I guess I wanted to get back to my roots and enjoy life, but I didn't realize it until that fishing trip. Now he works in the great outdoors of Southwest Florida, where he and his wife, Marisa, an artist, want to start a family. They just bought a house in Lehigh Acres. He's traded Nashville's urban offices and late-night cocktail parties for work that takes him into the woods, rivers, canals and beaches. His new business is Fossil Expeditions .
Some expeditions are by foot, some by canoe.
He also conducts snorkling and scuba expeditions for fossils. Even before starting his own business, he found enough fossils as a hobbyist to convert a room of his house into a personal museum. Another room is an office. On a trip in May, he led Fort Myers retiree Fred Trebatoski and his son Scott, a graduate student from Waukesha, Wis., on a five-hour expedition along the Peace River in DeSoto County. The two had been on a fossil hunt with Renz last October and were back for more.