a few steps, a barking sea lion lets them know this is not a typical tourist attraction. Gasps escape from dropping jaws and cameras start popping or become lost in bewilderment all together when they emerge onto an expansive layout of catwalks that cross over 90-thousand square feet of interconnected lagoons. Squeaking dolphins spring from the water as trainers toss them fish and shout encouragement.

In front of a group of onlookers is a middle-aged Cuban dressed in a short wetsuit that reveals his tanned, muscular physique. Salt and pepper hair stick out wildly from beneath his low-slung baseball cap as he bends down to chat with an old friend, Delphi.
Armando “Mandy” Rodriguez has known the bottlenose dolphin for nearly 30 years, but the two surprise each other every day by remembering old jokes and teasing one another with their behaviors. Mandy and Delphi communicate like two old war buddies chatting over a cold beer. Sometimes Delphi reacts to Mandy’s signals, sometimes he stubbornly refuses and Mandy ends up throwing his hands up in exasperation. They understand each other, Mandy laughs and Delphi squeaks loudly in return.

Mandy was born in Havana, Cuba, but his father, a Naval officer, escaped the Castro regime by fleeing to the U.S. and the family settled in a rough Spanish neighborhood where Mandy found himself at the mercy of Spanglish speaking kids who accosted him on a daily basis. “Not that Spanish Harlem was bad, but it was pretty rough,” Mandy joked. “I learned English pretty quick. You can only be beat up so many times before you learn the language.” Within a year, his father had earned his merchant marine license and relocated the family to Boston where Mandy graduated from high school.

He then enrolled at the Boston Art Institute, but international affairs intervened and Mandy found himself in Vietnam, taking what he called, “a south Asian vacation.”
“This country opened its arms for our family when we were in need,” he said sitting cross-legged on a floating dock. “Communism took our country, so I wanted to join the elite forces,” he said as he related his choice to serve in the Marines. Mandy witnessed some of the best and worst times of his life while serving his tour in Vietnam and returned home with an honorable discharge, a chest full of medals and mixed emotions about the war.

“Awards during war are a funny thing. You do what you have to do for your brother and that’s it. When I got home I was kicked out of a cab in full uniform. I could’ve easily killed the guy, but I just got out and closed the door.”

Mandy admits he went through an angry stage of his young life while mending the mental pain that only comes from hardened battle. After the war he moved to his parents’ new home in Miami in search of a job that had, “pretty girls in bikinis.” He found just what he was looking for at the Miami Seaquarium Marine Park where he befriended his first pod of bottlenose dolphins.

“They were treated more like circus clowns back then,” he said. “But after all the grass skirts and fire hoops were put away, there remained an animal that didn’t look through you, but at you.” That fateful summer of ’69 he formed a lasting friendship with one of the only documented albino dolphins in history, Carolina Snowball.

He also met the pretty girl he was looking for, Jayne Shannon, and followed her back to Boston when they went to work for the New England Aquarium.

Mandy learned to dive and spent half his day underwater feeding sharks while Jayne strengthened her resume through interaction of marine animals. In 1972 the aquarium purchased two bottlenose dolphins from the Flipper Sea School on Grassy Key and soon Mandy was living in the Florida Keys.

The center changed hands once again in 1977 when Jean Paul Fortom Gouin purchased the sea school with the intent of dolphin language research.

“He thought it would be great if dolphins and humans grew up together,” Mandy said.
Within a couple of years, Mandy had three children who were adopted by the growing dolphin pod. His son taught a sea lion how to swim and their youngest daughter started training dolphins at the age of four.

“As word got out around the neighborhood, most evenings would be filled with pure fun as kids splashed and played freely with their dolphin friends.” Now, his granddaughter, Madison, has to be restrained by the back of the shirt when she visits to keep her from leaping into the lagoon.

In 1984, Mandy and Jayne took over control of the research center and faced the daunting challenge of turning the facility into a non-profit organization. While sitting in their trailer, they flipped a coin to see who would head up the newly formed Dolphin Research Center. Mandy won and immediately appointed Jayne the President and CEO as he took on the visible role of Executive Vice President.

“We’re both idealists. She’s the organized one, and I’m the dreamer.”
That same year the center also faced with an impending hurricane. “We took all the dolphins up to Sea World in Orlando. Of course, the hurricane missed the Key and hit Orlando.”

They haven’t evacuated the dolphins from their home since and neither has Mandy.
“They all just hang out in the deep part of the pool. Then eleven or thirteen months later, we have a new dolphin. We’re not the only ones who have hurricane parties,” Mandy laughed.
During Hurricane George in 1998, Mandy hunkered down in a bunker making sure no flying debris could injure the dolphins. As the eye of the storm passed overhead, he darted out to feed them.

“There is nothing more important than them keeping their home forever. If the visitor takes one thing home with them, then we have done our job. Their experience will live on. But humans are dolphins’ biggest enemies. Pollution, monofilament, cigarette butts. If you take care of your backyard, and this guy takes care of his backyard, and so on…pretty soon we will all be joined.”

Throughout the 80s and 90s, as the DRC grew from a hidden dolphin preserve into one of the most renowned and revered dolphin research facilities in the world, Mandy and Jayne’s platonic love affair with the center spread into their personal lives. These days Mandy and Jayne work side by side, but Mandy’s time away from dolphins is spent with his soul mate of 18 years, Della Schuler, who works as a vet tech with Dr. Mader at the Marathon Animal Hospital.

“We love our garden and whenever we get the chance we go out on the boat and experience the wonderment of the Florida Keys,” Mandy said. “Some people save all their pennies to come down here, but we have that beauty right in our own backyard.”

This special Neighbor of the Week feature originally appeared in the April 24, 2005 edition of the Marathon Weekly. Unfortunately, Mandy lost his old buddy, Delphi, to natural causes on August 16, 2008. However, the spirit of Delphi lives on through his numerous offspring who were born right at the DRC including granddaughters Ras and Cayo – both will turn 2 this fall.