Meet our new Lifestyle Director

How does a community choose its lifestyle director, the person in charge of planning events that bring everybody together? Do you pick the person who’s spent the most years as a lifestyle director? Or do you look for someone who’s led an eventful life?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, we took the latter path. Elizabeth Bricknell, Wildlight’s new Community Lifestyle Director, has never held the official title of lifestyle director. But she has plenty of experience doing everything a lifestyle director does. And she gained that experience living a life filled with music, adventure, creativity and spontaneity. 

Liz is originally from Canada. She lived near Lake Michigan. Then Lake Ontario. Then she headed to western Canada. Then finally made her way down to Florida. And if that feels like a wide-ranging journey, wait till you hear about her career path.

It was just a stage

Like so many animal-loving kids, Liz’s first dream was to be a veterinarian … that is, until her mom told her about some of the ickier parts of the job. “As I got older, I wanted to be a performer,” Liz says. “My passion was singing, acting and doing shows. And that’s what I went to college for.”

That’s what sent Liz into teaching. “I figured, well, if I can’t be on Broadway, I can at least inspire passion.” 

As with everything Liz does, she brings all sorts of creativity to the classroom. Whether it was teaching fifth grade math. Or coaching high school theater. Or launching a “morning show” written and produced entirely by students. And she has a particular knack for working with teenagers. “It’s just about having real conversations. No judgments.”

Liz completed a four-year degree in musical theater. But then starry-eyed, Broadway-bound Liz suddenly got upstaged by sensible, simplicity-loving Liz. “Real life hits you and says, ‘Do you really want that kind of life?’ And I thought, ‘No, I don’t.’”

Great White North to Sunshine State

So what do you do if you’re living in Canada and have a love of teaching, a natural feel for planning and a taste for adventure? Well, if you’re Liz, you take a job as a teen counselor on a cruise ship based out of Miami. New job? New work environment? A whole new country? Bring it on.

And what exactly does a cruise ship teen counselor do? “I would run the teen clubs. I would take them on youth excursions. I would be their guide and leader.” Sounds a whole lot like a community lifestyle director, doesn’t it?

Working on a cruise ship is what introduced Liz to Florida. It’s also what introduced Liz to her husband Ryan, who was a trombone player in the ship’s show band. 

The job she didn’t know she wanted

Eventually Liz would wind her way to Duval County School District, where she spent over a decade teaching, inspiring other teachers and planning enrichment events. Then one day as she was updating her profile on LinkedIn, she decided to see what other kinds of jobs might be out there. And she just happened to come across the description for the Wildlight Lifestyle Director.

“I didn’t even know ‘lifestyle director’ was a job,” she says. “But reading the job description, I thought, ‘This is what I already do at school. I plan events.’ It’s amazing how the universe kind of opens things for you when you’re ready.” (Btw it occurs to us that “Ready” could be Liz’s middle name.)

Expect the unexpected

Liz is now deep into planning events for 2026: “I’ve been given so much room to explore what we want to do for activities.” As Liz has gotten to know more about Wildlight’s devotion to conserving nature, she’s gotten very excited about including more environmental education. “It’s just part of Wildlight. Conservation is so important. And it’s why Wildlight is so beautiful.” 

But of course, with her musical background and her unquenchable creative spirit, she’s already thinking outside the box. “I’m trying to rein myself in and not go too far too fast. But eventually I want to go there. Like, how can we combine music and kayaking? How can we do performances by the pond? There have to be so many ways we can do things that people haven’t seen before.”

Now you know why we hired her.