THE PEOPLE
THE PEOPLE WHO RUN IT.
A BOARD OF SIX, AND A CREW OF SEVERAL HUNDRED
The Newport Harbor Underwater Cleanup is directed by a board of six. Four of them were on the 2012 expedition, or on the road beside it.
On the morning of the event that six becomes a few hundred: a safety roster that puts divers in the water and gets them out again, boat crews running trash to the docks, and volunteers doing the sorting, the hauling, and the weighing.
No one on this page is here because it is their job. The cleanup runs on people who keep showing up.
THE BOARD
Six people direct the cleanup and carry it between events.
Mark Ward. Co-founder. Ran navigation, mapping, and weather for the 2012 expedition, and founded Help Your Harbor.
Billy Dutton. Co-founder. The door knocker: the data, the committee meetings, and the Surfrider Newport executive committee.
Eric Pike. Co-founder. Drove ground support the length of the 2012 expedition in a 1959 Volkswagen bus, and made the Patagonia introduction.
Melinda Williams. Marine biologist. Part of the work since the expedition’s first night in Santa Barbara, and a founder of Help Your Harbor.
DJ Mansfield. Event Director. Chairman of the Board of Task Force Pacific, and founder and owner of Orange County Divers.
Bill Carroll. Director of Riding Currents, the documentary about this work.
RUNNING THE MORNING
The cleanup is one morning with a great many moving parts.
DJ Mansfield. Event Director. Chairman of the Board of Task Force Pacific, and founder and owner of Orange County Divers.
The City of Newport Beach. Marina Park, the harbor, and the city crews who work the morning alongside us. The city asked for the cleanup to come back in 2023, and it has run every year since.
THE SAFETY ROSTER
Putting divers into a working harbor is a safety operation before it is anything else. Nobody gets in the water without these people.
James McMullin. Dive Safety Officer. Owner and Instructor Trainer, Signature Scuba.
Alan DeLucio. Dive Safety Supervisor.
Ryan Singer. Dive Safety Supervisor.
Jen Bullion. Dive Safety Supervisor.
Guy Harden. Boat Safety Supervisor.
NONE OF THIS HAPPENS WITHOUT VOLUNTEERS LIKE YOU
Three hundred people show up on a Saturday morning in September and pull trash off the floor of the harbor. Divers, kayakers, and people on the dock who have never put on a mask.
They are the cleanup. Everyone else on this page is here to get them into the water and back out again safely.
The sixth one is Saturday, September 26, 2026, 7am, at Marina Park. There is a place on the roster for you.
Three hundred people make this happen. If you want to be one of them: sign up.