Cole is from Hamburg, New York and grew up boating and fishing on Lake Erie. He started at the Squam Lakes Association as an AmeriCorps member serving in the Lakes Region Conservation Corps from 2018-2019. After that he was a marine ecology instructor at MarineLab in Key Largo, Florida till June 2020. He went back to school in August 2020 and completed his M.S. in biology from the State University of New York, College at Oneonta in May 2022, and immediately after accepted the position of Director of Conservation at the SLA. In his free time, Cole enjoys rock climbing, fishing, playing guitar, camping, playing golf, and doing anything that gets him outside and active.