A dolphin dream comes true: talking with a trainer.(Career Corner)(Interview)(Biography)

Linda Erb can trace her love of dolphins and her dream of working with them to the sunny days of her childhood in Key West, Florida. She grew up when "Flipper" was a popular TV show and she loved to pretend she was Flipper as she played at the beach with her little brother and sister. "I grew up in the '60s when 'Flipper' was the big thing on television, so I grew up watching dolphins on TV and thinking 'Wow, it would be great to live like that.' "

"I also grew up here in the Keys so we would always stop" at the dolphin center "whenever we went on vacation.

"That's when I fell in love with the dolphins," says Linda. In fact, Mitzi, one of the original stars of the first "Flipper" movie, lived at what is now called the Dolphin Research Center. So as a little girl, Linda got to swim with the real Flipper!

Today, Linda says she has "her ultimate childhood dream job." She's the vice president of animal care and training at the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, Florida. She's been working with and caring for dolphins at the center for 25 years. Linda got her start at the center working for free. There wasn't a formal volunteer program, so she created her own job. Linda says she just offered to do whatever work needed to be done, including washing out lots of buckets that held fish (the dolphin's food). "The only animal training experience I had was having my own dogs and trying to train them," says Linda.

At the time, Linda had graduated from high school and was working as a reservations agent for a small local airline. She says with a laugh that she was "working to support her dolphin habit." In other words, she had to earn a living so she could work for free on her days off. She was also taking classes in marine biology at the local community college.

"After about a year of doing that on my days off, they offered me a job," says Linda. Her job has grown from volunteer to trainer to ...