Mark Massara

Mark Massara is an American surfer, attorney and environmental conservationist who became known in the surfing and environmental communities after winning a 5.6 million dollar Clean Water Act penalty in 1991 as counsel for the Surfrider Foundation, the second largest ever collected, in a case against two pulp mills near Eureka, California. From 1991 to 2009 he directed the Sierra Club California Coastal Programs, in 1992 he established the Surfers Environmental Alliance and the National Association of Surfing Attorneys, and in 2010 he became general counsel at O Neill Wetsuits. He helped defeat a toll road near Trestles Beach in 2008 and an offshore liquid natural gas terminal off Malibu in 2007, and in 2014 he assembled the legal team that won public access to Martin Beach for the Surfrider Foundation. An avid surfer who began environmental activism at age seven, he was honored with the Surfrider Wavemaker Award in 2015.