Successful UCSD alumni prove ‘boards and brains do mix’

By Jade Griffin

As a student at UCSD in the late ‘70s, Rusty Preisendorfer, the iconic founder of Rusty Surfboards, spent a great deal of time on his surfboard at nearby Black’s Beach. While he went on to build one of the most successful surfboard and apparel companies in the world, Preisendorfer recalls a common misconception about surfers and academics: boards and brains don’t mix.
Since the 1960s, UCSD students have balanced their studies with the surf and sun, trekking on foot down the nearby La Jolla cliffs to San Diego’s famous surf break at Black’s Beach. Perched above Black’s, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the campus enjoys a long, nationally recognized tradition as a “surfing school” and has proved that boards and brains can indeed coexist.
Surfline, Transworld Surf and other surf publications have ranked UCSD among the top colleges in the nation for surfing. Still, academics remain at the school’s forefront: the university is ranked seventh-best public university in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.
“The stereotypes from the early days of surfing have slowly been eroded by a lot of bright, high-achieving individuals, many from UCSD,” said Preisendorfer.

(Above) Jon Sundt; (Below) Rusty Preisendorfer

The son of renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher and professor Rudolph Preisendorfer, he began his journey as a visual arts student at UCSD in 1973. Nearly a decade later, the second-generation alumnus established Rusty Surfboards. Today, the surfboard shaper’s trademark “R” logo is one of the best known in the surf world and the company has global licenses for surfboards and apparel. He still maintains his retail surf shops in La Jolla and Del Mar.
Fellow alumnus and surfer Jon Sundt concurs that boards and brains do in fact mix: “Most of the people who I grew up with, including doctors, lawyers and a certain surfboard manufacturer, lead successful businesses and still have a passion for Black’s Beach.”
Sundt, a longtime friend of Preisendorfer, is founder and CEO of La Jolla-based Altegris. 65-employee hedge fund with more than $2 billion in managed assets.
He also plays an important role in maintaining Black’s Beach, according to Jack Beresford, ’88, another San Diego leader and UCSD alumnus. Beresford, who met Sundt at Black’s while they were both college students, is assistant vice president of marketing and communications at San Diego State University.
“Jon serves, in a way, as an unofficial caretaker of Black’s Beach and the crew that surfs there,” said Beresford, who often sees Sundt out in the water before work.
According to Sundt, Black’s Beach is a deep-water canyon, and therefore offers some of the best surfing in California. While the northern, state-managed portion of Black’s Beach is infamous for its clothing optional policy, nudity is not permitted in the southern portion, where the exceptional surfing is found.
“It’s an amazing, world-class wave,” says Preisendorfer, who has surfed around the world. “I still found a few days last winter with very few people out, which reinforced all the fantastic memories I have.”
He took some time off from school and when he returned he and Sundt became friends.
“We were a few years apart, but when I went back to school we lived within about a block, just off campus. We saw each other all the time in the water,” recalls Preisendorfer.
Sundt had grown up surfing Black’s Beach. His father, a former Navy Seal, had a house on the cliffs of La Jolla. Sundt was a computer science major, whose interest in computers led him to his first job in the financial services industry. Ultimately, he developed a Web platform for alternative investment strategies that is used by other brokers.
Sundt attended UCSD for four years, walked in his commencement ceremony and even popped champagne with his parents. He needed just one more semester of classes to finish his degree, but he began working and was soon faced with family concerns — his brothers’ drug addictions.
To underscore his gratitude for campus sports activities — including the UCSD surf team — Sundt is a donor to the UCSD Recreation Department. A portion of the gift provides for the maintenance of the Sundt Memorial Gate to Black’s Beach — which is used by students and residents alike — and the placement of a plaque near it honoring Sundt’s father, who died of cancer, as well as his two brothers who passed away due to the effects of drug use.
Sundt uses the loss of his two brothers to help other teenagers avoid the same mistakes. He established the Sundt Memorial Foundation with a strong commitment to keeping kids off drugs — both locally and nationally.
Sundt and Preisendorfer have long remained close friends. Sundt is the godfather of Preisendorfer’s 23-year-old son. To this day, the former UCSD students surf Black’s together, and recently returned from a surfing trip in Indonesia.
“We surfers can turn a switch off from being hard-driving business people, to just enjoying the sun, the sport and the sea,” comments Sundt.
Preisendorfer agrees: “I’m proud to say Jon Sundt, and many more of my close friends from UC San Diego, have paved wonderful, successful paths in this world and still live and love their primary passion … surfing.”