Known to friends and colleagues as “patriot of the planet,” “fun hero” and “Golden State Eco-Warrior,” Rob Caughlan, political expert, experienced public relations expert and one of the original leaders of the Surfrider Foundation, died at his home in San Mateo, Jan. 17. He was 82 years old.
His wife Diana, who was almost 62 years old, died four days earlier, of lung cancer.
Environmentalists, political activists and friends reacted to his death with sadness but also joy as they remembered his passion, talent and sense of humor – and his drive not just to make the world a better place, but to have fun doing it.
“He always said that the real winner of the surf contest was the guy who had the most fun,” said Lennie Roberts, a San Mateo County conservationist and longtime friend of Caughlan’s. “He was right about that. It’s the way he lived.”
“When he walked into the room, he had a big smile on his face. He was a great – gifted – people person,” said Dan Young, one of the original five founders of the Surfrider Foundation. The organization was brought together in the early 1980s by a group of Southern California surfers who felt called to protect the coast – and their waves.
They also want to dispel the stereotype that surfers are mindless rocks — and show the world that surfers can organize and fight for causes, Roberts said, citing Caughlan’s 2020 memoir, “The Surfer in the White House and Other Salty Ropes.”
Before joining Surfrider in 1986, Caughlan was a political operative who served as an environmental advisor to the Carter administration. According to Warner Chabot, an old friend and recently retired executive director of the Francisco Estuary Institute, Caughlan got his start in the early 1970s when he and his friend, David Oke, formed the Sam Ervin Fan Club, which supported the efforts of a Southern senator to lead President Nixon’s Watergate investigation.
According to Chabot, Caughlan arranged for T-shirts to be printed with Ervin’s face, under the caption “I trust Uncle Sam.”
“He was an early social activist – extraordinary,” he said.
Glenn Hening, a surfer, former software engineer for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and one of the original founders of the Surfrider Foundation, said that one of the group’s first battles was against the city of Malibu, which in the early 1980s was mining sand from a lake near the beach and destroying the waves at one of their favorite surfing spots.
According to Hening, it was Caughlin’s unique ability to persuade and attract politicians and donors that put Surfrider’s efforts on the map.
Caughlan served as the foundation’s president from 1986 to 1992.
The foundation caught the national spotlight in 1989 when it went after two large paper mills in Humboldt Bay that were discharging toxic wastewater into Northern California’s most scenic area. The foundation took aim and in 1991 filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency; paper mills received $5.8 million.
Hening said the victory would not have been possible without Caughlan.
The mills tried to throw out the suit by donating the foundation, Hening said. But Caughlan and Mark Massara – the agency’s environmental lawyer – rejected the move.
“The guys at the paper mill said, ‘What can we do here, how can we get rid of this?'” Hening said, recalling the conversation. “And Rob said, ‘It’s not going. We’re not going. We’re divers.’
Roberts said Caughlan’s legacy can be felt by anyone who has spent time on the beaches of San Mateo County. In the 1980s, the duo led a successful voting movement that still protected the coast from non-agricultural development and ensured access to beaches and bluffs. It also bans offshore oil facilities from offshore facilities.
The two also worked on a regional measure that led to the development of the Devil’s Slide tunnels on Highway 1 between Pacifica and Montara, designed to make that once treacherous road safer for travelers.
The government wanted to build a six-lane highway over the hills in the area. “It would have been dangerous because of the slopes, and it would have gone up to the edge of the fog and the fog would come out. So it was inherently dangerous,” Roberts said.
Chad Nelsen, current president of the Surfrider Foundation, said he was first drawn to Caughlan’s trail in 2010 when Surfrider was involved in a case involving a beach in San Mateo County. Silicon Valley tycoon Vinod Khosla bought 53 acres of coastal Northern California for $32.5 million and closed off public access — including the popular spot known as Martin’s Beach — so Surfrider sued.
Nelsen said that although Caughlan had left the organization about 20 years earlier, he came back with “a kind of unbridled enthusiasm and dedication,” and the organization eventually succeeded – the community can now access the beach again “thanks to ‘Birds of the Birds.’
Birdlegs was Caughlan’s nickname, and according to Nelsen, it was probably coined in the 1970s by fellow divers.
“He had a bunch of legs, I think,” Nelsen said.
Robert Willis Caughlan was born in Alliance, Ohio, on Feb. 27, 1943. His father, who was a parachute instructor in the US Army, died when Caughlan was 4 years old. 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, aged 16, from the Half Moon Bay resort.
