Welcome to the My Buddy Green podcast. I'm Jason Walkab, founder and co-ceeo of My Buddy Green, and your host.

Hey everyone, I'm so excited that our Sustainable Sundays podcast series is back back where you can expect to hear from

some of our favorite eco-conscious leaders and innovators across industries

exploring topics from beauty to agriculture and everything in between. Our oceans, waves, and beaches are

everything. Let's save them. Those words are taken straight from the Surf Rider Foundation, which leads me to today's guest, Dr. Chad Nelson, who is the CEO of Surf Rider.

There he's responsible for strategic guidance regarding environmental campaigns at the local through national level and

overseas a number of environmental programs which include volunteer water quality monitoring

motion-friendly landscaping,

as well as education and outreach programs,

and and Surfinomics.

Yes, you heard me right,

Surfinomics is a thing, we're going to talk about it.

Chad welcome.

Hey thanks for having me.

So great to have you.

We are big fans of surf rider and all the good work you guys are doing, fighting the good fight for so many of us.

So let's start where it all began with you personally let's talk about your first memory of

surfing yes I I'm lucky I I grew up as a beach kid in Laguna Beach which is where I am now and so I grew up in the water and

It's a very sort of classic tale.

One of my friends, a guy named Hans Hagen,

his dad, Dave, had a Volkswagen van

and he was doing sort of private surf lessons before this was long before surf lessons were like a thing and he was basically taking this guy Hans his friends down to Santa

...