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Like many who learned how to surf in the Santa Cruz area, I stood up on my first wave directly in front of Jack O’Neill’s house at

38TH Avenue along Pleasure Point. I used it as a lineup marker, in fact, even though I had no idea what that meant at the time. It’s now

the only house remaining along the entire point on the ocean side of East Cliff Drive, as erosion slowly eats away at the shoreline.

I remember the wave clearly—I was riding a 7'10" single-fin Yater circa 1969, the result of a serendipitous garage sale find a friend

of mine had made that summer, buying the board from an unknowing widow for $40. I was far from worthy of such a surfboard then,

but it served me well as I lined up what should have been a sloping, mushy right, only to stomp my feet down awkwardly on the left

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side of the deck. The board darted back underneath my off-balance frame, and, to my surprise, I zipped along a racy left-hand wall

until the wave collapsed and sent me tumbling, maybe 30 yards in front of O’Neill’s house.

As I came to the surface, giddy and bewildered at the same time, I imagined that O’Neill—eye patch, sly grin, and all—was somehow

watching me from the deck of his house. He could even be quietly cheering me on, I remember thinking, jazzed to witness my first ride.

The rest of that summer and beyond, I would sit on my board and wait for sets, and wonder if he was there in that house...watching,

silently pleased to see me—and so many other surfers before and after me—get stoked in the frigid waters of Northern California.

JackO’Neill’sOdyssey

By Dean LaTourrettePhotography by Mark Gordon

Jack describes 38th Avenue (aka O’Neill’s): “A good little wave...Isit and space out, see myself on the waves, ride them in my mind.”

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“To hell with luck. I’ll bring the luck with me.”—Santiago/Hemingway, Old Man and the Sea

By now most of us are familiar with the Jack story, thanks inpart to an O’Neill marketing machine that has molded thecompany’s entire brand identity around the charismatic yetsomewhat elusive founder of the company: experimented withearly versions of closed-cell foam and later neoprene to developsome of the first surfing wetsuits; opened the world’s first true“surf shop” on the Great Highway in San Francisco, later movingthe business to Santa Cruz; has created numerous wetsuit andsurf product innovations over the years; wears a cool eye patchdue to an accident involving a surfboard to the face, a look thathas come to symbolize both his and his company’s rebelliousnature; has owned some exceptional toys, including boats, hotair balloons, and numerousexperimental, difficult-to-describe air and water craft...and so on.

But that’s the marketing.The man himself is a bit moredifficult to pin down. Theimage of O’Neill, Inc. has beencarefully crafted around theliteral and symbolic father ofthe company, even going so faras to invite you to “know Jack”on their corporate website.Ironically, because of this, I’mfinding it difficult to get toknow Jack, to delineate betweenO’Neill the man and O’Neillthe company.

Sipping coffee in O’Neill’sliving room overlookingPleasure Point, staring out atthe very peak where I caughtmy seminal first wave, I sitacross the table from him andtake my best stabs. He’s lookingas relaxed as ever in his trade-mark wardrobe: jeans, flip-flops,and a casually untucked button-down shirt. As we talk, hestares off into the distance—much like a skipper at the helm—save for delivering the occasional joke, when he looks directlyat me with a twinkle in his eye, searching for my reaction.

He rattles off a series of quotes that sound vaguely familiar.I’ve read many of them on the O’Neill website, in articles, evenon some of the O’Neill products themselves: “I was just lookingfor a way to stay warm,” and “Things can get all screwed up,and you jump in the ocean and everything’s all right again.”Nice sentiments, yes, but surely there’s more to the story thancold water, curiosity, and luck—than surfing, bonfires, andgood times. I poke and I prod but get gently deflected by hisunwavering optimism.

O’Neill was born in 1923, the son of a fire engine salesmanfrom Denver. The bulk of his childhood was spent split betweenPortland, Oregon, and Southern California, and it was therethat he first discovered the joys of the ocean. “When I was ingrade school I went down to the beach in Santa Monica,” hesays, “and as a little kid I caught some waves bodysurfing. And,boy, that really got me, to get those rides in the ocean. Therewas something about it that really grabbed me.”

His family later moved north to Oregon, where O’Neillattended the University of Portland. A combination of wander-lust and patriotism led him to quit school and enlist in theNavy Air Corps where they shipped him off to, of all places,Minnesota. “I join the Navy, and they station me in the middleof the damn country!” he laments. A knee injury led to hisdischarge, and coming out of the service his goal was to sail

around the world, only hedidn’t have the funds. Anuncle in New York offered hima job selling parking meters,so he went there in hopes ofearning his global passage.“I only lasted a month, for thetraining,” he laughs. “I hatedall the city politics.”

Instead, O’Neill returnedto the West Coast and, aftermarrying a Portland girl namedMarjorie Bennett, settled inSan Francisco in 1949. Therehe worked a number of jobs,the most memorable of whichwas crab potting out at theFarallones for what he calls acrazy Swedish boat captain.“It was tough out on thosecrab pot boats,” he recalls.“There was only two of us, sothere was only one guy for thecaptain to yell at, and thatwas me.”

He was, if you’ll pardonthe expression, a jack-of-all-

trades, working a variety of jobs in order to make a buck andsupport a family. He himself readily admits he wasn’t the world’sbest worker, jumping from odd job to odd job. “As an employee,I never did make much money,” says O’Neill today. “God, Imust have had 20 to 30 different jobs over the years. I was apatternmaker at a shipyard. I sold skylights, aluminum siding,and fire extinguishers. I worked for the nursery digging holes.I was a longshoreman in Portland. I was a cargo checker atthe docks. I was even a bicycle messenger boy.”

Ironically, it was O’Neill’s exposure to various businesses—both ocean- and non-ocean-related—that would serve himwell in his future enterprise. “I got the idea of being in businessfor myself in my very first job: selling the Herald Express news-

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At Steamer’s, circa late ’50s, “I was never what you’d call hot, but Icould paddle well and surf the waves as big as they got around here.”

April 2007. For O’Neill, Inc., Jack’s salty appearance (left) is such that it hasbeen logo-ized.

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paper in Southern California,”he says. “I bought them for twocents and sold them for three. I’d stand out on the road atMelrose and Fairfax, across from the Farmers’ Market. Thatwas my territory—in the middle of the street!”

The fishing life augmented with miscellaneous jobsafforded O’Neill enough free time to bodysurf at Kelly’s Coveat San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, and in 1952 he opened his first“Surf Shop” (as well as trademarked the name) on the GreatHighway. He would open his second shop in Santa Cruz sevenyears later and eventually move the entire operation there.

As I listen to the early portion of O’Neill’s story, it’s clearto me that he hails from a different era, one of more stoicdemeanor and practiced constraint. He’s as comfortable talkingabout tough times as he is going to the dentist, and indeedgetting him to share anything beyond the exuberant surfer’sfantasy life is like pulling teeth. Instead, he prefers to crackjokes and flash his patented grin, leaving you to wonder ifanything has ever gone wrong in this man’s life.

O’Neill has in fact faced both personal and professionaltragedy during his career. In 1973 his wife, Marge, died, leavinghim as the primary caregiver for six kids. Raising a family inSanta Cruz during the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, in part as a singlefather, came with inherent challenges—particularly within theraucous surfing community. Drugs and partying were rampant,and the O’Neill family was hardly immune. But with JackO’Neill at the helm, the kids made it through relativelyunscathed. “I think getting exposed to that stuff is part ofgrowing up as a kid,” says Pat O’Neill, a one-time professional

surfer who now serves as CEOof O’Neill, Inc. “I mean, during a

certain time period, everyone around us was smoking, snorting,whatever. As a high school kid, though, I wasn’t out doing alot of that stuff, I was really concentrated on surfing.”

Then there were the struggles with the business itself andthe matter of creating an entirely new market from scratch.“There were definitely very difficult times; that’s why I haveso much respect for Jack,” says Joel Woods, a longtime familyfriend and early O’Neill employee. “Here he is going off intosomething where people are asking him who he’s going to sellto once he sells the first ten suits. He’s got six kids to feed andnothing but a lot of energy to rely on.”

“Jack really bet the ranch that he could pull it off,” saysPat O’Neill. “We had a couple of really tough years, there’s notwo ways about it. There wasn’t any surf industry back then,people like Jack created it. You were basically plucking peopleoff the street to try and get them interested in surfing so youcould get them to buy a board or a wetsuit.”

Despite the challenges, the business did survive andeventually began to thrive, primarily due to O’Neill’s perse-verance. “Jack always knew where he wanted to go,” says Woods.“He’d get this place that he wanted to arrive at, and cast breadout on the water and see what came back. He’d decide whetherit worked or not, and if it fit into where he wanted to end up,then he took that in.”

“Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.”—Gautama Buddha,

“The house is alone on the cliff. When first built, itsold for eighteen-five. I got it in the ’70s for fifty.My wife didn’t like how high above the rocks it was.”

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Jack O’Neill is a Buddhist. Not in a practicing, organized religionsort of way, mind you, but in the way that he lives his life—notforcing things, gravitating toward his natural interests andpassions, letting things come to him versus constantly chasingafter them. While his home shares hints of the philosophy inthe form of subtle art and a Zen rock garden in front, and he’sbeen known to meditate from time to time, it’s more the innateway he lives his life that characterizes this Zen-like approach. Hemakes things look and sound...easy. “I really don’t know that muchabout it [Buddhism],” he says, “but I find meditation very relaxing.I think it helps with concentration and clearing the mind.”

O’Neill’s house is not a mansion—far from it. It’s amulti-level, ocean-dweller’s dream pad, where Big Sur meets20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Indeed, with water-tight portalwindows and a World War II-era submarine door (bought ata swap meet) lining a basement level that pushes close to thehigh tide line, the lower portion of the home resembles theNautilus, and one could almost imagine taking the house for aday cruise through Monterey Bay.

O’Neill, not unlike Captain Nemo, exudes a rebellious yetmysterious nature, combined with a strong environmentalethos. But where Nemo is a cynic and a pessimist, O’Neill isa steadfast optimist. “I get up in the morning and look outthat porthole and check the surf, the weather, warm up on thetrampoline,” he says enthusiastically (referring to a trampolinein the center of his house that spans three floors). “I feel reallyfortunate to be in as close contact with my children as I am.All my kids have been involved with the family business, whichis amazing. It’s all worked out very, very well.”

“The Master in the art of living makes little distinction betweenhis work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and hisbody, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion.He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision ofexcellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whetherhe is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.”

—Zen Buddhist Text

O’Neill is the consummate marketer, a natural businessmanand self-promoter at heart. This has been apparent even fromthe early days, with the creative schemes he cooked up to drawattention to his fledgling businesses. From giant wooden poleswith gas flames on top marking his surf shop, to a fleet of hotair balloons and “air ships” donning the O’Neill name, to theTeam O’Neill catamaran (now the Odyssey) flying a three-storyO’Neill spinnaker—he’s never been one to shy from publicity.In fact, if there’s a rub about Jack and his role in the surfindustry, it’s that he’s drawn unwanted attention to surfing inNorthern California, a region that’s notoriously reclusive.

“Jack was always very visible,” says Austin Comstock, anearly attorney for O’Neill and a longtime friend. “He wanted tobe associated with everything to do with the water, so anytimethere was an opportunity for publicity he would be there.” Thistype of commercialism didn’t go over well with all surfers,particularly in the early days. “The old-time surfers around herecame to Santa Cruz when it was an uncrowded frontier,” saysComstock. “Many of them disapproved of the whole contestmentality, they thought that was cheesy and corrupted the whole

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43“Pleasure (above) is a year-round wave, gets up to double overhead in winter. Like everyday things, I sometimes take it for granted. On theother hand, when I’m someplace else I really miss it.”

Jack with grandkids little Bridget and Connor (left). Their father,Tim O’Neill, holds a 200-ton license and skippers the Sea Odyssey.

Steam room with Japanese soaking tub (below). “I get up in the morning, shower, and check the surf through the porthole.”

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On his Zen sand garden: “We put riprap along the foot of the house, some of the rocks weighed up to ten tons. I got them to drop a few over here.Everything is carefully composed. I think about how to improve it. One of the top gardeners from the Imperial Palace in Japan gives me advice.”

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“When I first bought the house the ocean came under it and the bank wouldn’t finance it. I removed the dirt from under the house to make thisroom. The house started to shift and I stabilized it with the steel pillars you see here. We have to close the portholes when the surf is big.”

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activity. Then you had Jackcommercializing and supportingthose contests and supporting his products—it wasn’t unfriendly—they just didn’t go for that. For them it wasn’t what surfingwas all about, and that was just something Jack had to deal with.”

Of course, considering that when he began his businessthere were only a handful of surfers anywhere north of PointConception, he was forced to not only promote his companyand its products, but the sport of surfing itself. The way hefigured it, the only way he was going to increase wetsuit sales

was if the total number of cold-water surfers grew.

“I think there were a lot of people who were just jealous,”says Bill Hickey, one of the original Kelly’s Cove surfers, whomanaged O’Neill’s San Francisco shop in the early ’60s. “Someof these people, you know, they see somebody like Jack doingall these things when they themselves aren’t doing anything.So they come out with all this negative crap, calling O’Neill asellout and all that. I mean, somebody had to do it, man. Wewere freezing our asses off out there!”

From the O’Neill Archives

Jack helps Chubby Mitchell at Steamer’s, circa ’50s. “This wasSteamer’s before the riprap went in. The down-south guys calledus cliff surfers because we’d jump off. We eventually replacedthe rope with a fire hose to help us get back up.”

Pat skating in front of the first O’Neill shop at Cowell’s Beach,circa mid-’60s.“We took regular street skates apart and nailedthe wheels to 1"x 6" planks. All the kids hung out there. Aftera while they wanted to build a hotel. The mayor said we can’tclose that shop! That’s Boys’ Town!”

Pat and Jack (in Supersuit)circa late ’70s. “I was doinghot-air balloon flights whereI needed to survive waterlandings, so I sealed theankles, wrists, and neck soit would hold air, installeda blow-up valve, and I couldsleep all night afloat. Itbecame the Navy’s officialdive suit.”

“Drew (Kampion) tookthis 1970s ad shot of meholding an original designthat another company wasclaiming. Our headline said,‘We did it first!’”

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O’Neill also had to deal with surfing’s image problemsat the time, particularly in the rowdy outpost that was SantaCruz. “He was trying to become a legitimate Santa Cruzbusinessman,” says filmmaker Bruce Brown, who workedwith O’Neill to promote his surf flicks throughout NorthernCalifornia. “At the time everybody thought surfers were abunch of scumbags. So he was trying to join the Rotary Clubor whatever. When I’d come to visit, he’d always go, ‘Brown,just shut up. I’m trying to make a good impression here.’”

O’Neill is Santa Cruz, and Santa Cruz is O’Neill. As I tag alongwith him for lunch in the Capitola area, he’s greeted by friendlyfaces and exuberant well-wishers everywhere we go. Most itseems have worked for him at one time or another, which theyprobably have. Everyone appears genuinely stoked to see himout and about.

Perhaps no other single figure has shaped the town, eventhe greater coastal region of Northern California, more than he.In addition to providing the key to accessing the copious yetfrigid surf of the greater Santa Cruz area, O’Neill set up a

Pat and Jeff “Kookson”Gidden posing for a ’70s ad.

Family O’Neill: Tim, Bridget, Jack, Pat, Cathi.

Jack about to hit O’Neills, mid-’70s.

At the helm of Marie Celine, a replica 60-footcoastal schooner, “She was a family boat andthe prettiest for its size. We sailed it as faras Acapulco.”

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traditional family-run business with high ethical and environ-mental standards. The values of the company are reflectedwithin the community in which it operates, and vice versa.

“Santa Cruz was the best move I ever made,” he saysdefinitively. “It’s getting awfully crowded, but I still love it here.I’ve traveled a lot, and the climate here is perfect. The surfhere is really good too, we’ve got so many surfing spots. It’schanged a lot, of course. It used to be a retirement town, butthen the university moved in, and that changed things.”

O’Neill, Inc., is also one of the very few American surfcompanies to thrive outside of the Southern California surfcartel, both in location and mindset. This is an importantdistinction, for it’s allowed the business, from its earliest daysup through the present, to remain innovative and stay largelyfocused on functional surf design as opposed to fashion.

The company has alsohelped give rise to a thrivinglocal surf industry, arguablythe densest population ofsurf shops and shapers in theworld today. There are atleast 15 retail surf shops withinthe roughly five square milesthat make up the Santa Cruzarea, along with dozens ofindependent shapers (M-10,Ward Coffey, Haut, Goin’,etc.), wetsuit manufacturers(O’Neill and Hotline), boardmanufacturers (Surftech),numerous surf schools, andpractically any other surfproduct manufacturer youcan imagine. For a regionthat’s not known as being asurf industry hub, it houses asurprising number of surfing-related businesses.

As I watch variouspeople’s reactions to O’Neill on the street, I wonder what itwould be like to be the literal and figurative surfing icon thathe’s become. He has always been to me as much a cartooncharacter as a living, breathing figure. Such is the power ofmarketing, and basing the image of an entire company on aone-eyed, swashbuckling figure.

And that beard, that beard. From the ’70s to present, ithas become synonymous not only with O’Neill wetsuits, butwith burly, cold-water surfing from Northern California tothe United Kingdom.

“Jack O’Neill is one of the most recognizable faces inthe world,” says Dennis Judson. “You go to the beach andeverybody knows the guy. It’s funny, I helped develop thesymbol with him in the eye patch, and we put it on everything.You put that graphic anywhere in the world now, and peopleknow who it is.”

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may.We ourselves must walk the path.” —Gautama Buddha

O’Neill is a kid at heart, and his youthful energy and naturalcuriosity has been at the core of both his business and personalsuccess. Given this childlike nature, perhaps it’s fitting that he’scome full circle to found the nonprofit O’Neill Sea Odyssey.The program, now in its eleventh year, takes fourth through sixthgraders for a cruise in Monterey Bay waters on the O’Neillcatamaran, schooling them on ocean education. The organizationhas become his focus and passion, having handed over the reignsof the for-profit O’Neill enterprise to his children many yearsago, and he speaks about it with great pride.

“It’s such an advantage to have the kids out on the boat,” hesays. “We teach them that the ocean is alive, and you’ve got to

take care of it; that over halfof the world’s oxygen comesfrom the ocean, and withouta living ocean, we probablycouldn’t make it. This is amessage that they take homeand tell their parents, and Ithink it’s something that willgo on for generations.”

To date the nonprofit haseducated over 32,000 childrenon the ocean environmentsince its inception in 1996.And effective? One only needwitness the classes in action,with dozens of attention-deficit-challenged school kidscompletely engaged for severalhours at a time. Says O’Neillexcitedly, “One time a little girlactually stood up in class andsaid, ‘Today is the happiestday of my life!’”

This is how Jack O’Neill connects the ride, giving back tothe ocean that has given him so much. As for his seeminglyunassailable status, perhaps deep down we see him living ourown dream, and for that reason we’re careful not to tarnishit, and in turn the man himself. In our minds, he’s lived theperfect life, and nobody wants to be the one to spoil thecollective fantasy. Damn it if he wasn’t able to buck the systemand do things his way, on his own terms, and find success inboth the business and surfing worlds—playing in the ocean,mocking convention along the way. Indeed, “following his bliss,”to quote Joseph Campbell (and a former O’Neill marketingslogan). Says Joel Woods, “I was 14 when I went to work forhim, and he gave a kid a job. That’s the legacy that he fostered—bring the kids up, get them out there, and expose them tothe sea.”

Who wouldn’t want to root for a character like that?

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With Chinese drum, “I like the sound. I beat on it from time to time.”

(opposite) 1957 Jaguar XK140, “Such a pleasure to be with.”

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