About Us

Restore the Lakes Foundation was created in 2021 and went into full operation of Microplastic clean-up in Lake Tahoe in May 2022. The operation runs Monday-Friday by a small team of dedicated Extreme Robotics Engineers and ROV pilots, ultimately Lake Clean Up Lovers.

Our Board

Dave Wasick

‘Dave Wasick was born in San Francisco and graduated from San Jose State University where he was an All American football player and played in the East West Shrine Game,  North -South All-Star game and the Chicago All-Star game against the World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers.  He was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs, and was later with the New York Jets, New England Patriots, and San Francisco 49ers where his career was cut short by injuries. After coaching at San Jose State, University of California, Davis and the Boise State University national championship team, he went on to University of Florida School of Law and after graduation, worked as Nevada’s Special Assistant Attorney General and Counsel to the Nevada Supreme Court. He is now a Nevada Supreme Court Settlement Judge and lives in Glenbrook, Nevada with his wife of thirty six years Dr. Carol Coats. They have three children: Tyler Coats, who is CEO of Falcon Critical Care in San Francisco and an Annapolis graduate, David Coats who is a law student at University of California, Davis and former Navy Diver; and Billy Coats who is a Captain in the United States Marines and is stationed in Mississippi and is also a U.S. Naval Academy graduate.’

Kathy Kopf

Kathleen Kopf grew up in the Bay Area attended Woodside High, University of Santa Clara(Business) and University of California Santa Barbara(Education). Initially worked in the insurance industry then took some time off to raise four children. This gave her husband time to develop multiple for profit companies in retail automotive and commercial real estate where she always gave input. 
Kathleen helped consult on multiple projects from operating vineyards to storage facilities and handled all property management for a multiple use project that included an office building and light industrial multi tenant buildings.
She currently sits on the board for BOK  Ranch a non profit in Woodside, Ca. that uses horses to help children & special needs along with military veterans to assimilate back into society.
Kathy also sits on the board of Restoring The Lake Depths Foundation a 501(c)3 foundation where she has been giving dedicated time during its first year start up with all the challenges of Covid-19.
 
Her hobbies are gardening,planting, Biking, snow skiing, water skiing, walking our Black Lab, Hunter jumper moving to Dressage and spending time with the grand children.

Scott Fontecchio

Scott Fontecchio is the Operations Manager for the Restore the Lakes Foundation. Extreme environment roboticist and our head ROV pilot Scott has done work for Arizona State University Extreme Robotics Department and is part of the Micro Submersible ROV team that explored West Antarctica underground environments. NASA, Syracuse University, and University of Minnesota Consultant and team member on coring and scanning. Scott attempted to bring an ROV to the bottom of Lake Tahoe in 2009 and had a leak at 400 meters, a little over 100 meters short. Now, a Blue Robotics ROV will not only reach the bottom but also pick up Microplastics when needed.