Kevin Wallis

1.

He grew up over an hour away from the beach, but all he wanted to do when he grew up was live at the beach.

2.

As he went to school at Claremont McKenna University, he decided he wanted to be a lifeguard.

3.

As he got more into lifeguarding, surf forecasting kept tugging at him; he always wanted to know more about it.

4.

Got his degree in psychology, which he doesn’t use directly, but he says the writing and communication skills still help him.

5.

Says that truthfully, many nights he should’ve spent studying, he was up late looking at wave science and forecasts.

6.

When he started at Surfline, he made next to no money; says if you love something, you should be willing to work for cheap.

7.

He worked weekends, holidays, crazy hours, but he stuck with it because he loved it—and he could still surf in his free time.

8.

Seventeen years later, he says if he could tell his teenage self what his future job would be, young him would be “stoked!”