Kelly Slater Wave Co.
Surfing in the California desert anyone? Yes, the desert.
For those of you not familiar with, and if you don't really consider yourself part of the surfing community you probably wont be, let me introduce Surf Ranch. A world class surfing facility deep in the heart of California's Central Valley. About 100 miles from the closest natural surfable body of water
​
To break it down, it was a 2200' long pond with the bathymetry sculped to produce a specific surfer friendly wave. Original simulations took years to prove out and most of that happened before I arrived.
​
When I hired on to the project, the the very first, proof-of-concept had been developed, installed and was up and running. So the science, which was based out a supercomputer lab at the University of Southern Californi was pretty solid. But it was low cost (relatively) and built for only one thing... to generate a wave as proof of concept.
​
Part of the first activities revolved around expanding that first concept to something that was a little more theme-park like. We developed the ability to run waves in both directions on the pond (first on generated a wave in only one direction), as well as wave damping technologies which were needed to calm the water after we would run a wave. The original design didn't need to take these variables into consideration.
​
The whole project was divided into two major portions, 1). the facility and 2) the wave machine. Naturally there was some overlap, but for the most part two teams were created as two very different sets of skills were necessary. My job was to lead the engineering team on getting the wave machine installed and running. My title, depending on whether you listened to my boss or the CEO, was either Lead Engineer or Production Engineering Manager
​
We were handed a deadline, one that was fixed on the calendar; the first "Future Classic" was scheduled in the fall of 2017 with all of the requirements of a nationally televised event. By this time we were owned by WSL, so it became quite the star studded spectacle. As it was the first to be held at the Ranch, it was mostly for fun and exhibition.
Well, we pulled it off but there was a cost. Several of the team members rose to the occasion and performed admirably and I'm quite proud of them. But as with every startup, the environment isn't for everybody and we did have a few team members burn out.