Chip Wasson
Chip Wasson is a kiteboarding pioneer who was born in Palo Alto, California. Wasson has grown up with an active outdoor lifestyle. He found his true love in the ocean when he started windsurfing in 1981. After many years competing on the international windsurfing scene and completing liberal arts degree at UC Berkeley, he was always seeking the new emerging sports. In 1992, he started a multi-sport apparel company called UltraNectar, Inc. In 1997, he discovered the sport of kiteboarding and brought it from Hawaii to the Northern California coast where he helped to develop and popularize the sport, pioneering what are now the numerous kiteboarding locations on the West Coast. After many years competing on the international level, he was instrumental in developing kiteboard course racing, and almost winning the 2009 World Championships, but finishing in 2nd place. He is the 3- time Masters World Kiteracing Champion. Today course racing is a global pursuit, lending a metric to the sport that did not exist before. Kiteboard racing has a bid for the 2016 Olympics, and continues to be robustly popular. Chip is also one of only two people who has rounded the Farallon Islands, known for having one of the highest populations of great white sharks in the world. He snowkites, and is highly involved in developing and popularizing this amazing contemporary sport. The ocean, its surrounding waterways, and their preservation are vitally important to Chip. "Most of the sports that I love have something to do with water, wind and the outdoors. The majority of the water we use as athletes ends up in the ocean and then that ocean affects many other aspects of our environment. This is why a clean ocean is imperative for the enjoyment of generations to come."
Ocean Ambassador
Her serves as an Ocean Ambassador with Ocean Recovery Alliance to help spread the word about the marine environment through sports and other activities in his daily life.
