How we got started
One day, I was sitting in my office feeling over worked, frustrated, completely stressed about having a bunch of pressure from “upper management” to meet an arbitrary deadline. I really can’t recall, what it was exactly, that I was so stressed about. I mean this wasn’t a life-threatening situation that you needed respond to immediately. And, isn’t that the real reason you are supposed to feel stressed, for your survival?
Have you ever felt like you were in living someone else’s life with no explanation of how you got here? I began daydreaming for a moment about my youth and surfing all day long without a care in the world.
Just then, my friend Joey called and began telling me how good the surf was that day. He kept rubbing it in about how I had missed the best day at our local break (Zuma Beach) that he’d seen in years. I hadn’t surfed in weeks. So, It didn’t help much to lower my frustration level at the time to know that I had just missed the best surf I might see for a long ages.
I thought to myself, this has got to change. What are you working for, anyways?
That’s when I decided it was time that I reassess my goals and path in life. What was I doing? I was in a job that paid well but left me feeling unfulfilled. You know what I mean?
Yeah, I had all the toys, including a great quiver of surfboards, which I never got to use. But, what good are your toys if you never get the time to enjoy them? I realized right then and there that my priorities were all screwed up. All I really wanted to do was surf, travel and meet interesting people. So, I decided that I better find a way to make a living doing what I loved, or I would be doomed to a life that was unfulfilling to me.
But, how do you start?
I figured that I should probably work within the surfing travel market, which didn’t really exist at the time, except for a few niche travel agents. So, I began doing research. I discovered that the market for the beginner surfer was about to explode and that all these new surfers were the future of surf travel and a growing niche market. This sounded promising.
Just about this time, the Internet was beginning to become a major resource for travelers for researching and planning their vacations. I figured that I should secure my place online before the opportunity passed me by. I had all kinds of ideas about what I could do, but I realized that I should probably buy the best dotcom domain names for surfing travel and figure the rest out later. So, that’s what I did. I bought SurfTrips.com, SurfCamps.com and LearnSurfing.com. I figured this was a good start, but then what do you do?
The market research was easy (I was a licensed investigator at the time with a background in marketing). Although I was well versed in using the Internet for research purposes, I knew very little about the technical side, nothing about building web pages, search engines or anything like that. Essentially, I had to learn everything on my own. I realized that it was a good thing I was passionate about the idea, because it seemed like it was going to be a long journey.
And, it has been.
I started by offering complimentary surf lessons to anyone I saw struggling to surf in Pacific Beach and was soon offered a job, by a local surf shop owner to help build his surf school. I have since been the Surf School Director at Pacific Beach Surf School in San Diego, California, Marketing Director and Director of Surfing Programs at Witch’s Rock Surf Camp in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.
I worked directly with the San Diego County Parks & Recreation Department to help establish a permitting process for surf schools in San Diego. And, I am currently working with the ISA (International Surfing Association), the FSC (Costa Rican Surfing Federation) and the Costa Rican Government to establish a similar permitting process for surf schools in Costa Rica.
I have learned a lot over the years and I look forward to learning much more. I would love to hear from you and find out more about your story.
I’m always excited about meeting people interested in surfing. So, I look forward to hearing from you. If you have any questions, concerns, ideas or comments, feel free to contact me directly anytime. Info@SurfCamps.com