CALI KID
10/4/2007 5:03:55 PM by Lisa Knapp
Todd Roberts, VP of The Marine Group, loves sunny San Diego and all the adventures to be hand on, in and around its pristine waters almost as much as he loves his job.
Photo by Jill Salgado
For Captain Todd Roberts, he doesn’t just show he loves boating, he says it. “Boating is not my occupation, it’s my passion,” he says. “Boating is second nature to me. It’s just something that I have always loved and now it’s a family pastime.”
Roberts grew up on San Diego Bay, ironically, right across from where The Marine Group’s Chula Vista Boatyard is today. He started sailing lazers and small box boats when he was four years old in youth boating programs at local yacht clubs.
“I washed boats with my brother from as early as I could get people to pay me,” he says. Later, he became a deckhand on ferries, harbor boats and luxury yachts at the age of 16. “I’ll never forget the day I told my parents I was going to the marine academy. They said, ‘No, be a lawyer.’” But Roberts followed his heart and graduated with degrees in business administration, intermodal transportation and a third mate’s license from the California Maritime Academy.
Intermodal transportation, the whole concept of container shipping, was obscure 15 years ago. Now it’s a driving force in San Diego’s economy as it expands beyond commercial vessels and emerges as a yachting and service hub for boaters on the West Coast.
The attractions for the yacht owners and crew are diverse. The downtown district and parties in Tijuana are just the beginning. “San Diego is taking off primarily due to the weather,” says Roberts. “It’s one of the few places in the world where one can surf in the morning and snow ski in the afternoon. A strangely eclectic culture started with the last America’s Cup…so nearly everyone feels at home here.”
Roberts’ waterfront home has a dock to accommodate his 90-foot wooden Broward. He and his wife, Andrea, also have a home in Arizona on the Colorado River where he keeps his 26-foot-high performance catamaran. And he says he’s at ease on the water, and still has fun with his kids, Jillian and Parker, waterskiing and tubing on the river.
He advises kids to keep busy on boats. “If there’s nothing to do, don’t tell your parents,” he says. “You’ll start cleaning. My brother and I used to make up games to entertain ourselves on the boat and avoid duty. We’d hold our breath, dive down and count barnacles on the keel.”
As a man who’s enamored with boats, ships and yachts of all kinds, Roberts doesn’t really have a lot of other hobbies. “I work a lot. If I’m not working, I spend time with my wife and kids. My goal is to see my children succeed and have full and happy lives.”
There are so many islands accessible to San Diego, 1,200 miles to explore in each direction. Trenches 3,000-feet deep make for diverse sea life, kelp forests and sport fishing year-round in San Diego’s treasure trove of marine resources.
Todd’s fave destinations in San Diego include Lake Powell and the Turks and Caicos, as well as nearby underwater trenches and kelp forests. He’s also sailed southeast Alaska and Russia. He looks forward to cruising the Med one day. “I’m a boater working in an industry that I know better than most, and I can visualize myself in that owner’s shoes,” he says. “I tell my employees to treat that boat as if it were your own.” And with that mantra, Roberts can’t go wrong.