Sam Rodrigues has spent his lifetime supporting others and has over 40 years of experience in social services. In 2010, Sam retired from Hawaii State Family Services, where he last served as a case manager for families in crisis. In addition to monitoring these families and their children, “Uncle” Sam taught effective parenting skills so children could be successfully reunited with their parents.
He has extensive training in all facets of child and family welfare including: identifying and treating sexual abuse and domestic violence, dealing with aggressive clients, human development and adolescence, effective parenting, substance abuse identification and treatment, gang awareness and prevention, and grief, trauma and suicide prevention. Sam is an avid waterman and has worked as a Waikiki Beach Boy on weekends for over 20 years.
He is Spirit Sessions’ original surf instructor and worked with founder, Cynthia Derosier, to develop the program from the very start. (In fact, Sam is one of the instructors who first taught Cynthia how to surf!). Uncle Sam has a natural warmth and charisma that draws people to him and commands love and respect from our youth. He has been featured in local commercials as a “Surfing Santa,” and appears in several surf films. True to his Hawaiian heritage, Sam loves outrigger canoe paddling as well as surfing. He has competed in the Molokai Channel over a dozen times and has raced all over the world including in Tahiti, Rarotonga, New Zealand, Australia and France. When he’s not working, you can often find him in a canoe or working at the beach stand in Waikiki.