I grew up in Ojai California which is a small
little town inland of Ventura about half an
hour from the coast which as a kid seemed
like it was a million miles away. We were
always up in the hills, running the creeks
and fishing and you know always doing something.
We built a skateboard ramp in our backyard,
um I always had horses. I rode my horses up
in the mountains all the time. We played kick-the-can
every day of the week and it was just kind
of a small group of kids. We lived out in
kind of a rural area at the base of most Los
Padres National Forest. You know when we were
little kids you know my dad andmom had us
young so my dad was still kind of a kid when
he had us. You know he was surfing on the
weekends or going to rodeos up in King City
or he was always doing something. He was just
a big kid and he was you know he built some
of his own boards and he loved to surf and
and we just kind of followed him along,
caught kind of, begged him to take us surfing
with him. Oh first time I was exposed to any
kind
of drugs was probably like a sophomore year
in high school. You know just started showing
up at parties and there was always a crew
of kids that would kind of sneak away and
mean just, you knew you just knew something
was going on that wasn't something I'd been
around. I don't think I've ever made a conscious
decision. I think that you know by the time
I was exposed to drugs I was so in love with
surfing and I just wanted to surf the best
I could possibly surf and that was the biggest
focus in my life. And I noticed that the kids
are getting involved in drugs. They didn't
seem super focused on anything other than
themselves and trying to have a good time.
For me having a good time was surfing the
best I possibly could and so it was just you
know it wasn't that definitive moment where
I said I'm not going to do drugs, but it was
just became apparent to me that that wasn't
something that was going to become a priority
in my life. Being a professional athlete you
know we surf a lot. You know I noticed the
guys that started getting into drugs, as time
went on, those guys started to drag they started
to lose
their focus and their longevity just wasn't
there you know and I think that was the thing
you noticed, they just sort of start to, their
priorities change and they started to fall
away from the focus.The kids that continued
to do that, you look at them a little at 20,
you look at them at
25, you look at them at 30, and that's when
you see the big impact. When you continue
to do
it and when it becomes part of your life and
then you start surrounding yourself with those
people that do that as a lifestyle, that's
that's when the impacts happen but it all
starts with that first time. You know I I
grew up doing you know competitive surfing
events. I loved it, but I found that the competition
didn't make me surf better. It didn't drive
me to surf better, it was the free
surfing sessions when I was out with my friends,
just pushing each other. And at the time there
was really no future in that. There was no
way to turn that into a living. You either
won big
contests or you or you know you didn't have
a future in pro surfing. And so after all
those dreams of making it in pro surfing I
sort of let it go and move to Oahu and that's
when it hit me, I mean that I found that big
waves were something that I just came natural
for me and I loved so much and and all this
all stuff came together and the next thing
I knew I went from going to junior college
and and doing odd jobs and surfing just for
fun to traveling the world with the best
surfers in the world, looking for waves that
had never been ridden and it was it was a
dream come true. You know during the height
of my surfing career I was traveling ten ten
months out of the year. So and during that
time I started to you know be lucky enough
to be in some surf films, For me I was really
interested in the filmmaking side of things
and documenting the different cultures and
the different people that we experienced and
the excitement of documenting waves
that had never been ridden. And I kind of
fell in love with it. And in 1997 I had a
really bad injury. The doctors said you're
pretty much done. I said you know I love filmmaking
and I've been around it enough I'm gonna go
for it you know I'm going to I'm going to
try to make this happen and went from there.
Well, I've been with a company called Patagonia
for about five years and I'm involved on pretty
much every level of the company. I'm a sponsored
surfer for them, I helped design board shorts,
jackets, wetsuits and then I also do some
film work for the company and help with the
marketing. So for me it's great because every
single day I go in the office it's a
different job and in I fact I don't go in
the office every day which is even better.
Some days my office is up in the mountains.
Some days my office is out in the water with
the design team, out in the field testing
product. So it's a it's it's a ton of fun
for me and it's a great company.
My name is Chris Malone and for me a natural
high is being out in the ocean with my friends
and family and if there's a ten-foot swell
that's even better.
