Susie Crick was the first female Chair of the Surfrider Foundation Australia and was responsible for the development of the programs, community collaborations, partnerships, and events. She joined Surfrider Australia in 2012 as the President of the South Coast Branch and has remained in that position to date. Her roles within Surfrider Australia are voluntary.

Susie studied a Bachelor of Education (Art/Music) UNSW; Diploma in Graphic Design, School of Visual Arts; Certificate in Early Childhood Studies; Level 3 Elite Figure Skating (Ice) Coach and IOC Coaches Solidarity; Level 2 Artistic Gymnastics Coach; she surfs terribly but loves the ocean.

Susie has extensive business and travel experience and took up a career with Qantas Airlines in 1988 as an International Flight Attendant and has traveled throughout the world, seeing first hand the negative effects of single-use plastics and many other issues affecting the marine environment due to human impact.

In 1997, as a mother of three young children, she built and founded a progressive preschool on the South Coast of NSW with a strong focus on the environment called Planet Childcare Centre. The children in her care, go to the beach to have lessons and do beach cleans, and their program has a marine emphasis.

Her strong entrepreneurial energy and flair have grown the Surfrider brand in Australia. Driven by her desire to find solutions for global heating, the climate crisis, and the plight of oceans and the marine environment, she trained with Al Gore, and she became a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Susie was selected from over 10,000 applicants to be chosen as a crew member on eXXpedition.com, which is an around the world sailing voyage doing ocean microplastic research. Susie will be sailing from Tahiti to the Cook Islands in April 2021. She is also an Ambassador for WaveChanger.org  

Susie is an advocate for organizing events that attract media attention and connect like-minded people and organizations to join her personal mission to grow community awareness and educate the public into action. She enjoys speaking at conferences and writes a marine environmental column for a magazine and sits as a voluntary Director for the following ‘Not For Profit’ Boards: the Boomerang Alliance, CitizenBlue, and the Surfrider Foundation Australia.  

Interview Notes: