Known by friends and colleagues as a “planetary patriot,” a “happy warrior” and the “Golden State Eco-Warrior,” Rob Caughlan, a political operative, savvy public relations specialist and one of the early leaders of the Surfrider Foundation, died at his home in San Mateo on Jan. 17. He was 82.
His wife of nearly 62 years, Diana, died four days earlier, from lung cancer.
Environmentalists, political operatives and friends responded to his death with grief but also joy as they recalled his passion, talent and sense of humor — and his drive not only to make the world a better place but to have fun doing it.
“He’d always say that the real winner in a surfing contest was the guy who had the most fun,” said Lennie Roberts, a conservationist in San Mateo County and longtime friend of Caughlan’s. “He was true to that. It’s the way he lived.”
“When he walked into a room, he’d have a big smile on his face. He was a great — a gifted — people person,” said Dan Young, one of the original five founders of the Surfrider Foundation. The organization was cobbled together in the early 1980s by a group of Southern California surfers who felt called to protect the coastline — and their waves.
They also wanted to dispel the stereotype that surfers are lackadaisical stoners and show the world that surfers could get organized and fight for just causes, said Roberts, citing Caughlan’s 2020 memoir, “The Surfer in the White House and Other Salty Yarns.”
Before joining Surfrider in 1986, Caughlan was a political operative who worked as an environmental advisor in the Carter administration. According to Warner Chabot, an old friend and recently retired executive director of the San Francisco Estuary Institute, Caughlan got his start during the early 1970s when he and his friend, David Oke, formed the Sam Ervin Fan Club, which supported the Southern senator’s efforts to lead the Watergate investigation of President Nixon.
According to Chabot, Caughlan organized the printing of T-shirts with Ervin’s face on them, underneath the text “I Trust Uncle Sam.”
“He was an early social influencer — par extraordinaire,” he said.
Glenn Hening, a surfer, former Jet Propulsion Laboratory space software engineer and another original founder of the Surfrider Foundation, said one of the group’s initial fights was against the city of Malibu, which in the early 1980s was periodically digging up sand in the lagoon right offshore and destroying the waves at one of their favorite surf spots.
According to Hening, it was Caughlin’s unique ability to persuade and charm politicians and donors that put Surfrider’s efforts on the map.
Caughlan served as the foundation’s president from 1986 to 1992.
The foundation grabbed the national spotlight in 1989 when it went after two large paper mills in Humboldt Bay that were discharging toxic wastewater into an excellent surf spot in Northern California. The foundation took aim and in 1991 filed suit alongside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; the paper mills settled for $5.8 million.
Hening said the victory would never have happened without Caughlan.
The mills had tried to brush off the suit by offering a donation to the foundation, Hening said. But Caughlan and Mark Massara — an environmental lawyer with the organization — rebuffed the gesture.
“The paper mill guys said, ‘Well, what can we do here? How can we make this go away?’” said Hening, recalling the conversation. “And Rob said, ‘It’s not going to go away. We’re not going away. We’re surfers.’”
Roberts said Caughlan’s legacy can be felt by anyone who has ever spent time on the San Mateo County coastline. In the 1980s, the two spearheaded a successful ballot measure that still protects the coast from non-agricultural development and ensured access to the beaches and bluffs. It also prohibits onshore oil facilities for off-shore operations.
The two also worked on a county measure that led to the development of the Devil’s Slide tunnels on Highway 1 between Pacifica and Montara, designed to make that formerly treacherous path safer for travelers.
The state had wanted to build a six-lane highway over the steep hills in the area. “It would have been dangerous because of the steep slopes, and it would be going up into the fog bank and then back down out of the fog. So it was inherently dangerous,” Roberts said.
Chad Nelsen, the current president of the Surfrider Foundation, said he was first drawn into Caughlan’s orbit in 2010 when Surfrider got involved with a lawsuit pertaining to a beach in San Mateo County. Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla purchased 53 acres of Northern California coastline for $32.5 million and closed off access to the public — including a popular stretch known as Martin’s Beach — so Surfrider sued.
Nelsen said that although Caughlan had left the organization about 20 years before, he reappeared with a “sort of unbridled enthusiasm and commitment to the cause,” and the organization ultimately prevailed; the public can once again access the beach “thanks to ‘Birdlegs.’”
Birdlegs was Caughlan’s nickname, and according to Nelsen, it was probably coined in the 1970s by his fellow surfers.
“He had notoriously spindly legs, I guess,” Nelsen said.
Robert Willis Caughlan was born in Alliance, Ohio, on Feb. 27, 1943. His father, who was a parachute instructor with the U.S. Army, died when Caughlan was 4. In 1950, Caughlan moved with his mother and younger brother to San Mateo, where he saw the ocean for the first time.
He rode his first wave in 1959, at age 16, from the breakwater at Half Moon Bay.
