Introductions are in order.
Surfrider Foundation's Marin County Chapter recently held Executive Committee elections. Here's who is leading the chapter.
Chair: Jesse Wernick
Jesse was born in San Francisco and raised all over Marin County, but mostly on the Sausalito waterfront during the hippie heyday.
He has a marine biology degree from UC Santa Cruz and has taken many biology and natural history courses at College of Marin.
In 2008, Brian received his Master in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco. He also has a Bachelor of Science from California State University, Chico, in 2003.
Brian joined the Surfrider Marin County Chapter in 2022. His favorite part of volunteering with Surfrider is participating with his kids in the beach cleanups.
When not working, Brian likes to volunteer for various causes and organizations, including the Novato Theater Company, the American Red Cross and the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and sustainability committee at his kids’ school.
Vice Chair: Scott Tye
Scott is a co-founder of the Surfrider Marin Chapter and has been involved with Surfrider since 1980. He was a member of Surfrider San Francisco until a group of members began organizing the Marin chapter.
Scott continues to be an active lead for Marin Chapter's beach cleanups and various tabling events.
Scott grew up in Sacramento but visited coastal areas such as Stinson Beach or Santa Cruz every summer. He's been boogie boarding or surfing since a young age. In college at University of Washington, he was an All-American swimmer.
After graduating, Scott joined the National Park Service, stationed first at Folsom Lake before transferring to Stinson Beach in 1974.
After all these years, he's still passionate about swimming, surfing and protecting our oceans and beaches.
Media Coordinator: Katy Macek
Katy is new to Surfrider and new to Marin County. She moved to Novato from Wisconsin in September as a California Climate Action Corps fellow working in the Novato school district. She has not tried surfing, but her heart belongs to the ocean: Swimming in it, visiting the beach and, recently, protecting it.
That beauty and awe is what inspired her cross-country journey to California and, when she got here, to get involved with the local Surfrider chapter, which she joined in October.
Katy graduated in 2015 with a degree in communications and journalism and has spent nearly a decade honing the craft of story writing at local (Wisconsin) newspapers. With her new career path, she's hoping to use her skillset to tell positive, uplifting stories about taking climate action.
Her favorite pastimes are exploring various beaches and neighborhoods in her new home, writing some form of article, journal entry or blog post or reading, anything and everything — likely with a coffee or some chocolate nearby.