Nine Miles Long, Three Miles Wide
Paul Mullen was born and raised on Inis Mór, the largest of Ireland's Aran Islands — nine miles long, three miles wide, home to about 800 people, most of whom grew up speaking Gaelic as a first language. Gaelic football was the only team sport on the island. Rugby did not exist there at all.
That changed when Mullen was sent to boarding school at age 12. At Glenstal Abbey, there was only one sport on offer: play rugby, or don't play anything. He had never picked up a rugby ball in his life.
“I took to rugby like a duck to water.”
He rose fast — Munster's underage sides at 18, 19, and 20, then caps for Ireland U-19 against Australia and France. He figured professional rugby was the natural next step. His parents thought a contingency plan was worth putting in place.
“Paul, you're only one injury away from a career-ending injury.”
Neither of his parents had finished college, and as the oldest of five kids, Mullen felt the weight of setting the example. He landed on marine engineering as a way to stay close to the water he'd grown up around and a family friend pointed him toward Texas A&M. Mullen flew out with his father, with almost no idea what he was walking into.
“I couldn't even tell you where Texas was, man.”
Nine Years, Four Countries, One World Cup
At Texas A&M's Galveston campus, Mullen earned a bachelor's degree in Marine Engineering Technology and later a master's in Marine Resources Management, all while playing club rugby and representing the USA U-20s at the Junior World Rugby Trophy. As he finished his master's, Major League Rugby launched in the United States, and an Irish coach in Houston came calling.
Mullen signed with the Houston SaberCats in 2018, MLR's inaugural season. Within months he had earned his first USA Eagles cap against Russia, then more against Scotland and Canada that same summer. In 2019, he played matches for the USA at the Rugby World Cup in Japan. Over the years that followed he played for the San Diego Legion, the Utah Warriors, the NOLA Gold, and Old Glory DC, with a brief stint in England along the way — nine professional seasons and dozens of USA Eagles caps in total.
In June 2026, with an eight-month-old at home and a career that had given him everything it was going to give, Mullen retired. He wasn't sure what came next so he went back to where it all began, to Inis Mór, for what he calls a retreat, looking for an answer.
The INSPIRATION That Set the Course
Mullen had been fascinated by seaweed since he was a kid; it grew all around Inis Mór, and harvesting it to spread on the potato fields, in Paul's own words, "is about as stereotypically Irish as it gets". Years later in Texas, he watched thousands of tons of sargassum seaweed wash up on the beaches every year, treated by almost everyone around him as a stinking nuisance. Mullen saw it differently — differently enough to make it the subject of his master's thesis, and later to buy his own seaweed harvester and spend a summer harvesting it in Maine, turning it into an agricultural biostimulant for crops.
But the real question came during his retreat, when a mentor asked him something simple: if money weren't an issue, what's the one thing you'd want to achieve? Mullen's answer was to help his mother, who had spent the last three years fighting an aggressive form of arthritis, after she and his father spent decades supporting him every step of his education and his rugby career.
Mullen is now building Surge Recovery, a seaweed-based topical skincare cream in addition to Wild Maine Seaweed, an organic plant fertilizer solution utilizing the nutrient rich properties of seaweed.
“I'm quite a humble guy, I think. I don't want to be bragging. But I am a bit of a seaweed nerd, if you will.”
It is a full-circle journey: a boy who once harvested seaweed by hand on a nine-mile island, carried by rugby across an ocean and around the world, now finding his way home to that same shoreline and that same overlooked plant — a lifelong fascination he is determined to turn into something that can change lives, starting with the two people who gave everything so he could chase his own dreams
Building It From Scratch
Mullen has thrown himself into PAC's resources as he builds Surge Recovery by enrolling in the Sales Done Right accelerator and the Elite Public Speaker course, and leaning on the community's rugby network, now dozens of players deep across the Premiership, Major League Rugby, and USA Rugby. He isn't shy about admitting how new all of this is to him.
“I'm gonna make a lot of mistakes. That's fine. I just want to make sure I progress. I’m all in on this one. I’m here to make it work for my family”
Paul Mullen is a former USA Eagle, a Rugby World Cup player, a marine engineer, and now the founder of Surge Recovery — a business built, in his own words, to climb one more mountain: seeing his mother pain free.
Read More Stories
Matt Joyce
Determined to succeed beyond his MLB career, Matt Joyce began investing in real estate as soon as he joined the big leagues. He supports Guardian Baseball, an online baseball equipment retailer, showing Matt is truly wired for success in diverse sectors.
Jerry Jeudy
Pro Bowl wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns, Jerry Jeudy dominates on the field while building generational wealth through real estate and giving back through his annual youth football camps.
Julius Thomas
As a former NFL athlete and 2x Pro Bowler, Julius Thomas brings a wealth of experience in high-performance environments. However, it is his dedication to helping professionals balance performance and wellbeing that truly sets him apart.
Cory Higgins
After 13 years in pro basketball across the NBA and EuroLeague, Cory Higgins now leads PAC's basketball vertical and runs Quiet7, a consulting business empowering athletes to navigate life on and off the court.
Damion Wright
From All-American offensive lineman at Weber State to the professional arenas of the NFL and NFL Europe, Damion Wright mastered the art of the high-stakes transition.