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Surfrider: 40 Years of Celebrating Community and Coastal Conservation · How To Protect The Ocean

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A lot of times, being in conservation can make you feel pretty lonely. When
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you start to see and observe things around your local area, you
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start to see maybe flooding or a lot of debris around
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rivers and streams and coastlines, it can be kind
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of weird, just you being aware of it, you telling people, people not
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really caring, your family and friends being like, well, what can we do? We can't do
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much. And it can feel very lonely. I've heard that a lot from
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people in the audience and just people who are trying to get into conservation, and
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they want to do something. but they may not have a marine biology background. They
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may have other jobs and they just can't dedicate their full time to
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it. And they just feel kind of lonesome and just being like, ah, what can
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we really do? But they feel that, you know, climate
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anxiety, ocean anxiety type thing. But there is
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ways that you can feel more of a community in
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and around the issues that you care about the most, like the environment. And that's joining
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a place like Surfrider. And Surfrider has been
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doing conservation advocacy work along
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the coastlines, not only for surfers, but for everybody
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and the entire community who lives in and around the coastline. And
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we are here to talk today with CEO Chad
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Nelson of the 40th anniversary. where
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the surf rider organization originated and
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how it's doing and where it's going to go in the future. We're
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gonna talk all things policy and advocacy work
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and how they created the chapter network, how
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they have all these volunteers and how they make sure that everybody's trained up
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and feeling like a community and some of the great things
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that they've done over the last 40 years and hopefully in
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40 more. So we're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
1:44
Let's start the show. Hey,
1:49
everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm
1:52
your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with
1:56
the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to
1:59
live for a better ocean by taking action. And on
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today's episode, it's a special one, folks. We got another interview this time
2:06
with CEO Chad Nelson is back from
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Surfrider. on the episode on how to protect the ocean
2:12
to discuss the 40th anniversary of
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Surfrider. We're going to talk about the origins, how a few surfers
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decided to say, hey, you know what? We need to start looking at what's
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happening around us. We're starting to see some hot surfing
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spots go away, move away, get transformed into
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harbors and so forth, and water quality diminishing. We
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need to do something about it. We need to stand up as a community, as a surfing
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community. And that blossomed over the years, over the last 40 years,
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into a network of over 100,000 volunteers, 200 chapters,
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80 full-time staff, and so many good
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things done for our coastlines, for the ocean, and
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for the communities that lie within them. And it's a
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lot of fun to be able to talk to Chad. Chad's been on the podcast a
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number of times. We've talked about his career, why he chose a PhD
3:05
when he did and when he did his PhD. We talked about that in another episode. Today
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we focus solely on his 29 years growing
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as a biologist, as a person into the adult
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he is now, going from an intern now as the CEO of
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one of the largest grassroots organizations in the world. and
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being able to talk about all the great things that he has been
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able to be a part of as a surf rider and what they've been able to do and
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how they feed off of the passion of
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the volunteers that make up the chapter network as
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well as build programs because of that passion and
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be able to share it with other chapters and be able to do something on
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a larger scale. And at the beginning I said, you know, sometimes conservation can
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feel lonely and even myself Sitting in this office talking
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about oceans when I'm not doing an interview and doing a solo episode a
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lot of the times I'm like man I wish I could really be out there and be a part of it well being
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a part of surf rider means being a part of the Action and you can be
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a part of the action in a lot of different ways And I'm gonna put a
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link in the show notes in the description It's
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volunteer dot surf rider org you can join
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as a volunteer because it's one of the greatest organizations around
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and it really is It listens to its volunteer, it trains its
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volunteers, and you can feel like you're doing something for the coastline in
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and around your area. And it's not only in the U.S., it's in Canada, it's in
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other places. So just go to that website, volunteers.surfrider.org, and
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you can join as a volunteer. And for now, you can listen to Chad Nelson
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talking about the wonderful things that's been happening over the last 40 years. with
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Surfrider. Enjoy the interview and I will talk to you after. Hey, Chad, welcome
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back to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about
4:49
Yeah. Hey, thanks, Andrew, for having me back. And these are exciting
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Absolutely, not only for SurfRider, for everybody who's
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not only involved in SurfRider, but who have been following SurfRider
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for a long time. It's not every day where you
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get an organization that hits 40 years and being around
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and doing amazing things. And today, you know trad you've
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been on the podcast before a number of times we've gone over sort
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of your development through ocean science and ocean conservation
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you know your phd work and and so forth we've talked about
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your involvement in surf rider here and there and as the ceo
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and executive director like that's a huge thing but
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we haven't really talked about the your evolution in Surfrider, because
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you've been around, I think it's almost 29 years since
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you started your internships and so forth. And
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it's been around 40 years. So you've been there for a significant portion of over
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50% of the time since Surfrider has been around. So we're
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going to get into where it started, how
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it's going, and then where you're headed into the future. So
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this is going to be a lot of fun. But just to give people a
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little bit of a refresher, can you just let us know who you are and
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Sure. My name is Chad Nelson and I'm the CEO of the Surfrider Foundation.
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Awesome. And now being the CEO
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and starting off where you started off, it's got
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to be an incredible journey. We've seen Surfrider
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be one of the largest, you know, grassroots organizations,
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coastal organizations in the U.S. and maybe
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even the world. You've done some great things from a policy focus
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that we've covered on the podcast before, and we'll talk a little bit about
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that. But it's definitely, it is a grassroots organization,
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started off as a grassroots organization. But can we just start from
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the beginning and just be like, how did it all begin with
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Surfrider? How did this incredible organization become this incredible?
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Yeah, no, it's a great story. And you know, it
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started that the summer August of 1984 is our
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sort of birthday and when we were founded. And, you
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know, as is often the case, it was sort of a confluence of events.
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Okay. The surfers
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were focused on Malibu, you know, First
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Point, Surfrider Beach, famous wave, the wave of Gidget,
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still like a world-class surf spot that,
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you know, the water was constantly polluted, the inlet there
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was being managed without regard for surfing or coastal recreation,
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so they were They were frustrated about surfers
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not having a role. Surf spots in California
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have been destroyed. Killerdana, which is now a harbor, was an
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iconic, famous wave. People weren't
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listening to surfers. And as we were talking about before we
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got on here, there was also this negative stereotype. And
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the Olympics were in Los Angeles in 1984. That's right. And
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these three founders who I'll talk about, you know, sort of saw athletes
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on the world stage at the Olympics. And we're thinking, why aren't
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surfers sort of perceived in that way?
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And, you know, interestingly enough, surfing is also now in
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the Olympics. Yes, it is. Yeah. And so,
8:14
you know, they decided to, I mean, what they did is
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sort of what any good activist does is they saw a problem and
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they decided to do something about it. And so a guy
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named Glenn Henning, another guy named Tom Pratt,
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and a really highly regarded Malibu surfer, Lance Carson,
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were sort of the three guys that were credited with founding Surfrider in
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1984 to try to improve surfing reputation,
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give surfers a voice in coastal
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management decisions. and ultimately sort of start protecting
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surf spots. And in the beginning, we'll talk
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about the evolution, but in the beginning, it was really about surfers trying to
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protect surf spots that were being destroyed. It was somewhat
8:58
myopic. That said, they also
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had something which we don't do anymore called the Baja Assistance Program. A
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lot of surfers were going down to Baja, so it had like a humanitarian arm
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also. And they were bringing supplies and
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stuff down to families in Baja. Again, part of that was to try
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to like change the perception of surfers as being stewards
9:20
and good citizens as opposed to sort of the negative stereotype.
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Now that's what they did that with Surfrider. That was one of the like first
9:28
Yeah, it was like a program in the early days called the Baja Assistance Program.
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How that's so cool. And that's just, it's kind of cool. Cause that's just like
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impact. Like here where you, you know, we're on your waves, you know, we're surfing your
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waves, we're in your area. Here's some stuff that,
9:43
that might help you out. Like let's be a community. Yeah. I
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love that. I love that aspect. What would, you know, when you have these, these
9:50
three founders, what, and obviously they were probably a part of
9:53
a larger surfing community. You're not just a surfer by yourself. You
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usually surfer with some friends and, and, and maybe
9:59
family. And then you build this community. What was sort of
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the first perceptions of Surfrider by other surfers when
10:08
You know, that's a great question. I was 14 years
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old. I was vaguely aware, but I wasn't in the mix.
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I can generally sense that there
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was a lot of excitement about it. Surfer Magazine
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was supporting it. Yvon Chouinard, the infamous founder of Patagonia,
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was an early financial supporter. There
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was a lot of goodwill, certainly in the surf
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industry, to support Surfrider. And I
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think there was a little bit of a sense of, OK, it's about time. Um,
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and actually, you know, we, we ended up developing this
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grassroots model that took a little while. It was, it wasn't until
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1993 that these built the chapter network. But, um, part
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of that was because there was so much interest in other places, uh, and
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the organization was so small. Uh, they were like, Hey, we
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can't help you. However, if you want
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to start a chapter, we can bond together and work on these things together. So
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And it's a difficult model to implement, right? Because it takes a
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lot of trust to other people because it's, you know, you're using the Surfrider name,
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which you've, which at this point is what it's almost 10 years at this
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point where they. after they develop it, where they're developing a good name
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of doing some great things, having some impact on other communities, trying
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to save some iconic surf spots and stop
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development where these surf spots are, obviously preserving
11:41
water quality. You build up this great name, and then people
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are like, hey, we want to be a part of this. It's like, all right, let's think about
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this a little bit. Knowing surfers, though, that community
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feel, you're probably like, this is great. Let's try and figure this out. You
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said it took a while to develop this chapter model. Do
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you know what some of those challenges were? Because probably in
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and around near the beginning where you started, you
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know, volunteering and stuff. But were you around at this point where they developed
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I wasn't around. And when I started, I think there was 24 chapters.
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OK. So it's still relatively small. But what actually what
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happened, which was interesting, is, you know, I think they were A
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couple of interesting things. The guys who started Surfrider sort
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of admittedly didn't know what they were doing. Right. Right. You
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know, oftentimes big environmental
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nonprofits were started by a philanthropist or,
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you know, the Kennedys started the Keepers, you
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know, and so this was just a bunch of scrappy surfers
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who were tired of getting pushed around. And
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so, you know, in the beginning, there was a lot of trials and tribulations. And,
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and so I think they were just trying to like, figure it out. Everyone had jobs.
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Yeah. And what happened was there was a there's
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a really kind of an iconic coastal conservationist in
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California named Mark Massara, who's a surfing lawyer. Yes. Who
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was an attorney for Surfrider in those early days. And
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he helped lead a lawsuit against a
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which we won in 1992. And at the time it was the second
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largest Clean Water Act lawsuit in the country. Wow.
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And that put surfers, uh, surf writer on the map. Yeah. You
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know, people again, like people were like, what a bunch of
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surfers took on, you know, this giant paper
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company and yeah. Yeah. Cause they were dumping effluent in
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the, in the Bay at Humboldt Bay and it was impacting the water quality in the surf. And
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of course, So that made national media.
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And that's when the phone started ringing. We've got problems
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in New Jersey. We've got problems in Florida. We've got problems in
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Texas. And this staff of five
14:02
at the time was like, I
14:05
don't know what to do. And we had a board member named Gordon
14:09
Labetz. He was on the board of directors. And he was heavily involved
14:12
in the Sierra Club. And so, you know Sierra Club
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has a chapter model also, that's right. So he said hey
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Maybe it's time for surf rider to start chapters And
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so we did it and I have to say I I You
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know, I didn't come up with it. I inherited it as an employee
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here, but I cannot tell you how effective it is. Right.
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I truly, you know, now I've been at this for a long time. I've worked with
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just about every other conservation group
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in the country. And I really think this grassroots model,
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I'm such a big believer. Um, so I think for a number of
15:00
reasons, one, um, I think that like
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matching the bottom up with the top down as a potent sort
15:07
of formula. And that's because, um, we
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have real people in communities who are
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passionate about these issues, taking things on
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and, um, and that is a scale.
15:23
that a, we understand as humans, right? You talk
15:26
about the country and 400 million people, like nobody really can
15:29
wrap their head around what that means. Um, and, and
15:33
so part of it, and you, you know, and we're also, we're working with people
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who are experiencing the issues firsthand. Um,
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and you can have a lot of influence at the local level at your city council
15:44
meeting. Um, it's a place where everyone has agency. And
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so, you know, can you affect a federal law like the Inflation
15:54
Reduction Act in DC? Well, you can try and
15:58
we do, right? You call and write and you talk to your representatives,
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but that's very different than going into your local city hall and talking
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to your city council members. So I think there's,
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you know, and I, you know, I get this from some of the big national groups. Sometimes
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they'll, they'll call in and they'll be like, I use this
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I'm like, yeah, what state? What town? What
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kind of fishing? Do you want a commercial guy, wreck guy, spear guy?
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And so we're working with people who are really in touch
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with what's going on. No, that's not true. I was down there yesterday, and
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I saw it. So it's grounded in
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reality. And so I think that's the power of
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the model. You
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know, it's a lot of work to, of course, for all these volunteers and
16:54
activists. And whereas I think a lot of groups focus on
16:58
scientists and economists and policy
17:02
makers and lawyers, you know, we spend a lot of our
17:06
money, time and energy on grassroots organizing because that's
17:09
where You know, where we invest to
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make this work and all those other things are important
17:16
to I, you know, and we work with a lot of those groups
17:19
that are more sort of nationally focused, but I
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think so. I think there's a lot of power there, you know, and then our challenges. is
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you know the framework of the organization is how do we take that and scale it up to
17:31
the state level yeah up to the federal level and even in
17:34
some cases in the international level well here's what i i
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love about it just from looking outside outside and is
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I hear from a lot of people, uh, you know, in sort of
17:45
my work as a podcaster and building this community where you hear a
17:48
lot of people, it's like, I feel alone. Like I feel like I'm by myself. I see these
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things happening in my community or I see it on, on a
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video and I feel like I just, I feel helpless. I just can't do
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it. And I think what the chapter model does, especially at
18:02
surf riders, it gives you that collective home. where
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it's like you may not be at the headquarters in California, but
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you are, you might be in Florida, you might be in North Carolina, you might be in New Jersey,
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but you are, you are sitting there, you are seeing something, and
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then you can go back and get resources from the chapter
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or from maybe headquarters and be like, hey, look, here's the problem that we're facing.
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Have you guys ever dealt with this before? Can we offer some solutions? And
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then you have these connections at not only the local level, but
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you also, and other local levels around the coastline or
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if it's the same coast or different coast, you also have it at the
18:38
county level, at the state level, and at the federal level where
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you can start to affect change. And so that person who felt so alone by
18:45
just volunteering with Surfrider or another chapter,
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you get this home and you get the support that you probably never had
18:53
before. And I think that's where that benefit is. And then
18:56
of course, you want that big voice at the top to
19:00
say, hey, federally or state-wise, we
19:03
need to make changes. Now you have this influence, because
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from the name of it as an organization, you
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can walk in and just be like, well, we have this many volunteers
19:19
Yeah, it's such a powerful and effective model. It
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could probably be scary to a lot of the anti-environmental
19:26
policy people that we see. Be like, oh, god, here comes Surfrider.
19:30
They've got some power. Yeah, we like to think so. Well,
19:33
I'm sure it has. I mean, over time, and we'll talk about it
19:36
in just a sec, Surf Rider as an organization, as
19:40
a grassroots organization, has been able to do a lot of effective policy work
19:44
in collaboration with a lot of organizations. But
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you have a name. You have this good name. And
19:52
you've worked hard to do that. But before we get into that,
19:56
you mentioned that there are challenges that come through with, you
19:59
know, building a chapter and, and just taking, you know, time
20:03
to, you know, from the beginning to even install that
20:06
model and figure out that that model is working. What have
20:10
been some of the major challenges that, that Surfrider has been able to overcome over
20:17
Yeah, I think, you know, so, um, you know, to fast
20:20
forward to today, we have 200 chapters in clubs, you know, up
20:25
from 24 and, um, you know, well
20:29
over a hundred thousand volunteers that participate with us every year. And,
20:33
um, and so all those chapters are volunteer run.
20:38
Um, so anytime you're dealing with, you know, I would argue
20:42
we have, you know, probably close to a thousand what I call chapter leaders,
20:46
people running the volunteer chapters and then tens of thousands of
20:50
volunteers volunteering. And, um, so it's a lot of
20:53
people. Yeah. Uh, and you know, it's a little bit of
20:56
herding cats because they're all volunteers. So, um, you
21:00
know, I, I'm not in a position to tell them like what
21:03
to do as their boss. I mean, we have guidelines and
21:07
structure and you know, it's orderly and, um, actually.
21:12
remarkably, people, you know, the network really stays on
21:15
task and on mission, we don't spend a lot of time sort
21:19
of self correcting. But so just organizing that
21:24
number of people, you know,
21:27
is a challenge, especially when they're all volunteers. And, you know, be volunteering
21:31
is challenging. So there's constantly trying to recruit new volunteers, trying
21:35
to manage people so that they they recruit and
21:40
transition out before they get burned out. Nobody can
21:43
be a volunteer forever. You know, so in
21:47
a healthy volunteer organization, you get in,
21:50
you're excited, you do some things, you recruit other people, you're
21:54
able to kind of take a backseat. They then recruit new
21:57
people and there's this ongoing healthy cycle of folks.
22:03
So just training volunteers, you
22:06
know, retraining new volunteers, kind
22:09
of trying to get everybody pointed in the same
22:13
direction have always been the challenges. And
22:17
the other challenge is really kind of a good challenge is
22:21
we've always struggled to keep up with the interest. So
22:25
there's so much interest. You know, the
22:29
sort of volunteer capacity for good in the country is
22:33
extraordinary. Yeah. It really speaks well to
22:36
sort of humanity at a time when I think some people are, you
22:39
know, frustrated with that. Yeah. And so, you
22:42
know, we're always, you know, We have 80 employees now.
22:47
We used to have five. We're still trying to keep up
22:50
with the amount of interest. Yeah. I want to start a chapter. I
22:53
need help here. And so that's a good problem. Yeah,
22:57
absolutely. And, you know, and so, you
23:01
know, we feel like we're we're always feeling like
23:04
we're just tapping into the total capacity of what we could
23:07
do with volunteers out there. You know, the better you are
23:11
at organizing, the more people want to
23:15
Well, that's it. And the more things you do, you're able to, I
23:20
guess, accomplish, too, as an organization, the more people will be like, oh, a
23:23
surfrider would be great. Plus, they're known as a grassroots organization. So
23:27
they like to work with volunteers. And that's
23:30
always wonderful. As you grow, though, I think one of the, I
23:34
see one of the challenges is like, how do you remain like
23:37
the same? Because you've got some great quality volunteers. You
23:41
know, like they do some great work. And when we say volunteers,
23:44
a lot of them have full-time jobs. And so they're doing this
23:48
on top of that, right? It's it's
23:52
a it's a challenge for them to do, but that's like their hobby. That's what they
23:55
want to do. They want to protect the environment in their in their area. So
23:58
you have a lot of great quality volunteers. Is
24:02
there like an onboarding process for each volunteer so
24:05
that, you know, they know the mission, the values of
24:09
the organization so they stay true so you can continue to,
24:17
Yeah, I mean, you're right. And, you know, before I started, I just want
24:21
to say these, these, I'm, you know, I've been at this for a long time,
24:24
and I am always humbled by the people
24:28
who are volunteering for Surfrider. Yeah, because you're right. These
24:31
are people with jobs and families, in many cases,
24:35
you know, from high school kids to senior citizens,
24:38
retirees, and everything in between. And They
24:43
are doing the hard work volunteering because they
24:46
want to protect our ocean waves and beaches. So it's just it is an extraordinary. I
24:49
mean, I feel privileged to be working with such a like extraordinary, you
24:54
know, group of people. And so. Yeah.
24:58
And we invest a lot of time and energy in that. So we have like an online
25:01
learning platform, you know, with training that
25:05
we're sort of developing. It used to be sort of fairly crude. And
25:10
now we're, you know, used to be, it started in the early days
25:14
as a Xerox hard copy book.
25:18
Yeah. Activist toolkit. You know, then
25:21
it got online. And, you know, then at one
25:24
point it was like an intranet and now it's actually like a
25:28
online learning, uh, management system with like online courses.
25:32
Um, we do a lot of, uh. We
25:36
do a lot of regional training, and then we have a
25:39
network of regional managers of staff that
25:43
are out supporting the chapters. And so part of our goal
25:47
is to have one chapter manager support
25:51
a regional manager for every six or seven chapters. Gotcha.
25:56
We have staff that are like everyday support
25:59
to a region. So in California, we have
26:03
18 chapters and we have three staff whose jobs southern
26:07
central and northern that are, you know, supporting their chapters
26:12
Love it. I love that. And it's so interesting, too,
26:16
because there's so many different projects that must be going on at each individual
26:20
chapter. Is there like
26:23
a common, like what
26:27
kind of projects are going on in some of these? Like I know there's
26:30
so many, you don't have to name all of them obviously, but can you just talk about a
26:34
Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, so we really
26:38
work on five issues. So clean water, beach
26:42
access, plastic pollution, coast
26:45
and climate, which is a sort of flooding and development work, and then ocean
26:49
conservation. You know, that could range from the marine
26:53
protected areas like the new Chumash National Marine Sanctuary to
26:56
stopping bad things in the ocean, like offshore drilling. So
27:00
those five pillars are one organizing, those
27:04
are the issues that we focus on. Other issues like
27:07
fisheries, we don't. That's one way of kind of focusing
27:11
the work. And those are issues that tend to be relevant to
27:15
people on the coasts and coastal recreation. And
27:19
then we have a series of programs that are like stewardship programs, beach
27:23
cleanups, Ocean-friendly gardens, which is, you know,
27:26
turning your landscape into a solution to pollution. Ocean-friendly
27:31
restaurants, helping restaurants get rid of plastics. We just
27:34
launched ocean-friendly hotels and a climate action program, which
27:37
is, you know, restoring coastal ecosystems. And
27:41
so we build toolkits for all of those programs. Blue
27:44
Water Task Force is another one. We do water quality monitoring. So those
27:48
are like a suite of everyday programs that are hands-on. This
27:51
is also why I think the organization is attractive. You can roll
27:54
up your sleeves and actually do something in
27:58
your community. And so we do those. And then we have advocacy
28:02
campaigns at the local, state, and federal level on those five
28:05
issues. And at any given day, there's about 140 of
28:10
That's incredible. For
28:16
all the stuff that goes, like you talked about a bottom-up, top-down
28:21
type of organization that works in both ways, where
28:25
you have this headquarters and like you said, right now you have about 80 employees and
28:29
then you have this volunteer network, hundreds of
28:32
thousands of people. When you
28:36
develop these programs or you've been developing these programs over the years
28:40
is are these programs from feedback of projects that
28:44
are coming in as well as sort of directions the
28:48
organizations from an organizational standpoint wants to
28:53
Yeah, in many ways that the chapter network and we give a
28:57
you know, you kind of referenced this earlier, we give the chapters a ton of autonomy. Right?
29:01
So once you're a chartered chapter, you can Pick a program or
29:05
a campaign or an issue you choose based
29:08
on what's relevant and important to your issue. There's no reason to be
29:11
working on beach access if you don't have a beach
29:15
access issue in your community. For sure. Beach access
29:18
is the biggest issue in your community and you come along and say, hey, let's talk about
29:22
this marine protected area. No one's going to care. Right. And
29:25
so we do give them a lot of autonomy to sort
29:29
of pick and choose the issues that
29:34
are most relevant to them. So
29:39
that's a part of it. I'm now I'm forgetting
29:44
Well, just like in terms of like, are there, I guess one of
29:47
the things is, can you identify some of the projects that have come in that have really contributed to
29:53
So they also experiment. And
29:56
so it's like an R&D out in the field. Right.
30:00
So, for example, you know, we're trying to figure out how to
30:03
get rid of all these single use plastics in communities and we're trying to pass
30:06
laws and policies and You know, sort
30:10
of our our Huntington Beach chapter and our San Diego chapter
30:14
and our Oahu chapter. We're like,
30:17
hey, why are we asking restaurants to get rid of single use plastics? And
30:21
so, you know, they started the ocean friendly restaurants program. And
30:26
then they started trading information, and they kind of figured out what
30:29
worked. And we were like, wow, this is cool. I
30:32
think there's interest in this elsewhere. So we just sort
30:36
of adopted it, nationalized it, and standardized it, and then reissued
30:41
it to the whole network. Um, so a lot
30:44
of it comes from the, from the, from the chapter network
30:48
itself. Um, and you know, our
30:51
chapters, this climate action program, which is restoring habitats, you
30:55
know, Cape Fear chapter was doing a, uh, they'd
30:58
collect Christmas trees after Christmas. And, uh, and then they'd
31:02
in the spring, they'd plant them in the dunes, uh, you
31:05
know, and, uh, Miami chapters doing dune restoration and,
31:10
uh, folks in, um, Up in
31:13
Maine, we're doing wetland restoration. And so we were like, and then, you
31:16
know, we had mangrove planting in Puerto Rico and we're like, hey, a
31:20
lot of chapters are actually doing coastal restoration work.
31:23
This is great for resilience. Same thing.
31:27
Let's aggregate this, start building some tools and
31:30
build a formal program. So a lot of it comes from, from
31:34
the bot, observing what the network's doing and then
31:38
picking and choosing the ideas that seem to have, um, some
31:42
momentum and some impact and kind of the same with the
31:46
advocacy we see local action happening in different places
31:53
Decade ago, like, let's, let's build a toolkit.
31:58
Yeah. And redistribute it. And so it really
32:01
is a kind of, we have the fortune of
32:05
like being able to observe the whole network. And these chapters
32:08
are out there being social entrepreneurs, and we can kind of cherry pick
32:13
And you could see what works and what doesn't. I love that.
32:16
I love that. And they're communicating, you know, we're trying to do as much,
32:20
you know, connecting the network to communicate so
32:25
that they're sharing learnings. And we all are, you know,
32:29
as we go. And, you know, I want to make sure we get
32:32
to it, but we're starting tomorrow. We're
32:36
having a big 40th anniversary summit. Oh,
32:40
nice. Nice. And that's awesome. Bringing
32:44
together 400 of our sort of top chapter leaders across the
32:47
country, you know, for exactly to celebrate 40 years, but
32:50
also to, you know, learn, share and network across
32:56
Well, and that's I think that's where this this network comes through.
33:00
You talk about 200 chapters across the country in
33:04
other countries sometimes. And
33:07
each chapter has their own unique set of problems
33:11
and also a unique set of attributes within the community of
33:15
different people, different cultures. Like we even know within the States, there are different cultures within
33:19
the States, you know, in the different coastlines and so
33:22
forth. So you probably have some unique problems within each
33:26
of those chapters. But then you can take some of those programs like
33:30
the single-use plastic bag ban and be like, okay, Let's
33:34
take this. This is actually a really good idea. We'll take the
33:37
core of this and we'll build the toolkit. We'll give it to Florida
33:42
from Washington or from San Francisco. Give it to Florida, see how they do.
33:46
OK, these are the challenges that they faced. Let's go back to the
33:49
toolkit. Let's rejig it a little bit to lessons learned. And
33:53
then let's hit it out to New Jersey. And then let's go to Hawaii.
33:57
And so you're almost like a data center from
34:00
the headquarters looking in. and and you're you're you're
34:04
sort of your your stations your field stations are the chapters and
34:08
Being able to work with them and having going back and forth and be like,
34:11
how do we support you? How can we help? You know, what what
34:14
do you need from us? And what can you provide us that we can tell other chapters to
34:18
do that would that would work. It's it's such a That's
34:23
where the model comes in, where it becomes such a good feedback tool,
34:28
I love that. And you're right. What makes sense on a Texas beach
34:31
is different than an urban beach in Los Angeles, or a
34:34
remote beach in Oregon, or the
34:39
beaches of Florida. And so that's part of it, right? They do. They have different
34:43
cultural norms, different histories, different uses,
34:47
different impacts. you know, and
34:50
so what makes sense in one place may or may not make any sense in the other, or
34:57
Yeah, absolutely. Now, over this 40 years, a
35:00
lot of things have happened, obviously, the development of the network and the continued development and
35:03
the growth of the, of the organization, not only
35:06
from a headquarters, headquarters standpoint, but from a chapter standpoint, what
35:11
have been some of the major wins that you that you remember
35:14
over your 29 years working with with Surfrider that
35:18
you know, people should know about Surfrider that may not, they may not realize
35:22
that you guys helped win or helped, you know, get something passed
35:25
or, you know, helped institute certain things that could, that people
35:33
Yeah, no, I thank you for that question. It's funny because we,
35:37
you know, because of this grassroots nature and this sort of distributing the
35:40
power, I think, you know, we're always worried that
35:43
people are like, oh, they're the like surfers who do the beach cleanups. Yeah,
35:47
you know, but there's there's not really a lot of impact beyond that.
35:51
And, and so, you know, and we have
35:54
had some significant impact. A couple things that stand out that I'm
35:58
really proud of is, um, A few years back, we
36:01
won a landmark Clean Water Act lawsuit that
36:05
went all the way to the Supreme Court and we won and strengthened
36:09
the Clean Water Act. Again, it started locally with a
36:12
wastewater treatment issue in the county of Maui on Maui Island in
36:16
Hawaii. And it had to do with sort of how
36:19
far the Clean Water Act extends, sort
36:23
of, you know, the reach of the Clean Water Act and you
36:27
know, there was an argument that it was only sort of this quote, unquote,
36:30
like sort of physical connection. And we were talking about a functional
36:34
connection, right? We're injecting sewage into the
36:37
groundwater. It was seeping up through the ground and impacting
36:41
coral reefs because the the the island
36:45
is so porous. Yeah. And we were like, hey, that
36:48
that means that the wastewater treatments responsible for
36:52
that pollution, we could see it through like dye pollutants. And
36:57
they argue that wasn't because it was, you know, it went through the earth before
37:00
it came out into the ocean. And so we won that strength
37:04
and they called it the Clean Water Act case of the century. Wow. Dependents.
37:09
Yeah. We're proud of that. In
37:13
2000, we passed a federal bill called the Beach Act. OK.
37:17
Standardized and funded water quality monitoring. all
37:21
across the country, recreational water quality monitoring. I
37:25
like to think of it as the equivalent of like the grades in restaurants.
37:29
Right. Right. ABC. Yeah. We now
37:33
know when you go to a restaurant, if they're Up to par.
37:37
Yeah, we didn't we should know the same about the ocean for sure. You
37:40
know if I go swimming I'm gonna get sick or not That's
37:46
Yeah, we take it for granted, but that's a huge huge deal,
37:50
Yeah That that would really you know water
37:53
quality monitoring prior to that was spotty. Yeah different
37:57
standards And, you know,
38:01
here in our backyard, we stopped this massive toll
38:05
road project that was going to destroy San
38:08
Onofre State Park, the fifth most visited state park in
38:12
California and home to Trussell's, arguably the best
38:16
surf spot in the United States. It was
38:19
a David and Goliath fight that we won. So
38:26
So how did that how did that win happen? Like, you know, you talk about David
38:29
and Goliath type of fight You're trying to save a surf spot. You're trying
38:33
to save a state park that obviously it's like you said, it's the fifth most visited
38:36
state park Those are really Effective
38:41
tools to use to say hey this needs to be protected and
38:45
this toll roads gonna gonna destroy that but you're
38:48
working against you know, maybe the government you're working against,
38:52
you know, maybe it's a private company that's putting in these tolls. There's
38:55
some big, big things to go up against. How, how
38:59
did you, if you can just say briefly, how did you, uh, window
39:05
Yeah. It was like a $500 million toll road and huge. traffic-laden
39:12
Southern California, like the land of the car. Arnold
39:18
Schwarzenegger was our governor at the time. He was supportive
39:22
of the project. We were told, don't
39:25
take it on because you won't win. But
39:31
it really is a testament to people power. The
39:36
toll road authority had all the money. They
39:40
had the political influence, but we
39:44
had a huge number of people and worked in
39:47
a very effective coalition. Parks
39:51
Commission hearing most attended in California history. Wow. California
39:55
Coastal Commission hearing, 2,500 people
39:59
showed up. They had to move the venue three times to
40:02
accommodate the crowd. And I called it the Woodstock of
40:06
surfing conservation because there were people in costumes, celebratory,
40:10
music, costumes. And then US,
40:16
the Commerce Department, which is above NOAA, which is above the Coastal Commission,
40:20
held an appeal and I think 3,500 people
40:24
came out. And so the
40:29
public overwhelmingly opposed the project and
40:33
sort of that massive movement of
40:36
people, you know, overcame all of
40:40
the sort of Political and financial advantages
40:44
that the road had You know,
40:47
so not only was it like I surfed there this morning. It's magical
40:51
beautiful place and And it's
40:55
got a wetland and it's full of birds and there's endangered species.
40:58
I mean, it really is a gem. It's a
41:02
largely intact watershed. So the water's clean after
41:06
it rains. It's really just a place
41:09
that shouldn't be spoiled. And so a
41:17
Well, and I think this goes to show that the chapter model
41:22
works really well, because I'm sure a lot of the abilities
41:26
to get people out in that, those types of numbers probably started from
41:29
an internal email being like, Hey, everybody, here's what's going on.
41:33
You know, this is what's at risk. So here we start off with surf rider
41:36
people, uh, you know, the, the chapters, the volunteers, and
41:40
then they get their friends and their people that may not be
41:43
in the know. And then they, all of a sudden they start to come out in droves. I
41:47
think that's, so that, like from an organizational point of view, when you talk about
41:51
advocacy, that's where the power, it's in the people, right? It's
41:55
in the ability for organizations, whether it's a coalition or not,
41:59
to be able to get the number of people out that
42:02
will be able to influence politicians and decision-making. And
42:10
It absolutely does. And I think, you know, um, I
42:14
hear all the time, well, the system is corrupt. Uh,
42:17
the, the money rules the day it's
42:21
the, it's the lobbyists, you know, blah, blah, blah. And,
42:25
um, and I'm like, well, that is
42:28
true to some degree. And I, you know, um, the, the sort
42:32
of people who are destructive of the coast have more money and more
42:35
power. However, We actually
42:39
have all the people, right? You
42:43
know, there's there's more people who want to visit the beach than people
42:46
who want to destroy the beach. And so and
42:50
we live in a democracy. Lucky us. So
42:53
if we choose to. We actually have a
42:57
lot of control and agency over what the future looks
43:01
like. We have the solutions to almost all of these problems. What
43:04
we lack is public and political will, and
43:08
political will comes from public will. So
43:12
I think if more people voice
43:15
their opinion, more people get involved in local civics, more
43:19
people vote, we can carry
43:25
Yeah, that's that's that. You're right. That's the
43:28
great motivational words, because I think a lot of people lose hope. And
43:31
again, it's being isolated from other people who feel
43:35
the same way. Your words probably reign true
43:38
with if I talk to any surf rider supporter or
43:41
surf rider volunteer to just be like, it's probably the same.
43:44
They'll probably say the same thing. We can actually do something when
43:48
we're part of a larger community. And let's be honest here, Chad, not
43:51
everybody's a surfer that's part of a surf rider the, you know, the origin of
43:55
And, you know, sort of back to that origin story, the way I like to think
43:59
of it is, you know, in the beginning, it was surfers trying to protect surf spots. Um, and then, you
44:02
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,
44:05
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,
44:08
the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,
44:12
the, the, the, the, the, the And then they sort of connected with community members and
44:15
it became community members protecting their communities, right? So
44:19
if you if you swim in the ocean, if you've got kids that play at the beach, if
44:22
you walk your dog out the beach in the morning, you know. or
44:27
you like to swim, you had a stake in it.
44:30
So it kind of expanded to communities and beyond surfers. And
44:35
then it became kind of surfers protecting the ocean. And now
44:38
that we know the role the ocean plays in climate
44:42
change, it's really surfers and beachgoers and
44:55
Yeah, and it happens so fast, too. I think that's
44:58
what the beauty is, is it starts local and
45:02
you can affect global as you do local. I've
45:06
been really onto this for a long time. We've been hearing
45:09
it all our lives, you know, as we grew up, where we're like, okay,
45:15
you know, act local, think, think, think, was it think global act locally?
45:19
And after a while, it seemed like people like, no, that doesn't work, that doesn't
45:22
work. But now, it really does. I think it's it's being a
45:25
part of the right community. And the right people have the
45:28
experience who have the guidance. And like surf rider is
45:32
that community, you know, or at least one of those major communities
45:36
in the US and even North America that people know, it's like, if
45:39
I need if I need guidance, I can go there, you talk about the learning
45:42
tools that you have, and the training tools that you have, It's all just, uh,
45:46
uh, you know, incredible to be able to already have that developed. So when
45:50
somebody comes in new, they're just like, okay, here we go. Like this is, this
45:53
is where I can, I can be guided and really helped out. And then you
45:57
can have that, that effective level. Now, you know, surf riders have also had like
46:00
some major wins locally. Um, let's talk some of the federal, uh,
46:04
wins with some of the coalitions that you've had, like, you know, as a surf rider,
46:08
as an, as an organization talked about the clean water, it
46:12
Yeah, that was like a Supreme Court win. Yeah. They helped pass
46:16
the Beach Act. Yeah, that's right. On sort of playing defense,
46:21
the Trump administration wanted, when they
46:24
were in office, wanted to open all coasts of the United States to
46:28
offshore drilling. Yes. Drilling in
46:32
federal waters is an executive action through
46:35
the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. So
46:38
that's also like a federal effort.
46:44
And so we oppose that. And again, it was interesting, right?
46:47
Are you going to convince Trump and his administration
46:53
not to do this? No. But, you
46:58
know, we organized in, for example, in every community in
47:01
South Carolina on the coast. Yeah. And we made an economic argument.
47:05
Hey, business owner, restaurant, surf shop, kayak
47:09
rental hotel. You've got nothing to
47:12
gain from these offshore platforms and everything to lose
47:16
if there's a spill. Why would you support
47:20
this? And they said, well, we don't. So we start passing resolutions at the local level.
47:25
Um, which don't have any teeth, but sent a strong signal.
47:29
And then, um, and then all of a sudden, you know, if you're the
47:33
congressional rep for South Carolina and every coastal
47:37
community in your district is opposed. real
47:41
hard to support it. Again, we kind of had
47:44
this, you know, and by the end of the Trump administration, he
47:49
was actually trying to pull Florida and
47:52
the Carolinas out of his proposal because
47:56
he was worried they were making it was making him vulnerable in the election. Yeah.
48:01
And that was, again, sort of like grassroots organizing at the
48:04
base, scaling up to the federal level and
48:09
It's a huge thing, especially looking at which
48:14
administration is in charge federally, state-wise. There's
48:17
a lot of things to do. I'm sure there's always something to do in the U.S. with
48:21
so many things going on these days. Environment is
48:26
a big deal right now, should be a big deal right now in
48:30
these election talks. But I find it interesting that
48:35
you don't really hear a lot in the debates of these upcoming elections. You
48:38
haven't really heard a lot about climate change. You haven't really heard a lot
48:41
about the environment. Um, how
48:45
do you, uh, talk to your, like,
48:48
talk to your volunteers, talk to your networks about the importance of
48:52
this election in terms of this federal election, as well as there's, there's
48:56
a number of different elections going on, um, in November in
49:00
the US. How do you talk to your, your network of
49:03
the importance of these elections and voting, uh, in,
49:07
in terms of protecting the environment when the environment isn't really being talked
49:15
Yeah, it's a great question. I'm gonna hold one time out. I've been sitting in this room and the
49:22
No problem. Energy
49:28
I love it. Yeah. So for one thing,
49:32
we have to be a little bit careful because we're a 501 c three. So
49:35
like a nonpartisan organization. Gotcha. And I'll
49:40
get to something interesting in a second. But um, and And
49:43
so, you know, we can't advocate for specific candidates. Right.
49:47
You know, and we can't be partisan in our actions.
49:53
So we really are just encouraging people to get out and vote. Right.
49:57
You know, without picking a side. Gotcha. And,
50:02
uh, but you know, so if you're a, if you're a local activist
50:06
and you're, you're actually advocating for local action at your
50:09
city, you know, you're, you're paying attention to those city
50:12
council members, you know, about ones that are, um, are,
50:16
are, are with you or not with you. And so I
50:19
think, you know, um, the, our,
50:23
our, our network certainly gets the value of, elections
50:27
and down ballot, right? They talk about this. Don't just vote for the president. Right.
50:32
Vote for your federal reps, state reps down
50:35
to your city council and your school board. And I
50:38
really want to emphasize that is, you know, because those those
50:43
local decision makers have a lot of power. You
50:47
know, you think about something like the Clean Water Act, you know, which
50:50
regulates water pollution. We want to have things fishable and
50:53
swimmable. Well, The Clean Water Act on paper
50:57
in Washington, D.C. does nothing but set standards. And
51:01
then it's it's the behavior in your town, right? It's is
51:04
that business polluting
51:09
water out of their factory? you
51:12
know, are people hosing off
51:15
their driveways and contributing to
51:19
urban runoff? Does the car wash treat its
51:22
water? So, you know, at the end of the day, the water quality
51:26
in your town is a cumulative impact of all these little things that are happening,
51:30
not the Clean Water Act that's a piece of
51:33
paper. 100%. So yeah, so
51:37
we're encouraging everyone to vote. You know, the largest party
51:41
in America today is the did not vote party.
51:46
It's true, which is crazy to hear people not voting than voting
51:50
for any of the one side or the other. Yeah. You know,
51:53
and again, uh, it, you know, it's arguably
51:58
a relatively easy action to take harder
52:02
in some places than others. Um, but, um, you
52:05
know, so we, we just actually launched a, get out the vote
52:08
campaign, um, yesterday and we
52:16
And Protect Our Winters is the winter and snow athletes.
52:21
So it's sort of like the surf rider of the mountains or the snow. Gotcha. You
52:25
know, and they're really focused on the impacts of climate change. Yeah. Shortening
52:29
winters, you know, and yeah, they're their
52:33
favorite activity is at risk. But like Surfrider,
52:37
you know, they understand that, you know, snowboarding
52:41
and skiing is a luxury, but the impacts of climate change
52:45
are serious for the globe. They're just using sort of their passion to
52:48
advocate too. And so we partnered with them
52:51
to say, hey, look, this is a really important election. Get
52:54
out there and vote. Um, you know, and we know, uh,
52:58
make a plan to vote that increases people's voting, you
53:02
know, and the other thing is, um, get
53:06
your friends to vote. You know, there, those guys have a
53:09
saying that says friends don't let friends not vote. So
53:13
let's use peer pressure. And, uh, Hey,
53:19
especially for that that disenfranchised friends or those disenfranchised friends
53:23
where there's like, oh, it'll never make a difference ever make a difference like you
53:26
start making a difference when you get more and more people to vote and you know, whichever
53:30
way they decide to vote that's when you make a difference and you you
53:33
tell the people who you know, may be in power now that you may not like You
53:37
know, no, I don't like what you did or I don't like what you didn't do. And
53:41
so I'm going to vote for the candidate that does, you know, and I
53:44
think that's what's that's what's important, you know, is to is to
53:47
pay attention. I think a lot of those those users you
53:51
mentioned, the recreational users of skiing and
53:54
snowboarding and surfing in the ocean and so
53:57
forth, you know what you want because it
54:01
affects you personally. And so I think you're
54:04
right. You guys are knowledgeable on
54:08
what the issues that are important to each user, and then you
54:12
just let them know what we need to vote for.
54:16
And I think that's really important. Climate change is
54:19
rearing its ugly head in the last few years, especially. Even
54:24
this year, you know, in Florida, where a Category 3 hurricane
54:28
followed a Category 4 hurricane in the Tampa region and
54:32
the Gulf States, and a lot
54:35
of damage and things like that. So, you know, 40 years of
54:39
great work and continuing to try and help,
54:43
you know, not only the people that are part of your volunteer
54:47
network and your chapters, but also the country and the globe. What
54:53
is Surfrider focused on in terms of
54:57
the consequences of climate change that we've been seeing and
55:01
how to fight climate change, as well as other matters? Talking
55:05
about plastic pollution, talking about water quality, which they're all
55:08
related in some way, which makes it even more complex.
55:12
So where do you see the organization as you lead it
55:19
Yeah. Um, you know, we, uh, it's
55:24
a good thing. I think that we're like finding ourselves at the strongest point
55:27
we've ever been as an organization, because I think the challenges are
55:31
bigger than ever. So, you know, 40 years ago
55:34
we were cleaning beaches, thinking trash plastic pollution
55:37
was a local problem. Now we know it's a global ocean problem
55:41
and basically a global problem, right? It's in the atmosphere. It's in us.
55:45
Um, And same with climate change, 40 years ago, probably should
55:49
have been, but wasn't a major topic. And
55:53
I think I read a stat that
56:00
70% of Americans have felt some impact of climate change, fires,
56:04
flooding, hurricanes, storms. And
56:09
so we used to say climate change is coming. And now
56:12
we know climate change is here. So I
56:16
think that's part of the reason why there's a much wider
56:20
recognition. Yeah, so we definitely
56:24
face some big problems. I'm
56:27
somewhat optimistic about them because we can solve all
56:31
of them. For
56:34
the most part, we have the solutions. We just need to build the
56:37
public well. Our focus
56:43
on climate change is really about the coasts. and
56:48
focused on using the coast as a solution through nature-based solutions
56:52
and coastal restoration. Blue carbon
56:55
or coastlines can suck a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere and
56:59
buffer us from the worst impacts of storms by
57:02
building natural habitats. Mangroves and wetlands and
57:10
And on the other side of it, we're really trying to work with communities to
57:14
figure out how to adapt, right? The sea level rise is coming no
57:17
matter what we do, and we can either wait and
57:21
armor the coast and see a lot of disaster, or we can
57:24
start figuring out how to adapt for
57:28
the sea level rise that's coming. So those are our really big focus areas
57:32
for climate change. I think the, you know, manage,
57:35
retreat, coastal adaptation thing is in
57:39
its infancy, really, and we didn't get on top of that. So we've got
57:42
some good demonstration projects we're working on to
57:46
show what that can look like. The best one is Surfer's Point up
57:49
in Ventura. You know, if people
57:53
Google Ventura, C Street, Manager
57:57
Tree, they'll just see a beautiful coastline that's been moved back from
58:00
the coast, you know, from the ocean and erosion. You
58:04
know, and then we're really trying to scale up our plastic pollution work. There's
58:09
a global treaty right now to reduce plastic pollution. And
58:13
we're working with our affiliates and other coalition partners to try to
58:17
get the U.S. and other nations to come
58:21
up with a kind of like climate change, some realistic goals to
58:24
eliminate plastic pollution. And another trend
58:27
that's interesting, I feel like, is there's a real movement
58:31
towards holding these big businesses accountable. Last
58:40
Let me just drop it. You know, we just sued them, you know, just last week. We
58:44
That's huge. Yeah, it is. So we sued Exxon
58:49
for sort of disingenuous policies around
58:53
recycling, right? This is a connection between ocean and climate, plastics
58:58
Yeah, I think it accounts for what 30 percent of
59:02
fossil fuel pollution on the increase.
59:06
Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, as the number one
59:09
supplier of the base materials for plastic pollution, they've
59:12
been spending billions of dollars trying to convince us recycling works
59:17
and it doesn't. We're still at, you know, five, six percent recycling. Yeah.
59:22
And so, you know, You're seeing that you're
59:25
seeing lawsuits against major fossil
59:29
fuel companies for the impacts of climate change, you
59:32
know, so that and we're passing these extended producer responsibility,
59:36
which is, you know, producer pays bills. Yes. Plastic pollution.
59:40
So there's a movement towards corporate accountability for these impacts.
59:46
I think that's appropriate. Yep. And
59:50
you know, these these major manufacturers of
59:53
plastic, oil and gas can choose to be responsible or
59:59
Yeah. Yeah, especially with the amount of sort of
1:00:02
disinformation they've been putting out and confusion they've been putting out
1:00:06
over the last God knows how many decades, you
1:00:09
know, right? Like we're not talking about just like a social media
1:00:12
campaign that happened yesterday. This has been ongoing and has
1:00:16
been a huge impediment to climate
1:00:20
action for decades and something that we, you know, could
1:00:23
have been installed a while ago, but they put corporate greed
1:00:27
over over and profits over over
1:00:30
action. And it could have been just as heralded for the
1:00:34
action that they took back in the day. So I'm glad that
1:00:37
there, you know, you that surf riders part of that. I'm
1:00:40
glad that you're able to do that. And I think we're going to need to see
1:00:44
that more in the future as well. with with different companies
1:00:47
to just be like look you can't just start confusing the people and
1:00:51
And put it pitting us against each other of trying to do some good Because
1:00:57
I mean, yeah in the same game, you know that
1:01:01
you know, the big tobacco is ultimately held accountable for
1:01:05
billions of dollars and you know that money was used
1:01:09
to significantly reduce Smoking rates.
1:01:13
So it's a good case study on what
1:01:20
Yeah. And I mean, let's be honest. Those campaigns those
1:01:23
tobacco campaigns like we're now able we see a lot of places where
1:01:26
you can't smoke inside And I mean remember when we grew up where you
1:01:29
had like smoking and non-smoking sections in the same place Which
1:01:33
was like you think about it now, you're like that's just ridiculous on the airplane on
1:01:37
Yeah Right one row in front of the smoking section. Oh
1:01:46
It's insane to think about. But again, it takes a lot of
1:01:50
people to get together and focus in on
1:01:53
certain aspects. And that's what you're able to do. That's what
1:01:56
you've been able to do for the last 40 years. You're continuing to be able to do
1:01:59
for the next 40 years and beyond. I
1:02:03
really like what surf riders have done. And so it's been a pleasure, Chad,
1:02:06
to have you on and talk about these accolades. I
1:02:10
always like to do this, especially with Surfrider, get our
1:02:13
audience involved. If somebody wants to become a volunteer at
1:02:16
Surfrider, how would you recommend they go about it?
1:02:20
Yeah, if you go to volunteer.surfrider.org, you
1:02:24
can either sign up for your local chapter or actually see what volunteer
1:02:27
activities are taking place. This weekend probably would
1:02:31
be one of the only weekends of the year where there's not a lot going on because
1:02:34
they're all going to be in Long Beach with me. Yes, that's right. Celebrating, but
1:02:37
almost every other weekend of the year, there's something going on out there. And
1:02:42
so if you go to our website at Surfrider.org, you can sort
1:02:46
of zoom in and join your local chapter, find
1:02:51
Awesome. And one thing I forgot to ask, you said tomorrow is the beginning of
1:02:54
the celebrations. 400 volunteer leaders are coming in.
1:02:58
What can people expect from those celebrations and
1:03:04
Yeah, I mean, this is really about sort of, you know, strengthening
1:03:09
and energizing this incredible network of people that are doing all this
1:03:12
great work. So we've got some great inspirational speakers,
1:03:17
a lot of training about organizing and
1:03:23
I love it. I love it. And to be honest, I give a lot of advice for people
1:03:28
who want to be marine biologists and get into marine conservation. I
1:03:33
feel like volunteering with organizations
1:03:37
like Surfrider is a huge benefit because you
1:03:40
learn so much. Like you said, you get training. You get to
1:03:43
build this network. You get to do some great things. So it motivates you
1:03:47
even more to do even more later on. Plus, it
1:03:50
kind of shapes you. Chad, even you yourself, you didn't do your
1:03:53
PhD until, you know, what was it like 15 years
1:03:58
Yeah, yeah, I, I finished in 2012. And
1:04:02
I probably started in 2008. But yeah, I'd been a writer for
1:04:07
Exactly. So it kind of shapes where you where you think you can impact
1:04:10
the world in terms of academically as well as through
1:04:14
conservation. So I highly recommend people who are early career
1:04:17
scientists looking for experience. It's sometimes right
1:04:21
in your backyard. You don't have to go across the world and pay thousands
1:04:24
of dollars to get experience for two weeks. You can do work and
1:04:28
continue that work throughout your career as a volunteer. So I
1:04:31
highly recommend that. I'll put that up, thevolunteer.surfrider.org in
1:04:36
the show notes and in the description so that people can sign up for
1:04:39
that and fuel your passion more to
1:04:42
do more for the ocean and the coastlines and water quality. Chad, thank
1:04:46
you so much for joining me. Congratulations on 40 years.
1:04:49
Looking forward to another 40 and enjoy the festivities and
1:04:56
Hey, thanks for having me back, Andrew. It's always a lot of fun, so
1:05:00
You bet. Thank you. Thank you, Chad, for joining us here once again on
1:05:03
the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Really appreciate you sharing all the wonderful
1:05:07
stories of Surfrider over the last 40 years. Congratulations on
1:05:10
the 40th anniversary of Surfrider, a great organization that
1:05:14
uses its volunteers as its method
1:05:18
to change policy, to create policy, to
1:05:22
do so many great things. sue the government when
1:05:25
they're not acting properly, create the Beach Act, just do
1:05:28
so many more things, beach cleanups, getting people involved, listening to
1:05:32
volunteers, training volunteers, and building that
1:05:35
chapter network to 200 chapters, over 100,000 volunteers worldwide. doing
1:05:43
amazing things. follow
1:05:59
Surfrider in all the things that they do. They have a lot of different chapters,
1:06:02
they care about their volunteers, and they just are a great
1:06:06
organization. For the last 40 years, they've done some amazing things,
1:06:10
and some of them are too much to count, but they've done some great
1:06:13
things from an advocacy role, from a policy role, from an
1:06:17
action like beach cleanup and water quality testing role. It's
1:06:20
just so many different ways that you can get involved and
1:06:23
so many ways that you can watch what they do and it's such a great
1:06:27
opportunity to feel like you're part of a community and not by yourself when
1:06:30
you want to do conservation. So think about Surfrider next time you're doing
1:06:34
you want to do something good for the planet and I just want
1:06:37
to say thanks to Chad for all the work that he's done over the last 29 years
1:06:41
over the last 10 as CEO and then in the future, all
1:06:44
the work, the great work that he's going to be doing with a wonderful staff of
1:06:48
80 people, a wonderful 200 chapters and amazing
1:06:52
100,000 volunteers and growing. So we want to see that
1:06:56
organization grow. Look, they're not paying me to do this. I just think
1:06:59
it's such a great opportunity. We don't get these chances a lot to
1:07:02
be able to You know, build a network like this to
1:07:05
be a part of a group like this and to have a voice and to be
1:07:09
able to actually affect change. Like, think about mobilizing 2500 people
1:07:14
to a public meeting where the government has to actually change the
1:07:17
venue three times to accommodate the amount of people. Think about
1:07:20
that as one voice, the power of that as one voice.
1:07:24
And the big thing here, the big message just in terms of
1:07:27
its timeliness, it's almost time to vote in the US.
1:07:31
If you haven't registered to vote, register to vote today. It doesn't
1:07:35
matter who you vote for, but you have power in voting. You
1:07:38
want to have that power. You want to be able to vote. You want to be able to
1:07:41
have a say for your country. You want to be able to do something,
1:07:44
especially if you're part of a democratic society. If you need more information
1:07:48
on what the big issues are, you can go to the Surfrider organization
1:07:53
website. I'll put in the link below. And also just talk to
1:07:56
your local representatives, talk to your state representatives and your federal representatives
1:08:00
and find out where you can vote, how you can vote and who you can
1:08:03
vote for and do that today, register today. So thank you so much
1:08:07
for joining me on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
1:08:11
I want to just, it's just amazing to be able to connect with you. If you
1:08:14
want to connect with me, you can do so by DMing me on
1:08:18
Instagram at how to protect the ocean. You can also comment in
1:08:21
the description or in just down below in the YouTube video Also,
1:08:25
you can watch the video on Spotify and give me a
1:08:28
comment there But I'm always available in any any capacity that
1:08:32
you just heard Always looking forward to hearing you because it's the beginning of
1:08:35
a conversation. I'd love to hear your conversation and your conservation efforts So
1:08:39
thank you again for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm
1:08:42
your host Andrew Lewin Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and happy