'We're not going away': Rob Caughlan, fierce defender of the coastline and Surfrider leader, dies at the age of 82

Known by friends and colleagues arsenic a “planetary patriot,” a “happy warrior” and the “Golden State Eco-Warrior,” Rob Caughlan, a governmental operative, savvy nationalist relations specializer and 1 of the aboriginal leaders of the Surfrider Foundation, died astatine his location successful San Mateo, connected Jan. 17. He was 82.

His woman of astir 62 years, Diana, died 4 days earlier, from lung cancer.

Environmentalists, governmental operatives and friends responded to his decease with grief but besides joyousness arsenic they recalled his passion, endowment and consciousness of wit — and his thrust not lone to marque the satellite a amended place, but to person amusive doing it.

“He’d ever accidental that the existent victor successful a surfing contention was the feline who had the astir fun,” said Lennie Roberts, a conservationist successful San Mateo County and longtime person of Caughlan’s. “He was existent to that. It’s the mode helium lived.”

“When helium walked into a room, he’d person a large grin connected his face. He was a large — a talented — radical person,” said Dan Young, 1 of the archetypal 5 founders of the Surfrider Foundation. The enactment was cobbled unneurotic successful the aboriginal 1980s by a radical of Southern California surfers who felt called to support the coastline — and their waves.

They besides wanted to dispel the stereotype that surfers are lackadaisical stoners — and amusement the satellite that surfers could get organized and combat for conscionable causes, said Roberts, citing Caughlan’s 2020 memoir, “The Surfer successful the White House and Other Salty Yarns.”

Before joining Surfrider successful 1986, Caughlan was a governmental operative who worked arsenic an biology advisor successful the Carter administration. According to Warner Chabot, an aged person and precocious retired enforcement manager of the an Francisco Estuary Institute, Caughlan got his commencement during the aboriginal 1970s erstwhile helium and his friend, David Oke, formed the Sam Ervin Fan Club, which supported the Southern senator’s efforts to pb the Watergate probe of President Nixon.

According to Chabot, Caughlan organized the printing of T-shirts with Ervin’s look connected them, underneath the substance “I Trust Uncle Sam.”

“He was an aboriginal societal influencer — par extraordinaire,” helium said.

Glenn Hening, a surfer, erstwhile Jet Propulsion Laboratory abstraction bundle technologist and different archetypal laminitis of the Surfrider Foundation, said 1 of the group’s archetypal fights was against the metropolis of Malibu, which successful the aboriginal 1980s was periodically digging up soil successful the lagoon close offshore and destroying the waves astatine 1 of their favourite surf spots.

According to Hening, it was Caughlin’s unsocial quality to transportation and charm politicians and donors that enactment Surfrider’s efforts connected the map.

Caughlan served arsenic the foundation’s president from 1986 to 1992.

The instauration grabbed the nationalist spotlight successful 1989 erstwhile it went aft 2 ample insubstantial mills successful Humboldt Bay that were discharging toxic wastewater into an fantabulous surfspot successful Northern California. The instauration took purpose and successful 1991 filed suit alongside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the insubstantial mills settled for $5.8 million.

Hening said the triumph would ne'er person happened without Caughlan.

The mills had tried to brushwood disconnected the suit by offering a donation to the foundation, Hening said. But Caughlan and Mark Massara — an biology lawyer with the enactment — rebuffed the gesture.

“The insubstantial mill guys said, ‘Well, what tin we bash here? How tin we marque this spell away?’” said Hening, recalling the conversation. “And Rob said, ‘It’s not going to spell away. We’re not going away. We’re surfers.”

Roberts said Caughlan’s bequest tin beryllium felt by anyone who has ever spent clip connected the San Mateo County coastline. In the 1980s, the 2 spearheaded a palmy ballot measurement inactive protects the seashore from non-agricultural improvement and ensured entree to the beaches and bluffs. It besides prohibits onshore lipid facilities for off-shore facilities.

The 2 besides worked connected a region measurement that led to the improvement of the Devil’s Slide tunnels connected Highway 1 betwixt Pacifica and Montara, designed to marque that formerly treacherous way safer for travelers.

The authorities had wanted to physique a six-lane road implicit the steep hills successful the area. “It would person been unsafe due to the fact that of the steep slopes, and it would beryllium going up into the fog slope and past backmost down retired of the fog. So it was inherently dangerous,” Roberts said.

Chad Nelsen, the existent president of the Surfrider Foundation, said helium was archetypal drawn into Caughlan’s orbit successful 2010 erstwhile Surfrider got progressive with a suit pertaining to a formation successful San Mateo County. Silicon Valley task capitalist Vinod Khosla purchased 53 acres of Northern California coastline for $32.5 cardinal and closed disconnected entree to the nationalist — including a fashionable agelong known arsenic Martin’s Beach — truthful Surfrider sued.

Nelsen said that though Caughlan had near the enactment astir 20 years before, helium reappeared with a “sort of unbridled enthusiasm and committedness to the cause,” and the enactment yet prevailed — the nationalist tin erstwhile again entree the formation “thanks to ‘Birdlegs.’”

Birdlegs was Caughlan’s nickname, and according to Nelsen, it was astir apt coined successful the 1970s by his chap surfers.

“He had notoriously spindly legs, I guess,” Nelsen said.

Robert Willis Caughlan was calved successful Alliance, Ohio, connected Feb. 27, 1943. His father, who was a parachute teacher with the U.S. Army, died erstwhile Caughlan was 4. In 1950, Caughlan moved with his parent and younger member to San Mateo, wherever helium saw the water for the archetypal time.

He rode his his archetypal question successful 1959, astatine the property of 16, from the breakwater astatine Half Moon Bay.