Jim Moriarty

Jim Mori­arty is a Cal­i­for­nia surfer/activist who is the cur­rent CEO of The Surfrider Foun­da­tion. An orga­ni­za­tion founded by surfers, Surfrider is ded­i­cated to bring­ing aware­ness of the envi­ron­men­tal issues that face our coastal waters. We had the chance to ask Jim a few questions.

What was life like grow­ing up?
It is safe to say as a child, I was a skater. You could always find me on a skate­board or snow­board more than any other type of board—surfboard included. Since I grew up in Ohio, my family’s vis­its to the coast were only dur­ing the sum­mer months.

When did you get your first surf­board?
In the sum­mer, our fam­ily vaca­tioned in Rhode Island. It was there I was intro­duced to surf­boards, but not nec­es­sar­ily for surf­ing. See, when we were out in the ocean—not the Atlantic, but more like large bays and inlets—on our boards, we were mostly goof­ing off. In fact, we would go clam­ming off of them.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood on a surf­board?
You never for­get your first time you stand on a surf­board. I remem­ber I was at Cardiff Reef on a 9’0” Her­bie Fletecher that was red with white flames, and a skull and cross­bones on the deck trac­tion. The ride was unfor­get­table: it was a low tide and the sea grass was sway­ing just under­neath the board. In a sense, I felt like I was walk­ing on water.

Who/what inspires you?
I am inspired peo­ple who stand up for what they believe in. From a busi­ness per­spec­tive, I love that Yvon Chouinard started Patag­o­nia to offer climb­ing sup­plies to meet the demand he knew per­son­ally even though being in busi­ness was per­haps the far­thest thing from his aspi­ra­tions. I love that Linus Tor­valds cre­ated Linux and then gave it away. On a more per­sonal note, I’m inspired by Churchill’s stance against Hitler. I love how punk rock chal­lenged the view of mod­ern music. I love that Jesus gave his life for his beliefs and Nelsen Mandela’s story of 27 years in prison to pres­i­dent of his country.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
I was never a tra­di­tional sports kid; I got the adren­a­line rush from board sports. As I get older, the sim­ple joy of cruis­ing on a wave with my hand trac­ing the wall of water of the wave form­ing is extremely sat­is­fy­ing. It is just myself and the water, and the life that it fuels. It is so sim­ple and awe-inspiring, and sat­is­fies my desire to con­nect with nature.

What is in your cur­rent quiver? What is your favorite board? Your favorite surf spot?
I have about a dozen boards in my quiver, from a small 19” Danny Hess hand­plane for body surf­ing to a Gerry Lopez Standup pad­dle­board. I love my 9’8” Bing pin­tail when the waves are under chest high. I love my 5’6” Chan­nel Islands Fishcuit and a Joel Tudor sin­glefin when it’s head high.

My favorite spot is for­tu­nately right down the street from my house at Swami’s in North San Diego County.

What are you cur­rently lis­ten­ing to on your iPod?
I’m lit­er­ally lis­ten­ing to “Heavy Metal Drum­mer” by Wilco, but love all kinds of music. I will lis­ten to every­thing from Lee Scratch Perry to Cesaria Evora, Eddie Ved­der to Bryan Wil­son, Black Flag to Vam­pire Weekend.

What’s the num­ber one pri­or­ity project for Surfrider in 2010?
Engage­ment. As Surfrider Foun­da­tion goes into 2010, we want to con­nect with peo­ple that live in coastal areas and help them under­stand that they can make a dif­fer­ence at their beaches, and there are peo­ple just like them who cur­rently are mak­ing a difference.

What’s a big­ger problem—a few large indus­trial pol­luters or many small indi­vid­ual com­mu­nity pol­luters?
I’m not sure it’s clear to sug­gest one is “big­ger” than the other as they are dif­fer­ent from one another and sub­stan­tial in their own right. As Surfrider, it is our mis­sion to address both types of pol­luters as well as the myr­iad of pol­luters that don’t fall into either cat­e­gory, and edu­cate them on how their prac­tices are affect­ing our oceans, waves and beaches.

What’s next for Jim Mori­arty?
The word that comes to mind is “net­work”. Surfrider Foun­da­tion now has 73 chap­ters in the United States and over a dozen out­side the U.S. We want all those loca­tions con­nected and feed­ing, sup­port­ing and encour­ag­ing one another. If we can achieve this, the end result is a large force with great value, but it’s cre­ated and main­tained by thou­sands of peo­ple all around world. Think of it as Wikipedia for the coasts except we are build­ing a real, on-ground pres­ence in coastal towns everywhere.

Find out more about Jim Mori­arty here. Find out more about the Surfrider Foun­da­tion here.