A lot of times, being in conservation can make you feel pretty lonely. When
you start to see and observe things around your local area, you
start to see maybe flooding or a lot of debris around
rivers and streams and coastlines, it can be kind
of weird, just you being aware of it, you telling people, people not
really caring, your family and friends being like, well, what can we do? We can't do
much. And it can feel very lonely. I've heard that a lot from
people in the audience and just people who are trying to get into conservation, and
they want to do something. but they may not have a marine biology background. They
may have other jobs and they just can't dedicate their full time to
it. And they just feel kind of lonesome and just being like, ah, what can
we really do? But they feel that, you know, climate
anxiety, ocean anxiety type thing. But there is
ways that you can feel more of a community in
and around the issues that you care about the most, like the environment. And that's joining
a place like Surfrider. And Surfrider has been
doing conservation advocacy work along
the coastlines, not only for surfers, but for everybody
and the entire community who lives in and around the coastline. And
we are here to talk today with CEO Chad
Nelson of the 40th anniversary. where
the surf rider organization originated and
how it's doing and where it's going to go in the future. We're
gonna talk all things policy and advocacy work
and how they created the chapter network, how
they have all these volunteers and how they make sure that everybody's trained up
and feeling like a community and some of the great things
that they've done over the last 40 years and hopefully in
40 more. So we're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
Let's start the show. Hey,
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with
the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to
live for a better ocean by taking action. And on
today's episode, it's a special one, folks. We got another interview this time
with CEO Chad Nelson is back from
Surfrider. on the episode on how to protect the ocean
to discuss the 40th anniversary of
Surfrider. We're going to talk about the origins, how a few surfers
decided to say, hey, you know what? We need to start looking at what's
happening around us. We're starting to see some hot surfing
spots go away, move away, get transformed into
harbors and so forth, and water quality diminishing. We
need to do something about it. We need to stand up as a community, as a surfing
community. And that blossomed over the years, over the last 40 years,
into a network of over 100,000 volunteers, 200 chapters,
80 full-time staff, and so many good
things done for our coastlines, for the ocean, and
for the communities that lie within them. And it's a
lot of fun to be able to talk to Chad. Chad's been on the podcast a
number of times. We've talked about his career, why he chose a PhD
when he did and when he did his PhD. We talked about that in another episode. Today
we focus solely on his 29 years growing
as a biologist, as a person into the adult
he is now, going from an intern now as the CEO of
one of the largest grassroots organizations in the world. and
being able to talk about all the great things that he has been
able to be a part of as a surf rider and what they've been able to do and
how they feed off of the passion of
the volunteers that make up the chapter network as
well as build programs because of that passion and
be able to share it with other chapters and be able to do something on
a larger scale. And at the beginning I said, you know, sometimes conservation can
feel lonely and even myself Sitting in this office talking
about oceans when I'm not doing an interview and doing a solo episode a
lot of the times I'm like man I wish I could really be out there and be a part of it well being
a part of surf rider means being a part of the Action and you can be
a part of the action in a lot of different ways And I'm gonna put a
link in the show notes in the description It's
volunteer dot surf rider org you can join
as a volunteer because it's one of the greatest organizations around
and it really is It listens to its volunteer, it trains its
volunteers, and you can feel like you're doing something for the coastline in
and around your area. And it's not only in the U.S., it's in Canada, it's in
other places. So just go to that website, volunteers.surfrider.org, and
you can join as a volunteer. And for now, you can listen to Chad Nelson
talking about the wonderful things that's been happening over the last 40 years. with
Surfrider. Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Hey, Chad, welcome
back to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about
Yeah. Hey, thanks, Andrew, for having me back. And these are exciting
Absolutely, not only for SurfRider, for everybody who's
not only involved in SurfRider, but who have been following SurfRider
for a long time. It's not every day where you
get an organization that hits 40 years and being around
and doing amazing things. And today, you know trad you've
been on the podcast before a number of times we've gone over sort
of your development through ocean science and ocean conservation
you know your phd work and and so forth we've talked about
your involvement in surf rider here and there and as the ceo
and executive director like that's a huge thing but
we haven't really talked about the your evolution in Surfrider, because
you've been around, I think it's almost 29 years since
you started your internships and so forth. And
it's been around 40 years. So you've been there for a significant portion of over
50% of the time since Surfrider has been around. So we're
going to get into where it started, how
it's going, and then where you're headed into the future. So
this is going to be a lot of fun. But just to give people a
little bit of a refresher, can you just let us know who you are and
Sure. My name is Chad Nelson and I'm the CEO of the Surfrider Foundation.
Awesome. And now being the CEO
and starting off where you started off, it's got
to be an incredible journey. We've seen Surfrider
be one of the largest, you know, grassroots organizations,
coastal organizations in the U.S. and maybe
even the world. You've done some great things from a policy focus
that we've covered on the podcast before, and we'll talk a little bit about
that. But it's definitely, it is a grassroots organization,
started off as a grassroots organization. But can we just start from
the beginning and just be like, how did it all begin with
Surfrider? How did this incredible organization become this incredible?
Yeah, no, it's a great story. And you know, it
started that the summer August of 1984 is our
sort of birthday and when we were founded. And, you
know, as is often the case, it was sort of a confluence of events.
Okay. The surfers
were focused on Malibu, you know, First
Point, Surfrider Beach, famous wave, the wave of Gidget,
still like a world-class surf spot that,
you know, the water was constantly polluted, the inlet there
was being managed without regard for surfing or coastal recreation,
so they were They were frustrated about surfers
not having a role. Surf spots in California
have been destroyed. Killerdana, which is now a harbor, was an
iconic, famous wave. People weren't
listening to surfers. And as we were talking about before we
got on here, there was also this negative stereotype. And
the Olympics were in Los Angeles in 1984. That's right. And
these three founders who I'll talk about, you know, sort of saw athletes
on the world stage at the Olympics. And we're thinking, why aren't
surfers sort of perceived in that way?
And, you know, interestingly enough, surfing is also now in
the Olympics. Yes, it is. Yeah. And so,
you know, they decided to, I mean, what they did is
sort of what any good activist does is they saw a problem and
they decided to do something about it. And so a guy
named Glenn Henning, another guy named Tom Pratt,
and a really highly regarded Malibu surfer, Lance Carson,
were sort of the three guys that were credited with founding Surfrider in
1984 to try to improve surfing reputation,
give surfers a voice in coastal
management decisions. and ultimately sort of start protecting
surf spots. And in the beginning, we'll talk
about the evolution, but in the beginning, it was really about surfers trying to
protect surf spots that were being destroyed. It was somewhat
myopic. That said, they also
had something which we don't do anymore called the Baja Assistance Program. A
lot of surfers were going down to Baja, so it had like a humanitarian arm
also. And they were bringing supplies and
stuff down to families in Baja. Again, part of that was to try
to like change the perception of surfers as being stewards
and good citizens as opposed to sort of the negative stereotype.
Now that's what they did that with Surfrider. That was one of the like first
Yeah, it was like a program in the early days called the Baja Assistance Program.
How that's so cool. And that's just, it's kind of cool. Cause that's just like
impact. Like here where you, you know, we're on your waves, you know, we're surfing your
waves, we're in your area. Here's some stuff that,
that might help you out. Like let's be a community. Yeah. I
love that. I love that aspect. What would, you know, when you have these, these
three founders, what, and obviously they were probably a part of
a larger surfing community. You're not just a surfer by yourself. You
usually surfer with some friends and, and, and maybe
family. And then you build this community. What was sort of
the first perceptions of Surfrider by other surfers when
You know, that's a great question. I was 14 years
old. I was vaguely aware, but I wasn't in the mix.
I can generally sense that there
was a lot of excitement about it. Surfer Magazine
was supporting it. Yvon Chouinard, the infamous founder of Patagonia,
was an early financial supporter. There
was a lot of goodwill, certainly in the surf
industry, to support Surfrider. And I
think there was a little bit of a sense of, OK, it's about time. Um,
and actually, you know, we, we ended up developing this
grassroots model that took a little while. It was, it wasn't until
1993 that these built the chapter network. But, um, part
of that was because there was so much interest in other places, uh, and
the organization was so small. Uh, they were like, Hey, we
can't help you. However, if you want
to start a chapter, we can bond together and work on these things together. So
And it's a difficult model to implement, right? Because it takes a
lot of trust to other people because it's, you know, you're using the Surfrider name,
which you've, which at this point is what it's almost 10 years at this
point where they. after they develop it, where they're developing a good name
of doing some great things, having some impact on other communities, trying
to save some iconic surf spots and stop
development where these surf spots are, obviously preserving
water quality. You build up this great name, and then people
are like, hey, we want to be a part of this. It's like, all right, let's think about
this a little bit. Knowing surfers, though, that community
feel, you're probably like, this is great. Let's try and figure this out. You
said it took a while to develop this chapter model. Do
you know what some of those challenges were? Because probably in
and around near the beginning where you started, you
know, volunteering and stuff. But were you around at this point where they developed
I wasn't around. And when I started, I think there was 24 chapters.
OK. So it's still relatively small. But what actually what
happened, which was interesting, is, you know, I think they were A
couple of interesting things. The guys who started Surfrider sort
of admittedly didn't know what they were doing. Right. Right. You
know, oftentimes big environmental
nonprofits were started by a philanthropist or,
you know, the Kennedys started the Keepers, you
know, and so this was just a bunch of scrappy surfers
who were tired of getting pushed around. And
so, you know, in the beginning, there was a lot of trials and tribulations. And,
and so I think they were just trying to like, figure it out. Everyone had jobs.
Yeah. And what happened was there was a there's
a really kind of an iconic coastal conservationist in
California named Mark Massara, who's a surfing lawyer. Yes. Who
was an attorney for Surfrider in those early days. And
he helped lead a lawsuit against a
which we won in 1992. And at the time it was the second
largest Clean Water Act lawsuit in the country. Wow.
And that put surfers, uh, surf writer on the map. Yeah. You
know, people again, like people were like, what a bunch of
surfers took on, you know, this giant paper
company and yeah. Yeah. Cause they were dumping effluent in
the, in the Bay at Humboldt Bay and it was impacting the water quality in the surf. And
of course, So that made national media.
And that's when the phone started ringing. We've got problems
in New Jersey. We've got problems in Florida. We've got problems in
Texas. And this staff of five
at the time was like, I
don't know what to do. And we had a board member named Gordon
Labetz. He was on the board of directors. And he was heavily involved
in the Sierra Club. And so, you know Sierra Club
has a chapter model also, that's right. So he said hey
Maybe it's time for surf rider to start chapters And
so we did it and I have to say I I You
know, I didn't come up with it. I inherited it as an employee
here, but I cannot tell you how effective it is. Right.
I truly, you know, now I've been at this for a long time. I've worked with
just about every other conservation group
in the country. And I really think this grassroots model,
I'm such a big believer. Um, so I think for a number of
reasons, one, um, I think that like
matching the bottom up with the top down as a potent sort
of formula. And that's because, um, we
have real people in communities who are
passionate about these issues, taking things on
and, um, and that is a scale.
that a, we understand as humans, right? You talk
about the country and 400 million people, like nobody really can
wrap their head around what that means. Um, and, and
so part of it, and you, you know, and we're also, we're working with people
who are experiencing the issues firsthand. Um,
and you can have a lot of influence at the local level at your city council
meeting. Um, it's a place where everyone has agency. And
so, you know, can you affect a federal law like the Inflation
Reduction Act in DC? Well, you can try and
we do, right? You call and write and you talk to your representatives,
but that's very different than going into your local city hall and talking
to your city council members. So I think there's,
you know, and I, you know, I get this from some of the big national groups. Sometimes
they'll, they'll call in and they'll be like, I use this
I'm like, yeah, what state? What town? What
kind of fishing? Do you want a commercial guy, wreck guy, spear guy?
And so we're working with people who are really in touch
with what's going on. No, that's not true. I was down there yesterday, and
I saw it. So it's grounded in
reality. And so I think that's the power of
the model. You
know, it's a lot of work to, of course, for all these volunteers and
activists. And whereas I think a lot of groups focus on
scientists and economists and policy
makers and lawyers, you know, we spend a lot of our
money, time and energy on grassroots organizing because that's
where You know, where we invest to
make this work and all those other things are important
to I, you know, and we work with a lot of those groups
that are more sort of nationally focused, but I
think so. I think there's a lot of power there, you know, and then our challenges. is
you know the framework of the organization is how do we take that and scale it up to
the state level yeah up to the federal level and even in
some cases in the international level well here's what i i
love about it just from looking outside outside and is
I hear from a lot of people, uh, you know, in sort of
my work as a podcaster and building this community where you hear a
lot of people, it's like, I feel alone. Like I feel like I'm by myself. I see these
things happening in my community or I see it on, on a
video and I feel like I just, I feel helpless. I just can't do
it. And I think what the chapter model does, especially at
surf riders, it gives you that collective home. where
it's like you may not be at the headquarters in California, but
you are, you might be in Florida, you might be in North Carolina, you might be in New Jersey,
but you are, you are sitting there, you are seeing something, and
then you can go back and get resources from the chapter
or from maybe headquarters and be like, hey, look, here's the problem that we're facing.
Have you guys ever dealt with this before? Can we offer some solutions? And
then you have these connections at not only the local level, but
you also, and other local levels around the coastline or
if it's the same coast or different coast, you also have it at the
county level, at the state level, and at the federal level where
you can start to affect change. And so that person who felt so alone by
just volunteering with Surfrider or another chapter,
you get this home and you get the support that you probably never had
before. And I think that's where that benefit is. And then
of course, you want that big voice at the top to
say, hey, federally or state-wise, we
need to make changes. Now you have this influence, because
from the name of it as an organization, you
can walk in and just be like, well, we have this many volunteers
Yeah, it's such a powerful and effective model. It
could probably be scary to a lot of the anti-environmental
policy people that we see. Be like, oh, god, here comes Surfrider.
They've got some power. Yeah, we like to think so. Well,
I'm sure it has. I mean, over time, and we'll talk about it
in just a sec, Surf Rider as an organization, as
a grassroots organization, has been able to do a lot of effective policy work
in collaboration with a lot of organizations. But
you have a name. You have this good name. And
you've worked hard to do that. But before we get into that,
you mentioned that there are challenges that come through with, you
know, building a chapter and, and just taking, you know, time
to, you know, from the beginning to even install that
model and figure out that that model is working. What have
been some of the major challenges that, that Surfrider has been able to overcome over
Yeah, I think, you know, so, um, you know, to fast
forward to today, we have 200 chapters in clubs, you know, up
from 24 and, um, you know, well
over a hundred thousand volunteers that participate with us every year. And,
um, and so all those chapters are volunteer run.
Um, so anytime you're dealing with, you know, I would argue
we have, you know, probably close to a thousand what I call chapter leaders,
people running the volunteer chapters and then tens of thousands of
volunteers volunteering. And, um, so it's a lot of
people. Yeah. Uh, and you know, it's a little bit of
herding cats because they're all volunteers. So, um, you
know, I, I'm not in a position to tell them like what
to do as their boss. I mean, we have guidelines and
structure and you know, it's orderly and, um, actually.
remarkably, people, you know, the network really stays on
task and on mission, we don't spend a lot of time sort
of self correcting. But so just organizing that
number of people, you know,
is a challenge, especially when they're all volunteers. And, you know, be volunteering
is challenging. So there's constantly trying to recruit new volunteers, trying
to manage people so that they they recruit and
transition out before they get burned out. Nobody can
be a volunteer forever. You know, so in
a healthy volunteer organization, you get in,
you're excited, you do some things, you recruit other people, you're
able to kind of take a backseat. They then recruit new
people and there's this ongoing healthy cycle of folks.
So just training volunteers, you
know, retraining new volunteers, kind
of trying to get everybody pointed in the same
direction have always been the challenges. And
the other challenge is really kind of a good challenge is
we've always struggled to keep up with the interest. So
there's so much interest. You know, the
sort of volunteer capacity for good in the country is
extraordinary. Yeah. It really speaks well to
sort of humanity at a time when I think some people are, you
know, frustrated with that. Yeah. And so, you
know, we're always, you know, We have 80 employees now.
We used to have five. We're still trying to keep up
with the amount of interest. Yeah. I want to start a chapter. I
need help here. And so that's a good problem. Yeah,
absolutely. And, you know, and so, you
know, we feel like we're we're always feeling like
we're just tapping into the total capacity of what we could
do with volunteers out there. You know, the better you are
at organizing, the more people want to
Well, that's it. And the more things you do, you're able to, I
guess, accomplish, too, as an organization, the more people will be like, oh, a
surfrider would be great. Plus, they're known as a grassroots organization. So
they like to work with volunteers. And that's
always wonderful. As you grow, though, I think one of the, I
see one of the challenges is like, how do you remain like
the same? Because you've got some great quality volunteers. You
know, like they do some great work. And when we say volunteers,
a lot of them have full-time jobs. And so they're doing this
on top of that, right? It's it's
a it's a challenge for them to do, but that's like their hobby. That's what they
want to do. They want to protect the environment in their in their area. So
you have a lot of great quality volunteers. Is
there like an onboarding process for each volunteer so
that, you know, they know the mission, the values of
the organization so they stay true so you can continue to,
Yeah, I mean, you're right. And, you know, before I started, I just want
to say these, these, I'm, you know, I've been at this for a long time,
and I am always humbled by the people
who are volunteering for Surfrider. Yeah, because you're right. These
are people with jobs and families, in many cases,
you know, from high school kids to senior citizens,
retirees, and everything in between. And They
are doing the hard work volunteering because they
want to protect our ocean waves and beaches. So it's just it is an extraordinary. I
mean, I feel privileged to be working with such a like extraordinary, you
know, group of people. And so. Yeah.
And we invest a lot of time and energy in that. So we have like an online
learning platform, you know, with training that
we're sort of developing. It used to be sort of fairly crude. And
now we're, you know, used to be, it started in the early days
as a Xerox hard copy book.
Yeah. Activist toolkit. You know, then
it got online. And, you know, then at one
point it was like an intranet and now it's actually like a
online learning, uh, management system with like online courses.
Um, we do a lot of, uh. We
do a lot of regional training, and then we have a
network of regional managers of staff that
are out supporting the chapters. And so part of our goal
is to have one chapter manager support
a regional manager for every six or seven chapters. Gotcha.
We have staff that are like everyday support
to a region. So in California, we have
18 chapters and we have three staff whose jobs southern
central and northern that are, you know, supporting their chapters
Love it. I love that. And it's so interesting, too,
because there's so many different projects that must be going on at each individual
chapter. Is there like
a common, like what
kind of projects are going on in some of these? Like I know there's
so many, you don't have to name all of them obviously, but can you just talk about a
Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, so we really
work on five issues. So clean water, beach
access, plastic pollution, coast
and climate, which is a sort of flooding and development work, and then ocean
conservation. You know, that could range from the marine
protected areas like the new Chumash National Marine Sanctuary to
stopping bad things in the ocean, like offshore drilling. So
those five pillars are one organizing, those
are the issues that we focus on. Other issues like
fisheries, we don't. That's one way of kind of focusing
the work. And those are issues that tend to be relevant to
people on the coasts and coastal recreation. And
then we have a series of programs that are like stewardship programs, beach
cleanups, Ocean-friendly gardens, which is, you know,
turning your landscape into a solution to pollution. Ocean-friendly
restaurants, helping restaurants get rid of plastics. We just
launched ocean-friendly hotels and a climate action program, which
is, you know, restoring coastal ecosystems. And
so we build toolkits for all of those programs. Blue
Water Task Force is another one. We do water quality monitoring. So those
are like a suite of everyday programs that are hands-on. This
is also why I think the organization is attractive. You can roll
up your sleeves and actually do something in
your community. And so we do those. And then we have advocacy
campaigns at the local, state, and federal level on those five
issues. And at any given day, there's about 140 of
That's incredible. For
all the stuff that goes, like you talked about a bottom-up, top-down
type of organization that works in both ways, where
you have this headquarters and like you said, right now you have about 80 employees and
then you have this volunteer network, hundreds of
thousands of people. When you
develop these programs or you've been developing these programs over the years
is are these programs from feedback of projects that
are coming in as well as sort of directions the
organizations from an organizational standpoint wants to
Yeah, in many ways that the chapter network and we give a
you know, you kind of referenced this earlier, we give the chapters a ton of autonomy. Right?
So once you're a chartered chapter, you can Pick a program or
a campaign or an issue you choose based
on what's relevant and important to your issue. There's no reason to be
working on beach access if you don't have a beach
access issue in your community. For sure. Beach access
is the biggest issue in your community and you come along and say, hey, let's talk about
this marine protected area. No one's going to care. Right. And
so we do give them a lot of autonomy to sort
of pick and choose the issues that
are most relevant to them. So
that's a part of it. I'm now I'm forgetting
Well, just like in terms of like, are there, I guess one of
the things is, can you identify some of the projects that have come in that have really contributed to
So they also experiment. And
so it's like an R&D out in the field. Right.
So, for example, you know, we're trying to figure out how to
get rid of all these single use plastics in communities and we're trying to pass
laws and policies and You know, sort
of our our Huntington Beach chapter and our San Diego chapter
and our Oahu chapter. We're like,
hey, why are we asking restaurants to get rid of single use plastics? And
so, you know, they started the ocean friendly restaurants program. And
then they started trading information, and they kind of figured out what
worked. And we were like, wow, this is cool. I
think there's interest in this elsewhere. So we just sort
of adopted it, nationalized it, and standardized it, and then reissued
it to the whole network. Um, so a lot
of it comes from the, from the, from the chapter network
itself. Um, and you know, our
chapters, this climate action program, which is restoring habitats, you
know, Cape Fear chapter was doing a, uh, they'd
collect Christmas trees after Christmas. And, uh, and then they'd
in the spring, they'd plant them in the dunes, uh, you
know, and, uh, Miami chapters doing dune restoration and,
uh, folks in, um, Up in
Maine, we're doing wetland restoration. And so we were like, and then, you
know, we had mangrove planting in Puerto Rico and we're like, hey, a
lot of chapters are actually doing coastal restoration work.
This is great for resilience. Same thing.
Let's aggregate this, start building some tools and
build a formal program. So a lot of it comes from, from
the bot, observing what the network's doing and then
picking and choosing the ideas that seem to have, um, some
momentum and some impact and kind of the same with the
advocacy we see local action happening in different places
Decade ago, like, let's, let's build a toolkit.
Yeah. And redistribute it. And so it really
is a kind of, we have the fortune of
like being able to observe the whole network. And these chapters
are out there being social entrepreneurs, and we can kind of cherry pick
And you could see what works and what doesn't. I love that.
I love that. And they're communicating, you know, we're trying to do as much,
you know, connecting the network to communicate so
that they're sharing learnings. And we all are, you know,
as we go. And, you know, I want to make sure we get
to it, but we're starting tomorrow. We're
having a big 40th anniversary summit. Oh,
nice. Nice. And that's awesome. Bringing
together 400 of our sort of top chapter leaders across the
country, you know, for exactly to celebrate 40 years, but
also to, you know, learn, share and network across
Well, and that's I think that's where this this network comes through.
You talk about 200 chapters across the country in
other countries sometimes. And
each chapter has their own unique set of problems
and also a unique set of attributes within the community of
different people, different cultures. Like we even know within the States, there are different cultures within
the States, you know, in the different coastlines and so
forth. So you probably have some unique problems within each
of those chapters. But then you can take some of those programs like
the single-use plastic bag ban and be like, okay, Let's
take this. This is actually a really good idea. We'll take the
core of this and we'll build the toolkit. We'll give it to Florida
from Washington or from San Francisco. Give it to Florida, see how they do.
OK, these are the challenges that they faced. Let's go back to the
toolkit. Let's rejig it a little bit to lessons learned. And
then let's hit it out to New Jersey. And then let's go to Hawaii.
And so you're almost like a data center from
the headquarters looking in. and and you're you're you're
sort of your your stations your field stations are the chapters and
Being able to work with them and having going back and forth and be like,
how do we support you? How can we help? You know, what what
do you need from us? And what can you provide us that we can tell other chapters to
do that would that would work. It's it's such a That's
where the model comes in, where it becomes such a good feedback tool,
I love that. And you're right. What makes sense on a Texas beach
is different than an urban beach in Los Angeles, or a
remote beach in Oregon, or the
beaches of Florida. And so that's part of it, right? They do. They have different
cultural norms, different histories, different uses,
different impacts. you know, and
so what makes sense in one place may or may not make any sense in the other, or
Yeah, absolutely. Now, over this 40 years, a
lot of things have happened, obviously, the development of the network and the continued development and
the growth of the, of the organization, not only
from a headquarters, headquarters standpoint, but from a chapter standpoint, what
have been some of the major wins that you that you remember
over your 29 years working with with Surfrider that
you know, people should know about Surfrider that may not, they may not realize
that you guys helped win or helped, you know, get something passed
or, you know, helped institute certain things that could, that people
Yeah, no, I thank you for that question. It's funny because we,
you know, because of this grassroots nature and this sort of distributing the
power, I think, you know, we're always worried that
people are like, oh, they're the like surfers who do the beach cleanups. Yeah,
you know, but there's there's not really a lot of impact beyond that.
And, and so, you know, and we have
had some significant impact. A couple things that stand out that I'm
really proud of is, um, A few years back, we
won a landmark Clean Water Act lawsuit that
went all the way to the Supreme Court and we won and strengthened
the Clean Water Act. Again, it started locally with a
wastewater treatment issue in the county of Maui on Maui Island in
Hawaii. And it had to do with sort of how
far the Clean Water Act extends, sort
of, you know, the reach of the Clean Water Act and you
know, there was an argument that it was only sort of this quote, unquote,
like sort of physical connection. And we were talking about a functional
connection, right? We're injecting sewage into the
groundwater. It was seeping up through the ground and impacting
coral reefs because the the the island
is so porous. Yeah. And we were like, hey, that
that means that the wastewater treatments responsible for
that pollution, we could see it through like dye pollutants. And
they argue that wasn't because it was, you know, it went through the earth before
it came out into the ocean. And so we won that strength
and they called it the Clean Water Act case of the century. Wow. Dependents.
Yeah. We're proud of that. In
2000, we passed a federal bill called the Beach Act. OK.
Standardized and funded water quality monitoring. all
across the country, recreational water quality monitoring. I
like to think of it as the equivalent of like the grades in restaurants.
Right. Right. ABC. Yeah. We now
know when you go to a restaurant, if they're Up to par.
Yeah, we didn't we should know the same about the ocean for sure. You
know if I go swimming I'm gonna get sick or not That's
Yeah, we take it for granted, but that's a huge huge deal,
Yeah That that would really you know water
quality monitoring prior to that was spotty. Yeah different
standards And, you know,
here in our backyard, we stopped this massive toll
road project that was going to destroy San
Onofre State Park, the fifth most visited state park in
California and home to Trussell's, arguably the best
surf spot in the United States. It was
a David and Goliath fight that we won. So
So how did that how did that win happen? Like, you know, you talk about David
and Goliath type of fight You're trying to save a surf spot. You're trying
to save a state park that obviously it's like you said, it's the fifth most visited
state park Those are really Effective
tools to use to say hey this needs to be protected and
this toll roads gonna gonna destroy that but you're
working against you know, maybe the government you're working against,
you know, maybe it's a private company that's putting in these tolls. There's
some big, big things to go up against. How, how
did you, if you can just say briefly, how did you, uh, window
Yeah. It was like a $500 million toll road and huge. traffic-laden
Southern California, like the land of the car. Arnold
Schwarzenegger was our governor at the time. He was supportive
of the project. We were told, don't
take it on because you won't win. But
it really is a testament to people power. The
toll road authority had all the money. They
had the political influence, but we
had a huge number of people and worked in
a very effective coalition. Parks
Commission hearing most attended in California history. Wow. California
Coastal Commission hearing, 2,500 people
showed up. They had to move the venue three times to
accommodate the crowd. And I called it the Woodstock of
surfing conservation because there were people in costumes, celebratory,
music, costumes. And then US,
the Commerce Department, which is above NOAA, which is above the Coastal Commission,
held an appeal and I think 3,500 people
came out. And so the
public overwhelmingly opposed the project and
sort of that massive movement of
people, you know, overcame all of
the sort of Political and financial advantages
that the road had You know,
so not only was it like I surfed there this morning. It's magical
beautiful place and And it's
got a wetland and it's full of birds and there's endangered species.
I mean, it really is a gem. It's a
largely intact watershed. So the water's clean after
it rains. It's really just a place
that shouldn't be spoiled. And so a
Well, and I think this goes to show that the chapter model
works really well, because I'm sure a lot of the abilities
to get people out in that, those types of numbers probably started from
an internal email being like, Hey, everybody, here's what's going on.
You know, this is what's at risk. So here we start off with surf rider
people, uh, you know, the, the chapters, the volunteers, and
then they get their friends and their people that may not be
in the know. And then they, all of a sudden they start to come out in droves. I
think that's, so that, like from an organizational point of view, when you talk about
advocacy, that's where the power, it's in the people, right? It's
in the ability for organizations, whether it's a coalition or not,
to be able to get the number of people out that
will be able to influence politicians and decision-making. And
It absolutely does. And I think, you know, um, I
hear all the time, well, the system is corrupt. Uh,
the, the money rules the day it's
the, it's the lobbyists, you know, blah, blah, blah. And,
um, and I'm like, well, that is
true to some degree. And I, you know, um, the, the sort
of people who are destructive of the coast have more money and more
power. However, We actually
have all the people, right? You
know, there's there's more people who want to visit the beach than people
who want to destroy the beach. And so and
we live in a democracy. Lucky us. So
if we choose to. We actually have a
lot of control and agency over what the future looks
like. We have the solutions to almost all of these problems. What
we lack is public and political will, and
political will comes from public will. So
I think if more people voice
their opinion, more people get involved in local civics, more
people vote, we can carry
Yeah, that's that's that. You're right. That's the
great motivational words, because I think a lot of people lose hope. And
again, it's being isolated from other people who feel
the same way. Your words probably reign true
with if I talk to any surf rider supporter or
surf rider volunteer to just be like, it's probably the same.
They'll probably say the same thing. We can actually do something when
we're part of a larger community. And let's be honest here, Chad, not
everybody's a surfer that's part of a surf rider the, you know, the origin of
And, you know, sort of back to that origin story, the way I like to think
of it is, you know, in the beginning, it was surfers trying to protect surf spots. Um, and then, you
know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
the, the, the, the, the, the And then they sort of connected with community members and
it became community members protecting their communities, right? So
if you if you swim in the ocean, if you've got kids that play at the beach, if
you walk your dog out the beach in the morning, you know. or
you like to swim, you had a stake in it.
So it kind of expanded to communities and beyond surfers. And
then it became kind of surfers protecting the ocean. And now
that we know the role the ocean plays in climate
change, it's really surfers and beachgoers and
Yeah, and it happens so fast, too. I think that's
what the beauty is, is it starts local and
you can affect global as you do local. I've
been really onto this for a long time. We've been hearing
it all our lives, you know, as we grew up, where we're like, okay,
you know, act local, think, think, think, was it think global act locally?
And after a while, it seemed like people like, no, that doesn't work, that doesn't
work. But now, it really does. I think it's it's being a
part of the right community. And the right people have the
experience who have the guidance. And like surf rider is
that community, you know, or at least one of those major communities
in the US and even North America that people know, it's like, if
I need if I need guidance, I can go there, you talk about the learning
tools that you have, and the training tools that you have, It's all just, uh,
uh, you know, incredible to be able to already have that developed. So when
somebody comes in new, they're just like, okay, here we go. Like this is, this
is where I can, I can be guided and really helped out. And then you
can have that, that effective level. Now, you know, surf riders have also had like
some major wins locally. Um, let's talk some of the federal, uh,
wins with some of the coalitions that you've had, like, you know, as a surf rider,
as an, as an organization talked about the clean water, it
Yeah, that was like a Supreme Court win. Yeah. They helped pass
the Beach Act. Yeah, that's right. On sort of playing defense,
the Trump administration wanted, when they
were in office, wanted to open all coasts of the United States to
offshore drilling. Yes. Drilling in
federal waters is an executive action through
the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. So
that's also like a federal effort.
And so we oppose that. And again, it was interesting, right?
Are you going to convince Trump and his administration
not to do this? No. But, you
know, we organized in, for example, in every community in
South Carolina on the coast. Yeah. And we made an economic argument.
Hey, business owner, restaurant, surf shop, kayak
rental hotel. You've got nothing to
gain from these offshore platforms and everything to lose
if there's a spill. Why would you support
this? And they said, well, we don't. So we start passing resolutions at the local level.
Um, which don't have any teeth, but sent a strong signal.
And then, um, and then all of a sudden, you know, if you're the
congressional rep for South Carolina and every coastal
community in your district is opposed. real
hard to support it. Again, we kind of had
this, you know, and by the end of the Trump administration, he
was actually trying to pull Florida and
the Carolinas out of his proposal because
he was worried they were making it was making him vulnerable in the election. Yeah.
And that was, again, sort of like grassroots organizing at the
base, scaling up to the federal level and
It's a huge thing, especially looking at which
administration is in charge federally, state-wise. There's
a lot of things to do. I'm sure there's always something to do in the U.S. with
so many things going on these days. Environment is
a big deal right now, should be a big deal right now in
these election talks. But I find it interesting that
you don't really hear a lot in the debates of these upcoming elections. You
haven't really heard a lot about climate change. You haven't really heard a lot
about the environment. Um, how
do you, uh, talk to your, like,
talk to your volunteers, talk to your networks about the importance of
this election in terms of this federal election, as well as there's, there's
a number of different elections going on, um, in November in
the US. How do you talk to your, your network of
the importance of these elections and voting, uh, in,
in terms of protecting the environment when the environment isn't really being talked
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm gonna hold one time out. I've been sitting in this room and the
No problem. Energy
I love it. Yeah. So for one thing,
we have to be a little bit careful because we're a 501 c three. So
like a nonpartisan organization. Gotcha. And I'll
get to something interesting in a second. But um, and And
so, you know, we can't advocate for specific candidates. Right.
You know, and we can't be partisan in our actions.
So we really are just encouraging people to get out and vote. Right.
You know, without picking a side. Gotcha. And,
uh, but you know, so if you're a, if you're a local activist
and you're, you're actually advocating for local action at your
city, you know, you're, you're paying attention to those city
council members, you know, about ones that are, um, are,
are, are with you or not with you. And so I
think, you know, um, the, our,
our, our network certainly gets the value of, elections
and down ballot, right? They talk about this. Don't just vote for the president. Right.
Vote for your federal reps, state reps down
to your city council and your school board. And I
really want to emphasize that is, you know, because those those
local decision makers have a lot of power. You
know, you think about something like the Clean Water Act, you know, which
regulates water pollution. We want to have things fishable and
swimmable. Well, The Clean Water Act on paper
in Washington, D.C. does nothing but set standards. And
then it's it's the behavior in your town, right? It's is
that business polluting
water out of their factory? you
know, are people hosing off
their driveways and contributing to
urban runoff? Does the car wash treat its
water? So, you know, at the end of the day, the water quality
in your town is a cumulative impact of all these little things that are happening,
not the Clean Water Act that's a piece of
paper. 100%. So yeah, so
we're encouraging everyone to vote. You know, the largest party
in America today is the did not vote party.
It's true, which is crazy to hear people not voting than voting
for any of the one side or the other. Yeah. You know,
and again, uh, it, you know, it's arguably
a relatively easy action to take harder
in some places than others. Um, but, um, you
know, so we, we just actually launched a, get out the vote
campaign, um, yesterday and we
And Protect Our Winters is the winter and snow athletes.
So it's sort of like the surf rider of the mountains or the snow. Gotcha. You
know, and they're really focused on the impacts of climate change. Yeah. Shortening
winters, you know, and yeah, they're their
favorite activity is at risk. But like Surfrider,
you know, they understand that, you know, snowboarding
and skiing is a luxury, but the impacts of climate change
are serious for the globe. They're just using sort of their passion to
advocate too. And so we partnered with them
to say, hey, look, this is a really important election. Get
out there and vote. Um, you know, and we know, uh,
make a plan to vote that increases people's voting, you
know, and the other thing is, um, get
your friends to vote. You know, there, those guys have a
saying that says friends don't let friends not vote. So
let's use peer pressure. And, uh, Hey,
especially for that that disenfranchised friends or those disenfranchised friends
where there's like, oh, it'll never make a difference ever make a difference like you
start making a difference when you get more and more people to vote and you know, whichever
way they decide to vote that's when you make a difference and you you
tell the people who you know, may be in power now that you may not like You
know, no, I don't like what you did or I don't like what you didn't do. And
so I'm going to vote for the candidate that does, you know, and I
think that's what's that's what's important, you know, is to is to
pay attention. I think a lot of those those users you
mentioned, the recreational users of skiing and
snowboarding and surfing in the ocean and so
forth, you know what you want because it
affects you personally. And so I think you're
right. You guys are knowledgeable on
what the issues that are important to each user, and then you
just let them know what we need to vote for.
And I think that's really important. Climate change is
rearing its ugly head in the last few years, especially. Even
this year, you know, in Florida, where a Category 3 hurricane
followed a Category 4 hurricane in the Tampa region and
the Gulf States, and a lot
of damage and things like that. So, you know, 40 years of
great work and continuing to try and help,
you know, not only the people that are part of your volunteer
network and your chapters, but also the country and the globe. What
is Surfrider focused on in terms of
the consequences of climate change that we've been seeing and
how to fight climate change, as well as other matters? Talking
about plastic pollution, talking about water quality, which they're all
related in some way, which makes it even more complex.
So where do you see the organization as you lead it
Yeah. Um, you know, we, uh, it's
a good thing. I think that we're like finding ourselves at the strongest point
we've ever been as an organization, because I think the challenges are
bigger than ever. So, you know, 40 years ago
we were cleaning beaches, thinking trash plastic pollution
was a local problem. Now we know it's a global ocean problem
and basically a global problem, right? It's in the atmosphere. It's in us.
Um, And same with climate change, 40 years ago, probably should
have been, but wasn't a major topic. And
I think I read a stat that
70% of Americans have felt some impact of climate change, fires,
flooding, hurricanes, storms. And
so we used to say climate change is coming. And now
we know climate change is here. So I
think that's part of the reason why there's a much wider
recognition. Yeah, so we definitely
face some big problems. I'm
somewhat optimistic about them because we can solve all
of them. For
the most part, we have the solutions. We just need to build the
public well. Our focus
on climate change is really about the coasts. and
focused on using the coast as a solution through nature-based solutions
and coastal restoration. Blue carbon
or coastlines can suck a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere and
buffer us from the worst impacts of storms by
building natural habitats. Mangroves and wetlands and
And on the other side of it, we're really trying to work with communities to
figure out how to adapt, right? The sea level rise is coming no
matter what we do, and we can either wait and
armor the coast and see a lot of disaster, or we can
start figuring out how to adapt for
the sea level rise that's coming. So those are our really big focus areas
for climate change. I think the, you know, manage,
retreat, coastal adaptation thing is in
its infancy, really, and we didn't get on top of that. So we've got
some good demonstration projects we're working on to
show what that can look like. The best one is Surfer's Point up
in Ventura. You know, if people
Google Ventura, C Street, Manager
Tree, they'll just see a beautiful coastline that's been moved back from
the coast, you know, from the ocean and erosion. You
know, and then we're really trying to scale up our plastic pollution work. There's
a global treaty right now to reduce plastic pollution. And
we're working with our affiliates and other coalition partners to try to
get the U.S. and other nations to come
up with a kind of like climate change, some realistic goals to
eliminate plastic pollution. And another trend
that's interesting, I feel like, is there's a real movement
towards holding these big businesses accountable. Last
Let me just drop it. You know, we just sued them, you know, just last week. We
That's huge. Yeah, it is. So we sued Exxon
for sort of disingenuous policies around
recycling, right? This is a connection between ocean and climate, plastics
Yeah, I think it accounts for what 30 percent of
fossil fuel pollution on the increase.
Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, as the number one
supplier of the base materials for plastic pollution, they've
been spending billions of dollars trying to convince us recycling works
and it doesn't. We're still at, you know, five, six percent recycling. Yeah.
And so, you know, You're seeing that you're
seeing lawsuits against major fossil
fuel companies for the impacts of climate change, you
know, so that and we're passing these extended producer responsibility,
which is, you know, producer pays bills. Yes. Plastic pollution.
So there's a movement towards corporate accountability for these impacts.
I think that's appropriate. Yep. And
you know, these these major manufacturers of
plastic, oil and gas can choose to be responsible or
Yeah. Yeah, especially with the amount of sort of
disinformation they've been putting out and confusion they've been putting out
over the last God knows how many decades, you
know, right? Like we're not talking about just like a social media
campaign that happened yesterday. This has been ongoing and has
been a huge impediment to climate
action for decades and something that we, you know, could
have been installed a while ago, but they put corporate greed
over over and profits over over
action. And it could have been just as heralded for the
action that they took back in the day. So I'm glad that
there, you know, you that surf riders part of that. I'm
glad that you're able to do that. And I think we're going to need to see
that more in the future as well. with with different companies
to just be like look you can't just start confusing the people and
And put it pitting us against each other of trying to do some good Because
I mean, yeah in the same game, you know that
you know, the big tobacco is ultimately held accountable for
billions of dollars and you know that money was used
to significantly reduce Smoking rates.
So it's a good case study on what
Yeah. And I mean, let's be honest. Those campaigns those
tobacco campaigns like we're now able we see a lot of places where
you can't smoke inside And I mean remember when we grew up where you
had like smoking and non-smoking sections in the same place Which
was like you think about it now, you're like that's just ridiculous on the airplane on
Yeah Right one row in front of the smoking section. Oh
It's insane to think about. But again, it takes a lot of
people to get together and focus in on
certain aspects. And that's what you're able to do. That's what
you've been able to do for the last 40 years. You're continuing to be able to do
for the next 40 years and beyond. I
really like what surf riders have done. And so it's been a pleasure, Chad,
to have you on and talk about these accolades. I
always like to do this, especially with Surfrider, get our
audience involved. If somebody wants to become a volunteer at
Surfrider, how would you recommend they go about it?
Yeah, if you go to volunteer.surfrider.org, you
can either sign up for your local chapter or actually see what volunteer
activities are taking place. This weekend probably would
be one of the only weekends of the year where there's not a lot going on because
they're all going to be in Long Beach with me. Yes, that's right. Celebrating, but
almost every other weekend of the year, there's something going on out there. And
so if you go to our website at Surfrider.org, you can sort
of zoom in and join your local chapter, find
Awesome. And one thing I forgot to ask, you said tomorrow is the beginning of
the celebrations. 400 volunteer leaders are coming in.
What can people expect from those celebrations and
Yeah, I mean, this is really about sort of, you know, strengthening
and energizing this incredible network of people that are doing all this
great work. So we've got some great inspirational speakers,
a lot of training about organizing and
I love it. I love it. And to be honest, I give a lot of advice for people
who want to be marine biologists and get into marine conservation. I
feel like volunteering with organizations
like Surfrider is a huge benefit because you
learn so much. Like you said, you get training. You get to
build this network. You get to do some great things. So it motivates you
even more to do even more later on. Plus, it
kind of shapes you. Chad, even you yourself, you didn't do your
PhD until, you know, what was it like 15 years
Yeah, yeah, I, I finished in 2012. And
I probably started in 2008. But yeah, I'd been a writer for
Exactly. So it kind of shapes where you where you think you can impact
the world in terms of academically as well as through
conservation. So I highly recommend people who are early career
scientists looking for experience. It's sometimes right
in your backyard. You don't have to go across the world and pay thousands
of dollars to get experience for two weeks. You can do work and
continue that work throughout your career as a volunteer. So I
highly recommend that. I'll put that up, thevolunteer.surfrider.org in
the show notes and in the description so that people can sign up for
that and fuel your passion more to
do more for the ocean and the coastlines and water quality. Chad, thank
you so much for joining me. Congratulations on 40 years.
Looking forward to another 40 and enjoy the festivities and
Hey, thanks for having me back, Andrew. It's always a lot of fun, so
You bet. Thank you. Thank you, Chad, for joining us here once again on
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Really appreciate you sharing all the wonderful
stories of Surfrider over the last 40 years. Congratulations on
the 40th anniversary of Surfrider, a great organization that
uses its volunteers as its method
to change policy, to create policy, to
do so many great things. sue the government when
they're not acting properly, create the Beach Act, just do
so many more things, beach cleanups, getting people involved, listening to
volunteers, training volunteers, and building that
chapter network to 200 chapters, over 100,000 volunteers worldwide. doing
amazing things. follow
Surfrider in all the things that they do. They have a lot of different chapters,
they care about their volunteers, and they just are a great
organization. For the last 40 years, they've done some amazing things,
and some of them are too much to count, but they've done some great
things from an advocacy role, from a policy role, from an
action like beach cleanup and water quality testing role. It's
just so many different ways that you can get involved and
so many ways that you can watch what they do and it's such a great
opportunity to feel like you're part of a community and not by yourself when
you want to do conservation. So think about Surfrider next time you're doing
you want to do something good for the planet and I just want
to say thanks to Chad for all the work that he's done over the last 29 years
over the last 10 as CEO and then in the future, all
the work, the great work that he's going to be doing with a wonderful staff of
80 people, a wonderful 200 chapters and amazing
100,000 volunteers and growing. So we want to see that
organization grow. Look, they're not paying me to do this. I just think
it's such a great opportunity. We don't get these chances a lot to
be able to You know, build a network like this to
be a part of a group like this and to have a voice and to be
able to actually affect change. Like, think about mobilizing 2500 people
to a public meeting where the government has to actually change the
venue three times to accommodate the amount of people. Think about
that as one voice, the power of that as one voice.
And the big thing here, the big message just in terms of
its timeliness, it's almost time to vote in the US.
If you haven't registered to vote, register to vote today. It doesn't
matter who you vote for, but you have power in voting. You
want to have that power. You want to be able to vote. You want to be able to
have a say for your country. You want to be able to do something,
especially if you're part of a democratic society. If you need more information
on what the big issues are, you can go to the Surfrider organization
website. I'll put in the link below. And also just talk to
your local representatives, talk to your state representatives and your federal representatives
and find out where you can vote, how you can vote and who you can
vote for and do that today, register today. So thank you so much
for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
I want to just, it's just amazing to be able to connect with you. If you
want to connect with me, you can do so by DMing me on
Instagram at how to protect the ocean. You can also comment in
the description or in just down below in the YouTube video Also,
you can watch the video on Spotify and give me a
comment there But I'm always available in any any capacity that
you just heard Always looking forward to hearing you because it's the beginning of
a conversation. I'd love to hear your conversation and your conservation efforts So
thank you again for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm
your host Andrew Lewin Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy