Ellen Siegel helps people understand an environmental treasure.

Not many people equate the Everglades with financial planning, although at times the reams of data, contradictory forecasts and churning markets can make the world of finance seem as swampy as that South Florida landscape. But Ellen Siegel sees a correlation between these disparate realms, mainly because she's got her feet in both.

During the week, Siegel is a certified financial planner with The Enrichment Group, a fee-based planning firm in Miami. On weekends, she's often tramping through the Everglades, a subtropical wilderness filled with birds, alligators and marshes.

As a volunteer interpretive park ranger in Everglades National Park, Siegel's goal is to educate people about this misunderstood landscape. The way she sees it, that's no different from educating people about their finances. "They're both about resource management to ensure a quality of life," says the 54-year-old Siegel.

Unlike most Miamians, Siegel would rather spend a day at the marsh than at the beach. Early one Saturday morning in February, she and two others left the city and headed west on Highway 41, which bisects the heart of the Everglades. Birds floated gracefully on either side of the highway-a pair of double-crested cormorants flew side by side over here, great egrets flapped away effortlessly over there, and a couple of wood storks soared high above.

Siegel pointed out that wood storks are one of 14 endangered species in the Everglades. Shortly after, another one appeared, followed by two more. "I've never seen this many wood storks," she exclaimed as she pounded her legs a few times with glee.

As a volunteer ranger, Siegel conducts tours scheduled by the national park and also organizes tours on her own time because, she says, "I have a personal mission to introduce as many people to the park as possible." As one of the nation's most threatened ecosystems, the Everglades can use all the defenders and proselytizers it can get.

This Philadelphia native's role as an Everglades advocate came about almost by accident. Siegel moved to Miami in 1975 after she earned a degree in elementary education from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a brief teaching stint in the Philly public schools.

Life in the financial and environmental trenches wasn't in the works when she relocated down south, and her first jobs were in social work and in mid-management positions with the Girl Scouts Council. She eventually got into the life insurance business, but after 17 years as an insurance agent she decided to sharpen her investment management skills and enter the world of fee-based financial planning.

Siegel planned to work solo after she got CFP certified, and she called The Enrichment Group's founder, Kathleen Day, about renting office space in their building. Unknown to Siegel, Day was looking for someone with insurance experience. They talked, and Siegel was brought on as a member of the firm in 1997.

It's a good match. The Enrichment Group is a large firm with 275 clients and a staff of 16, including seven planners. Its focus is as much on ascertaining client attitudes toward money and personal values as it is about the value of a portfolio. And that suits Siegel fine.

"I have enough knowledge about the technical side of planning, but that's not my forte," she says. "My absolute strength is the people side, and working with people's behavior and attitude toward money." After she understands a person's financial goals and feelings regarding money, she'll often team up with one of the firm's technical staff to construct an appropriate portfolio of mutual funds.

Siegel imparts the personal approach to planning when she teaches the CFP curriculum at the University of Miami. "To be a good planner you must get into somebody's heart," she says. "I know that's not for everybody, particularly for advisors who are more into the science of investment portfolios. But I think it's important to get that point across."

Back in the 1970s, Siegel and her then-boyfriend went on a bird watching tour in the Everglades just for kicks. "We were laughing at these little old ladies in tennis shoes who were making lists and happily chirping away at the birds they saw in the trees," she recalls. "By day's end we thought it was a lot of fun. We got it."

And she hasn't let go since. Bird watching and trips into the Everglades became Siegel's hobbies, and she went on many overnight camping jaunts sponsored by the national park. One day, she ran across a guy in khaki (as opposed to the park staff's gray and green duds), with a patch on his arm signifying his volunteer status. Years before, Siegel created a junior high environmental curriculum for the first Earth Day, and she thought volunteer work for the park service would mesh with her interest in nature.

She applied and was accepted because of her educational background. That was seven years ago, and her private tours have slowly gained traction since thanks to word-of-mouth advertising and a little self-promotion.

"This year I finally hit critical mass because people heard what I do," says Siegel. Her Everglades expeditions include Girl Scout troops, Jewish groups, and dads and daughters. After she made a hydrology presentation at a Rotary Club of Miami meeting, the club decided that a romp in the Everglades would make a great family outing. Every year, Siegel organizes an Everglades Appreciation Day, sending out flyers to everyone she knows and getting her boss at The Enrichment Group to send out flyers to all of the firm's clients.

Her appreciation day is a multi-part affair that includes "dry and safe" hikes to view both flora and fauna, a slog through the ankle-deep marshy water that courses through the Everglades, and a sunset boat ride on Florida Bay off the mainland's southern tip.

Still, winning converts to the Everglades isn't easy. "Most people have a good time and enjoy the learning experience, but most people don't come back," says Siegel. "The Everglades are a tough sell," she continues, laughing while making a sweeping arm motion over the landscape. "Look at it!"

Depending on one's viewpoint, the Everglades can be either monotonous or fascinating. The terrain is essentially a flat, marshy prairie of sawgrass, shallow water and tree-covered islands called hammocks. Nonetheless, the Everglades are subtly spectacular in a way that can't be fully grasped solely from behind a windshield.

On this winter day during the half-year dry season, when bugs and humidity aren't a big problem, Siegel, her boyfriend, Jeff, and a guest went by airboat into the bush to the hunting lodge of one of her clients. Birds circled over the tawny prairie as the boat smoothly skimmed across the shallow water. It passed a few alligators along the way, and in the distance some deer splashed through the swampy grass. The scene vaguely resembled something from Africa's Serengeti Plain.

Siegel was a font of information throughout the day. "This park won't grab you unless you have a day like we had today," she says. "That's why you need to go out with an interpreter."

Volunteers play vital roles throughout the national park system, and Siegel's knowledge base makes her a valuable part of the Everglades. "Ellen is particularly unique because she's been around long enough and knows virtually all aspects of interpretation that we can seamlessly put her anywhere into our operations," says Cherry Payne, the chief of interpreters at Everglades National Park.

The Everglades depends on water dumped on Florida during its wet season, from May through October. Water trickles south from shallow Lake Okeechobee when it overflows its banks, creating a 50-mile wide sheet of water that flows into the Everglades before emptying into the estuaries along both coasts and the Florida Keys. No more than a couple of feet deep, this river moseys through the sawgrass at the rate of about a mile a day.

But a 1,400-mile maze of canals and levees designed for flood control and water management hinders the natural water flow into the Everglades and negatively impacts various plants and wildlife, while reducing the ecosystem's ability to filter pollution. Everglades National Park was created in 1947 more for biodiversity protection than for its looks, and environmental pressures remain due to South Florida's burgeoning population growth.

"The Everglades is globally important," says Siegel, noting that it's a World Heritage Site, an International Biosphere Reserve and a Wetland of International Importance. "For Florida its important for fresh water issues, but the locals don't necessarily get it. That's why I spend so much free time bringing groups out here."