For the first summer since launching 23 years ago, the Hermosa surf camp this year will not carry a sponsorship from Chevron, the oil company that helped start the camp but has had a precarious relationship with local surfers over the years.
The annual kids summer camp is operated by Vince Ray, a fixture of the local surfing community, but overseen by the city. Until this year it was known as Chevron Surf Camp, with the oil company’s logo displayed prominently on camp signage and apparel – a pairing of strange but common bedfellows, surfing and the oil business. But that ended recently when the city decided to remove Chevron as a sponsor in favor of local shop Spyder Surfboards, Nike surf brand Hurley International and Kinecta Federal Credit Union.
Rod Spackman, Chevron’s manager of policy, government and public affairs for the Los Angeles Basin, said the news came as a surprise. Chevron was preparing to cut its annual $10,000 check when a staff member in his office heard the city had found other sponsors. Spackman said he still hasn’t received an adequate explanation from the city.
“The only response we got was from a member of the Parks and Recreation group … who made a reference to the fact that it was related to what we do as a business as an oil company,” Spackman said. “It was about that simple. They had decided to have us not involved because of something about oil. It was just that vague.”
The decision comes after Hermosa voters decided by a wide margin in March to vote against Measure O, which would have repealed a ban and opened the city up for oil drilling by E & B Natural Resources.
“My best guess is it’s related to the E & B oil thing,” Ray said. “Somebody in community resources didn’t want Chevron as a sponsor anymore.”
Lisa Nichols, recreation coordinator at the community resources department, said the change in sponsorship was simply about improving the camp by getting surf-related companies involved, and that oil considerations “were not part of my discussions regarding the new partnership.”
“The partnership with the surfing companies Spyder and Hurley, as well as the sponsorship with Kinecta, provided an upgrade to the camp,” Nichols said in an email.
The camp offers weekly instruction to kids ages 7 to 17. Kids start out riding the whitewash and can work up to more challenging waves under the supervision of instructors and a lifeguard, while learning the finer points of surf etiquette.
The camp offers classes for 1-and-a-half hours, three hours or seven hours a day. Prices range from $174 to $419 a week. Ray guarantees that kids will ride a wave on their first day. (A group that included Becker Surf’s Dave Hollander, ET’s Eddie Talbot, Easy Reader’s Kevin Cody and surf instructors Jim Cubberly and George Beard launched the camp in 1992. Chevron’s funding and the surf shops’ equipment donations enabled the camp to be offered at no charge. Ray now pays the city 30 percent of registration fees and $15 per student for handling sponsorships and administration).
Ray said it’s been a struggle to keep the camp afloat recently. Last summer, he needed to make a $10,000 outlay to purchase new surfboards, boogie boards and standup paddleboards. In the past, surfboards were donated by Becker Surfboards, with other gear coming from Dive N’ Surf, but the camp lost those sponsors around the recession.
“I’ve had to pay for that stuff to where I’m barely making any money,” Ray said.
Spyder founder Dennis Jarvis approached Ray about sponsorship last summer when his kids were attending the camp. Discussions with the city followed from there.
“My goal was for Vince to not have to partner with [a company] so removed from the act of surfing,” Jarvis said. “Chevron would cut a check and say ‘Here you go.’ We’re going to be more hands-on.”
In the new arrangement, Hurley will contribute gear such as t-shirts, hats and boardshorts for campers, as well as wetsuits and boardshorts for each instructor, Nichols said. Spyder and Kinecta will provide rash guards for campers and instructors, and cash to help pay instructor fees and advertising expenses. Jarvis said he collaborated with Hurley artists to give the camp a new logo and branding. Hurley will also help by bringing pro surfers – perhaps Rob Machado – to visit campers.
“I knew that Vince needed help,” Jarvis said. “I made a deal and said, ‘I can bring something that’s cooler than what you have.’”
Even so, the decision – and the way it was handled by the city – has added a new fissure to the rift between oil companies and the community after Measure O. Typically, the city would send an annual letter to Chevron asking for the sponsorship money, but this year the city simply didn’t reach out to the company at all.
Spackman said due to Chevron’s long history of donating to schools and community programs in the area, he expected to have been included in a discussion if the city was looking to shift directions. He said Chevron shouldn’t be lumped in with the politics of the oil election.
“What has surprised us and disappointed us was that after 20-plus years of partnering with the community and city, somehow the decision was made without having called us to have a conversation and the courtesy of a discussion,” he said. “It would be unfortunate if people were linking this to the issues in March. We weren’t involved in those issues in any way.”
Still, Chevron has a long and complicated relationship with surfers, who as a group extol environmentalist values. The company’s hulking refinery looms over what is the South Bay’s most-frequented surf spot at El Porto in Manhattan Beach. A Chevron gas station overlooks the break, giving many gas or coffee guzzling surfers their first check of the surf in the morning. And as surfers sit on their boards and peer out at an approaching set, the horizon is intruded upon by a giant Chevron tanker.
Still, oil and surfing go hand-in-hand, from the fuel needed to access faraway surf breaks to the petroleum used in constructing wetsuits and surfboard blanks. Chevron also built the El Segundo Jetty, which produces the biggest, most challenging winter waves in the South Bay.
Jarvis acknowledged the large role of petroleum in the surf industry and surf community, but said he still doesn’t like to be reminded of it as when he visits the beach.
“Almost everything in the surfing world is a petroleum byproduct,” he said. “(But) it does feel weird to see ‘sponsored by a petroleum company’ on the beach.”
