Coaches and Staff

Sandy Armstrong | Executive Director & Varsity Girls

Coach Armstrong has been the Executive Director and Junior Women’s Head Coach at Marin Rowing since 1991 and she is currently an assistant coach for the Junior Women’s National Team. Under her tenure, the VW8+ has qualified for the Youth National Championships 16 out of the 17 year history of the Youth National Championships, bringing home 3 gold (2008, 2009 & 2011), 4 silver and 3 bronze medals from this event.  Her Junior Women’s 8+ holds the Southwest Regional Championship record with 12 golds, 7 silver and 2 bronze.  Prior to her tenure at Marin, she spent two years as the Varsity Women’s coach at Tulane University.  She spent her first four years coaching as Marin’s novice/assistant coach from 1984 to 1988 following rowing for Redwood High School 1979-1982.  Coach Armstrong  sat on US Rowing Junior Women’s Committee for 10 years and currently sits on the SW Regional Rowing Board of Stewards, a position she has held since 1994. She has won numerous medals as a Masters rower at State, Regional and National regattas.

Marc Batchelder | Intermediate, Master B, M2R

Marc Batchelder joined the coaching staff in 1996 and has coached both our high school novice men and our adult programs to great success. Marc is an outstanding athlete and spent his college years rowing for UCLA winning the Pac-10 Championship in 1989. Marc is currently the coach of our adult programs from Intermediate to Master B. He is an avid rower, climber and adventurer.

Kate Chilton | Asst. Adv. Women

Kate joined our staff in 2006 and has coached all levels of adult rowing. She is currently assisting our advanced level women’s team.

Melissa Fenner| Novice Girls & Office Manager

Melissa Fenner joined us in 2008 as a fulltime coach for our Novice Girls and our Summer Programs as well as working as our Office Manager. Melissa rowed 4 years at Capital Crew, winning Canadian Henley with the US Development Team her sophomore year and going on to win a National Title in the V4+ in her senior year.  She is a Yale graduate having rowed 3 years as a Bulldog and graduating with a degree in History of Art. Melissa spent 2 years coaching the Novice Girls at Capital Crew before joining us at Marin.

Morgan Fenner | Sculling, Asst. Varsity Girls

Morgan began rowing for Capital Crew in Sacramento prior to rowing at Cal where she stroked the Freshmen 8+ that finshed second at the San Diego Crew Classic. She completed her Freshman year stroking the JV 8+ at the NCAA Championships.  After retiring from competitive rowing, she took up sculling at the Open Water Rowing Center where she is a Manager and Coach.  Morgan coached the Berkeley High Novice Boy’s team for 6 seasons before joining us as Sandy’s Assistant Coach for the Varsity Girls.  She also works with Amanda to coach the many scullers at MRA.

Stacey Grossman  | Outreach

Stacey is a longtime member of our Adv. Level Team and has turned her love of rowing into a love of teaching 5 years ago when she stepped in to be Head Coach of our growing Outreach Program.

Amanda Cashman-Harvey  | Sculling

Amanda joined the staff in 2001 after an outstanding collegiate coxing and coaching career. Amanda began coxing at Philips Academy and her accomplishments as a cox over the many years following include six victories at the Head of the Charles, in championship eights, championship fours, lightweight fours and lightweight eights (three times). She is also a veteran of many National team camps, having won numerous USRowing Championship medals as a member of the Boston Rowing Center. As coach she has put in coaching stints as freshman coach at Dartmouth, Princeton and Radcliffe and as varsity coach at Deerfield Academy and coach on the US national team and assistant coach to the Hong Kong Olympic team.

Dustin Kraus | Novice Boys & Adv. Men

Kraus was head coach of the Sacramento State men’s program in the 2008-2009, 2010-2011 seasons, leading the varsity 8+ back in to the grand finals at the San Diego Crew Classic for the first time in a decade in 2009. Kraus also guided the program to its first ever national ranking, climbing as high as 5th in the American Collegiate Rowing Association poll. The Varsity 8+ finished 4th at the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championships and eventually 9th American Collegiate Rowing Association National Championships.

In the 2009-2010 season as an assistant coach at the University of California, Kraus contributed to the Cal Women’s successes as both Pac 10 Champions and NCAA Runners up. While working at Cal, Kraus also completed his Masters in Intercollegiate Athletic Leadership from the University of Washington.

In the 2007-2008 season Kraus returned to his high school team, Capital Crew as the novice men’s coach. The squad took gold in the novice 4+ and bronze in the novice 8+ at South West Regional Championships.From 2003-2007 Kraus rowed for Washington where he won a Pac-10 Varsity 4+ championship, assisted in a team championship and back to back IRA national titles in the Men’s Open 4+. Kraus also traveled with the Huskies to New Zealand to participate in “The Great Race” as the first North American university to do so. Kraus began his rowing career at Capital Crew in Sacramento, California where he was team captain as a senior.

Alice Lee | Asst. Coach

Alice Lee was pushed crying and screaming into a rowing/social club in high school. The club just happened to hire a great coach that year and needless to say the afternoon teas gave way to 6 days/week practice. They were very successful as a junior team and she was hooked. She chose to go to Cal as much for its rowing program for it academic reputation. She rowed at Cal for four years and loved every minute of it. In 1980 the Cal Varsity Women won the National Championship, and because of this, she was inducted into the Cal Hall of Fame. Then she went on to row on the US Lightweight National team in 1982.

Andrew Lennox | Asst. Varsity Boys

Andrew Lennox began his rowing career at Pittsford Crew in Pittsford, New York. Lennox went on to row for four years at The George Washington University, where he rowed in the highly competitive Eastern Sprints league. During the 2009-2010 season Lennox worked as an assistant coach at The George Washington University with both the Men’s Varsity and Freshmen teams. Over the 2010-2011 season Lennox served as an assistant coach with the Pittsford Crew Varsity Boys and Girls, leading the two teams to numerous State Championships and the clubs first ever National Championship in the Varsity Girls 4+. Lennox was most recently nominated for US Rowing Junior Coach of the Year.

Alex Mauer | Novice Adults

Alex Mauer followed in his brother’s footsteps by joining his high school freshman squad. Growing up in Buffalo, NY, Alex rowed out of the legendary West Side Rowing Club. Alex went on to row for SUNY Buffalo where he split time between the lightweight team and eventually the Heavyweight men’s team. With eight years of rowing under his belt, Alex headed off to California, where he was asked to join the St. Ignatius coaching staff leading the Novice Girls Wildcats. After four years, Alex moved to New York, where he helped out the fledgling Hudson River Rowing Club in Poughkeepsie, NY. In early 2003 Alex found himself back in Marin County, where he began coaching the Marin Adult Novices. He enjoys his team and Marin tremendously and hopes to have a long-lasting stint with us here.

Deirdre McLoughlin | Masters Women

Deirdre began her rowing career as a walk-on at Boston University. She had a very successful college career winning the Head of the Charles in the Collegiate division and also being part of a team that won Nationals. After finishing rowing, she was hooked and started assistant coaching the novice women at BU and then Northeastern University. She then became the coach of the Men’s club team at Kansas State University and led them to their first medal at Midwest Sprints in 20 years behind only the powerhouse Wisconsin Crew, and also took a boat to the IRA’s Men’s National Championships.  She has been coaching at Marin Rowing Association since moving here in 1999 and has a great time teaching beginners and now advancing men and women the technical and racing aspects of rowing. However, she enjoys most importantly, teaching the intangibles of teamwork, loyalty, commitment and giving athletes the opportunities to find their limits and do what was previously thought impossible.

Amy O’Herron | Asst. Master B

Amy joins us from North Bay RC as an assistant coach for our B level team. She is an avid rower and teacher who has been a great recent addition to our staff.

Graham Willoughby |Varsity Men & Operations Manager

Graham rowed for Redwood High School and Sacramento State University. He began coaching the Capital Crew juniors in 2001 and finished his successful tenure at Capital coaching the Varsity Men from 2003-2005. He moved back to the Bay Area in 2005, joining the MRA as the Novice Boys coach, and in 2008 moved into the Varsity Coach position. In 2010 Graham lead his Varsity Squad to 2 Gold medals at the SW Regional Championships and on to 2 Silver medals at the Junior National Championships. In the 2010-2011 season, his Varsity 8+ went undefeated, winning all regular season races,  The Head of the Charles, San Diego Crew Classic and The Junior National Championship.