You could call him Mr. Ocean, or these days, Mr. Ocean and Bay.
Ocean expert Brian Baird gazes at sharks cruising through the Aquarium of the Bay’s crystal clear acrylic tunnel tanks that simulate the experience of being underwater. Photo by Kingmond Young Photography
By Brenda Kahn
Published: September, 2014
You could call him Mr. Ocean, or these days, Mr. Ocean and Bay. He’s Brian Baird, the coast and oceans expert for the Bay Institute and Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco, and he has devoted his professional life to protecting and promoting the health of marine environments.
For much of his 35-plus year career, Baird made waves in policy circles — first as a legislative liaison and deputy manager of ocean and coastal resources at the California Coastal Commission, then as the assistant secretary for Ocean and Coastal Policy at the California Natural Resources Agency. But a couple of years ago, he started chapter two of his life, leaving the governmental realm and joining the nonprofit Bay Institute just in time for the lead-up to the 34th America’s Cup. His mission was to use the high-profile international sporting event to educate the public about the richness and fragility of San Francisco Bay, the adjacent Pacific Ocean and marine environments in general.
“The Bay Institute and Aquarium have a mission to protect San Francisco Bay from the Sierra to the sea. They’ve had a highly successful Rivers and Delta Program, and an equally successful Bay Restoration Program, but did not really address the Bay/ocean interface,” Baird said. “I started the Coast and Ocean Program to address the health and productivity of the waters in the Bay, coast and ocean, and how they all interconnect.”
Just as you would expect of someone who lives and breathes the life aquatic, Baird commutes to the city from his home in Marin via ferry. It’s easy to spot Baird as he makes his way to and from the San Francisco Ferry Building. He’s the fit-looking, 6-foot-tall middle-aged guy in the sport coat and jeans piloting a push scooter with his computer in his backpack, his still-healthy crop of light-brown hair tousled by the wind as he steers his way along the Embarcadero.
On his days off, Baird is likely be in the Bay kayaking, or getting his fix of marine air on one of his regular runs or bike rides along places like the Golden Gate Bridge, or the network of coastal and Bay-front trails near his home in Marin. Having spent a good chunk of his childhood living in Corona del Mar in Southern California and then attending college as an environmental studies major at U.C. Santa Barbara, Baird still has some surfing in his DNA — to the point where he makes an annual pilgrimage to Southern California for a reunion with his high school and college surfing buddies.
Baird’s transition from the bureaucracy of Sacramento to the world of environmental NGOs has brought a nice perk for someone so ocean-obsessed: His office sits above the cruise-ship terminal at Pier 35, a classic waterfront building just down the street from the Bay Institute’s sister organization, Aquarium of the Bay, which is housed at Pier 39. Not only is he by his beloved Bay, but he can also head over to the Aquarium and simulate a swim with the fishes whenever he wants by strolling through the facility’s crystal clear acrylic tunnels — which are filled with sharks, bat rays and thousands of San Francisco Bay’s most fascinating inhabitants.
From this inspiring environment has flowed a wealth of creative ideas for getting the public to care about oceans and the Bay. As part of the America’s Cup Healthy Ocean Project, Baird spearheaded the messaging for educational panels that were on display at key race venues along the San Francisco waterfront. Baird also teamed up with Jill McCarthy — his counterpart at America’s Cup — to draft and circulate internationally the Marine Protected Area Pledge, which called for support of marine protected areas and the expansion of the National Marine Sanctuary waters just offshore from the Golden Gate Bridge and northward along the coast. The effort collected nearly 2,000 endorsements from people across 22 states and 33 countries.
Throughout the race series, Baird supported the America’s Cup Healthy Ocean Project and the Sea Scavenger organization in their efforts to arrange and publicize two dozen shoreline cleanups.With trash-collecting America’s Cup crew members often serving as bait to attract participants, the effort engaged 1,100 volunteers who together picked up 20,000 pounds of trash. Baird also has advanced Aquarium of the Bay’s ongoing effort to promote sustainable seafood in the Bay Area. Not only was all food served at the America’s Cup events sustainable, but the Aquarium and America’s Cup worked with San Francisco organizations such as the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, the OpenTable online restaurant reservation system and The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program® to encourage Bay Area restaurants to mark sustainable seafood choices on their menus.
The crowning piece of Baird’s outreach campaign is an ocean-themed Film & Lecture Series that he launched in 2012 and that has featured over 30 events. The Film & Lecture Series lives on, and has been drawing sell-out crowds to Aquarium of the Bay’s theater at Pier 39, and to a satellite venue — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Bay Model in Sausalito.
“We have a following now — we’ve got these dedicated people who come to every lecture,” Baird said. “We have covered marine protected areas, fisheries, water quality, climate change, shipwrecks and other marine archaeological finds, ocean research, women in ocean science, ocean myths, marine trash, shoreline erosion, Bay and ocean bathymetry — meaning what the bottom looks like — status of whale populations, and several book releases.”
A recent talk falls into this latter category of book releases. It featured Wallace J. Nichols, a marine biologist and researcher at the California Academy of Sciences who has written the ground-breaking Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, and Better at What You Do. A standing-room-only crowd hung on every word of this surfer-scientist.
A few of the speakers have rock star status, such as Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of famed ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau and an ocean explorer and conservationist in his own right. Dr. Sylvia Earle, explorer in residence at National Geographic, and Time Magazine’s first “Hero for the Planet,” has appeared several times. British adventurer Roz Savage — billed as the first woman ever to row solo across three oceans — spoke on her book Stop Drifting, Start Rowing: One Woman’s Search for Happiness and Meaning Alone on the Pacific.
The Film & Lecture Series also has been the scene of at least one Bay Area film premiere — a rough cut of Pelican Dreams by award-winning local documentary filmmaker Judy Irving.
While the America’s Cup is now receding in our collective memory, Baird continues in his role with the Bay Institute as an ambassador for all things blue, wet and wild, and the creatures that call the Bay and the ocean home.
“We live in the Bay Area alongside the largest estuary on the West Coast of North America and the spectacular coast and ocean waters just off the Golden Gate. We also live in proximity to two National Marine Sanctuaries that remain largely unexplored,” Baird says in a mission statement he recently crafted for his program. “I want to bring together experts to identify what we know and what we don’t about the Bay, coast and ocean and help us determine our next moves to protect key environmental assets in this region, and the economy they support.”
To find out about future events in the Bay Institute’s Film & Lecture Series, stay tuned to:
www.bay.org/home/feature-boxes/film-and-lecture-series
Events coming up in September include:
Saturday, September 13
10 a.m. — “Beneath the Sea – an Explorer’s Journey: 17 Days on the Bottom of the Ocean,” with Kip Evans, noted ocean explorer, photographer and conservationist. Aquarium of the Bay Theater, Pier 39, San Francisco
Thursday, September 18
5:30 p.m. Reception, 6:30 p.m. Program — “Plastic Planet – New Research and Solutions for the Ocean Trash Problem.” Celebrating the 30-year anniversary of California Coastal Cleanup Day. Featuring 5Gyres and the SeaDoc Society.
Aquarium of the Bay Theater, Pier 39, San Francisco
Most events cost $10 and include refreshments.
Baird initiated the popular Ocean Film & Lecture Series, bringing to the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco and the Bay Model in Marin many renowned coast/ocean experts. Photo by Kingmond Young Photography
Brian Baird commutes to work via ferry and uses his scooter to get from the Ferry Building to his office near Pier 39. Photo by Kingmond Young Photography
