Repass-Rodgers Family Foundation

Background

The Repass-Rodgers Family Foundation was formed in 2002 by Randy Repass and his wife Sally-Christine Rodgers. Randy Repass is the founder of West Marine Inc, a chain of boating supply stores that he started in California in 1968 that became one of the largest marine supply retailers in the United States. In 2017, West Marine was sold to a private equity firm for $338 million. ³

Repass and Rodgers formed the foundation in December 2002 with an endowment of $4.1 million in the form of 300,000 shares of West Marine stock. ⁴

Much of the foundation’s grantmaking is focused on salmon conservation efforts, and the group is a major funder of the Golden State Salmon Association (GSSA), an environmentalist organization that opposes the creation of additional reservoirs in California. The GSSA also attacked the first Trump administration’s approach to the Endangered Species Act as the “salmon extinction plan” and advocated for the California State Water Board to stop supporting “Baseless voluntary agreements.” ^{5 6}

People

Randy Repass, the president of the Repass-Rodgers Family Foundation, is the founder of West Marine, Inc. and has sat on the boards of several business and environmental groups including the Golden State Salmon Association, Sail America, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, and the American Sportfishing Association. ²

Sally-Christine Rodgers is the wife of Randy Repass and an author who has written books and articles about sailing and marine conservation who sits on the board of the foundation. ⁷ Other family members on the board of the foundation include Randy Repass Jr., Kent-Harris Repass, and Elizabeth Peck Repass Holmes. ¹

Repass and Rodgers’ philanthropic endeavors have included endowing a Duke University professorship in conservation technology and a Platinum Leeds building dedicated to Marine Conservation Education at the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, North Carolina. ⁷

Grantmaking

The Repass-Rodgers Family Foundation provides funding to several organizations. In 2023, the foundation dispersed $477,000 in funds with $300,000 going to three organizations: Save California Salmon, the Golden State Salmon Association, and Baykeeper, in the form of $100,000 grants. Other 2023 grantees of the foundation include the Brendan Corporation, the Irish American Partnership, the Tuolumne River Preservation Trust, and the UC Santa Cruz Foundation to fund the “Repass-Rodgers Fellowship for Central Valley Salmon Restoration Policies in the Coastal Science and Policy Graduate Program in the Division of Physical and Biological Sciences.” ¹

Previous grantees of the foundation have also included Planned Parenthood Mar Monte Inc, Restore the Delta, the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, Ocean Foundation, the Sierra Club Foundation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Defenders of Wildlife. ⁸