Muller’s Rick McLaughlin was featured in a Denver Gazette article, “Surf’s Up, Colorado.” FULL ARTICLE HERE.
“The vision went back to 2009, when the young surfer and engineer out of California found himself in the offices of McLaughlin Whitewater Design. This was the firm of Rick McLaughlin, who had overseen Confluence Park in the ’70s and would become known as a “whitewater godfather” along with Gary Lacy of REP.
“McLaughlin had developed a technology called Wave-Shaper “primarily for kayaks,” Nielsen said. “With my passion for surfing, I was like, Hey, this Wave-Shaper is really amazing technology for creating the types of surf waves that people want, which big, tall, fast and shaped in a way that you can ride short boards and you can carve and do different maneuvers.”
Rick McLaughlin joined Muller in 2025, significantly enhancing the firm’s expertise in whitewater recreation and urban river restoration projects. He is a pioneer in the field of river recreation and a nationally recognized expert in river design with an impressive portfolio of innovative, sustainable, and award-winning projects. His appointment strategically expanded Muller’s service offerings to include whitewater and river recreation, urban river restoration, semi-dynamic transverse river stabilization techniques, low hazard dam design, intake and diversion structures, nature-like fish passage, and large-scale physical and computer hydraulic modeling of river structures.