Who Are Those Guys?

by Marcia Peck

Michael Moradzadeh – Race Chairman: “Look out, he’s got a gun!”

Quote from Michael: “It has occurred to me that since I often carry the race committee gun in the car for different yacht club regattas, that if I ever get pulled over by the cops, I am so toast. Here I am, a man of middle eastern extraction, with a gun, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge…..”

Michael Moradzadeh was born in San Jose, California and has been migrating north at approximately one mile per year. Being a total local boy, he learned to sail at Stanford where he got his undergraduate degree. Since there was a Lake near his dorm, he took sailing classes and founded the Mirlo Dorm Yacht Club He obtained a twelve man inflatable yacht that was frequently stolen by a nearby fraternity, to use in drinking drifters.

After getting his BA in International Relations, he took a year off to teach English in Taiwan. Finishing that, he traveled around the world and returned to the bay area to enroll in Berkeley Law School. While at school, he used to borrow his mom’s Venture 25 and take his soon-to-be ex-friends on nine hour marathon sails. He graduated with a Law Degree in copyrights, patents, and trademarks. In a lapse of judgement, he moved to L.A. There he bought his first boat, a Pearson Ensign 22.

The lure of northern California drew him back. He quit his job, sold his boat, and met his future wife, Nöelle, on the same day! For their first wedding anniversary, Nöelle bought his old Pearson back. They brought it to San Francisco and learned quickly it was too wet a boat for the bay. After a visit to the BVI’s the wife decided they should have a bigger, drier boat.

To come to the bay area, Michael’s wife had quit her lucrative job in L.A., and took a real risky job with a start up company called ‘Oracle’. A really good choice as it turned out. Mike, on the other hand, took the safe, stable, boring job at the manufacturing firm called ‘Intel’. No one thought they would amount to anything, least of all Michael.

“Lest anyone think we were smart” Michael says, “It was all dumb luck!” Michael and Nöelle ended up with a small dot-com fortune and retired at 42.

Milling around with nothing to do, they found their Passport 40 at the boat show. Michael had been intrigued with the Pacific Cup for ten years. In 2000, he did the Cup and finished three hours after the race ended. Undaunted, in 2002, he did the Cup, served as the communications boat, and finished 3rd in division in Cayenne. He is planning to be the first in 2004.

Michael got the call to serve as race committee chair two years ago. He was so flattered, he said yes before he found out it wasn’t an honor. He has been race committee chair for two years, relieving the past two Rear Commodores. The first year he did the Friday Night Series, he had to create a special form for complaints. He now has adopted technical advances, uses a lap top on the race deck, and has made things flow. He has written a new scoring program that has made life easy for the race committee volunteers.

Michaels’ plan for the rest of his young (42) retired life is to do something worthwhile. Another candidate for the California Governor’s Race, perhaps?