A fierce blaze engulfed the African savanna, sending elephants, gazelles, rhinos, giraffes, lions, water buffalo, and meerkats into survival mode. As space dwindled and the flames drew nearer, they found themselves cornered against towering cliffs, desperate for escape.
A small but determined hummingbird caught their attention. Darting tirelessly between a nearby stream and the encroaching inferno, she dipped her beak into the water and carried droplets to douse the flames.
The animals cried out, “Hummingbird, what are you doing?”
Her response? “I’m doing what I can.”
And that’s Jack Rose’s dharma. He acts as a human hummingbird, of sorts, inspired by Mother Teresa’s encouragement, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, feed one.” Jack was born in 1948 on the California coastline, a place he calls ‘Magicland,’ and he and his son, Jon, currently reside in Truckee, CA.

He has joined forces with North Tahoe Truckee Homeless Services on various projects, one of which is Warm in Winter, an initiative aimed at providing sleeping bags to members of our unhoused community.
Throughout high school, Jack and his friends grew up surfing and skiing local spots together, living the Surf City daydream lifestyle immortalized by the Beach Boys. From the rocky reefs of Palos Verdes to beloved point breaks like Rincon and Trestles, they were born into, and lived, a daily grand adventure, with the Pacific Ocean in the front yard and the Sierra Nevadas in the back.
Growing up in Southern California was a kind of nirvana for Jack. Born in Hermosa Beach, surfing became his natural love and passion along the South Bay coastline. At 16, upon getting a driver’s license, Jack and his friends discovered the thrill of skiing in the local mountains, finding the same magic in carving turns on snow as carving turns in waves. Water, it turns out, whether liquid or frozen, brought the same primal joy.
The day after graduating from high school at age 17, Jack made his way to Mammoth Mountain to begin his career as a ski bum. Jack’s adventurous spirit led him to hitchhike back and forth across America. Now, after a lifetime of exploring and enjoying all the beauty this country has to offer, Jack calls Truckee, and the High Sierra, his favorite and final home.
Jack’s love for California is genetic. “I feel a strong connection to my paternal grandfather, even though I never had the chance to meet him,” Jack said. His grandfather, John, hailed from Dalmatia Coastline, on diamond islands in the Adriatic Sea.
Jack sees parallels between his life journey and that of his grandfather. His grandfather’s coastal island upbringing, flanked by snow-capped mountains to the east, mirrors Jack’s migration to Southern California, which shares the same geographical features.
Around age 14, John embarked on a European journey to evade military drafting, ultimately landing a job on a freighter bound for the new world. This global voyage brought him to San Francisco, where his new life was interrupted by the 1906 earthquake. Afterward, he journeyed to Los Angeles, where he started anew and met his wife, Magdalena, with whom he had three children.
John sought a beautiful homeland free from generational conflicts, transitioning from the Adriatic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, finding a place he could call home. He later owned The Goodfellas Grill in Pasadena, where his family enjoyed watching the Rose Parade annually. Summers were spent on Catalina Island, reminiscent of his cherished childhood in Dalmatian islands.
Growing up, every new day for Jack was an opportunity to create adventures. He and his friends played sandlot baseball in the summer, street football in the winter, enjoyed tennis, golf, surfing, camping, built treehouses and dug caves, rode bikes everywhere — attaching empty soup cans to the front axle, tying the fishing rod to the handlebars; and fishing all day at the Redondo Beach pier. He went as far as attaching ropes to the bike’s seat posts, allowing them all to take turns road-skiing on skateboards pulled by the bike.
They leapt from the second stories of homes still under construction into enormous piles of sand, walked down muddy trails to surf point breaks along the Palos Verdes coastline, and with longboards attached to racks made of 2x4s and wagon wheels, they wandered to the edge of the land where all they could see was the endless blue ocean and sky. He has always created his own adventures, and raised his son, Jon, to operate in the same way.
Jack raised Jon in a seaside cottage in Laguna Beach, where Jon grew up surfing every day. In the mornings, on surf trips up and down the California coastline, Jack would drive their VW bus right onto sandy beaches, in places where this was allowed. They created a makeshift minikitchen tabletop with a two-burner stove to prepare morning oatmeal. While the sun was rising, just outside the sliding van door, dolphins played in the ocean while breakfast was being served.
Jack has delved deeply into Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism. He holds the belief that Jon selected him as a parent and has always seen Jon as more advanced. “Jon is my masterpiece,” Jack said. “The main thing for parenting is not to impose your limitations, fear, and world view on your child.”
During a 10-year span from ages 7 to 17, Jack took on the roles of both mom and dad for Jon. Starting at the age of seven, Jack imparted a guiding principle to his son: “In our relationboat, you are the sail, and I am the keel.” Jon received unwavering attention, care, and support, knowing he had someone by his side no matter what.
At the age of eight, Jon was taken out of school for a father/son road trip down the entire Baja coast and eventually into mainland Mexico. It was here, in the tropic bay of Sayulita, that Jon had his very first surf session, igniting his passion for the sport and setting the course for his entire lifetime. Jack always reminded Jon that, “If you are on the right path, you can’t make a wrong turn.”
When Jon turned 16, Jack gave him his first job: “I’ll pay you $50 a week to surf, read, watch, study surfing and oceans, and everything necessary to build a career in surfing,” Jack said.

It was an unconventional, and purpose driven, start to Jon’s path in the surfing world. After grade 10, Jon left Laguna Beach High School to pursue a career in surfing, traveling the world, competing, and carefully earning his standing in the surf industry.
Over the past 25 years, Jack and Jon’s “relationboat” has transformed into a vessel of giving. Their collaboration on humanitarian efforts has extended worldwide, reaching from Haiti to India, South Dakota to the shorelines of New York and New Jersey, and from Liberia to Kenya, focusing on providing immediate and long term access to clean drinking water globally and restoring housing and improving living conditions in their home country.
“In every situation, when we show up, we’re not looking for what’s wrong, instead we just notice what’s missing. That’s what my son and I, and our awesome field teams, are hard wired to do anywhere in the world,” Jack said.
So how did it all begin? In 1998, Jack spent the winter in Kauai, where he began catching rainwater, and designing ways to catch it, clean it and share it. This was the beginning of what was to become the humanitarian NGO, Raincatcher.
During his time in Kauai, he discovered the abundance and quality of water that fell, like a gift, from the sky. Jack noticed the environmental damage that resulted from shipping giant container ships of drinking water across the world to the Hawaiian Islands — which has the best water on the planet. This is a pristine natural resource that to this day is still unrealized. Bottled rainwater would eliminate the carbon pollution of shipping water around the world and the millions of empty water bottles that get tossed everyday. It would create many local jobs and give everyone, locals and vacationers alike, a sense of being a part of the solution.
Hawaii receives an abundance of rainwater (2 billions a day on the Big Island) yet there’s a global crisis concerning access to clean drinking water. This discrepancy led Jack to coin a slogan: “There’s not a shortage of water given, there’s a shortage of water received.” Jack has since continued traveling to African villages over the past 20 years, teaching residents how to harvest and clean rainwater and restore their broken hand-pump wells back to full production.
In 2009, as Jon’s surfing career began to run its course, he created Waves For Water to bring what his father was doing throughout Africa to all the places around the world he had traveled to as a professional surfer. In short order, Jack handed over RainCatcher to the team he had assembled over the years so he could join forces and work shoulder-to-shoulder with his son. In this brave, new adventure, Jon would be the sail and Jack would again, as always, be the keel. The relationboat was going to become a ship over the coming decade.
A couple billion people worldwide don’t have safe water to drink or to cook and bathe with — just like Flint, Michigan. Jack, Jon and their Waves For Water teams bring tools for cleaning water, catching rain and restoring dead wells back to life. The good news is anyone can step up and help them get more water to more people. Their work spans over 30 countries, reaching places from Mongolia to Indonesia and from Ethiopia to India. In many rural areas worldwide, the primary drinking water source is surface water like lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, shallow handdug wells, and storm water runoff. They focus on making this water safe for drinking with point-of-use portable water filters, installing rainwater harvesting systems on schools, and restoring nonfunctioning wells back to life.

“Most of the time it’s just a little missing link between the problem and the solution,” Jon said. “We find that link and fix it.”
Due to Jon being abroad with Waves for Water, Tahoe Magazine couldn’t conduct an in-depth interview with him for this father/son feature.
The ultimate reward, and lifelong payback, for Jack and Jon are the frontline experiences and lasting friendships that emerge from a shared purpose. From Fritz in Haiti to Father Kizito in Uganda, Kimmie Weeks in Liberia, Swami in the Indian Himalayas, Alex and Percy White Plume on Pine Ridge reservation, Fred Mango in Kenya, Fredrick in Rwanda, and country directors in Nepal and Ecuador, Brazil, Philippines, and all the hardcore local volunteers along the New York and Jersey shores post Hurricane Sandy.
Although millions have benefited from the work of Jack and Jon, there are also countless human interest stories of real lives being changed. For example, in Western Kenya, Waves For Water introduced safe drinking water solutions, including rainwater harvesting and filtration systems, to the schools that Barack Obama’s father once attended. In his childhood, the mortality rate for children under five was as high as 50%. Had Barack’s father been on the unfortunate side of that 50/50 chance, America would not have seen its 44th president.
“For families and communities alike, having your own source of safe drinking water is a life-saving game-changer,” Jack reminds anyone who will listen. “Nothing progresses until families have safe water to drink. Kids do better in school, parents miss less days at work. Due to still developing immune systems, children are the most vulnerable to the consequences of waterborne disease.”
Along with global clean-water projects, Jack is the Project Developer for the Waves For Water House-2-Home project for Lakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, addressing the ongoing housing crisis. The organization built pole structures over ten trailer houses, to improve horrific living conditions. The initiative enhances employment opportunities and aims to continue improving existing homes. Despite challenges, including financial constraints, the project remains committed to long-term assistance. Many residents like Jackie and Austin Ice have found relief and hope in the improved living conditions brought by the pole and roof structures.
Now 75, Jack has become acutely aware of the limitations that come with age with a full lifetime of mileage, actually referring to himself as a ‘48 Jackmobile. Accepting these changes hasn’t been easy; it’s been a process marked by challenges, disheartenment, and a tinge of sadness. He finds himself mourning the past, reminiscing about a younger version of himself that could effortlessly trek up water-falling trails to reach the summit of Half Dome and Mt. Shasta– yet, this hasn’t deterred him from continuing to craft his own adventures.
Jack believes in the adage “Adapt or Perish,” and being surrounded by a community of adaptive athletes here in Truckee constantly inspires him to tackle age-related challenges head-on and keep pushing forward. And it seems to be working, as Jack managed to ski 70 days last season–openly defying all laws of aging.
“Every day I am inspired by the athlete and outdoor adventure culture here. I’m definitely living in the right place at this time in my life. T his is it–home,” Jack said.