SURF COUNTY, USA : THE LONG RIDERS : Some change from business suits into wet suits. Others practically live in the water. All find exceptional challenges and rewards in their search for the perfect wave.
ERNIE SCHNEIDER
COUNTY ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, 43
Tell the Board of Supervisors he’s surfin’, surfin’ USA.
County Administrative Officer Schneider who oversees a $3-billion budget and 16,000 employees, has served almost 20 years in county government--but he has surfed for 30.
Although the pressures of job and family have driven many of his friends from the sport, Schneider gets in the water two to three times a week, despite the 12-hour workdays he puts in for his $110,000-a-year job.
“I am real into sports--running, handball, weights and triathlons,” said Schneider, who lives in San Clemente. “But I have never stopped surfing. It’s what I do best.”
His favorite spot is Church’s, a point break north of the San Onofre Nuclear Power Station. He has been going there with friends since he was a teen-ager. These days, Schneider usually loads his 7-foot, 10-inch long board into a tan Volkswagen van shortly after dawn and gets in a few waves before heading to his executive office at the County Administration Building in Santa Ana.
At Church’s he occasionally meets longtime friends such as Chuck Bassett, a Costa Mesa fire captain. Sometimes, Schneider’s wife, Sally, goes along. But his most consistent surfing companion is son Nick, a talkative 8-year-old with a tan and crewcut. He attends Truman Benedict Elementary School and started to snorkle and surf before he was 5.
“I like surfing more than I think I do,” Nick said. “I’ve surfed 10- to 15-foot waves.”
“Well, not exactly,” said Schneider, who has a pair of hot-pink surf trunks.
Schneider, a West German immigrant who arrived in New York a few weeks shy of his sixth birthday, began surfing at age 14, shortly after his parents moved to Orange County. He eventually earned a slot on the Gordon & Smith exhibition team when the San Diego surfboard company had a shop in Dana Point.
He said surfing provides him a much-needed break from the pressures of restructuring the county bureaucracy, dealing with fiscal problems and keeping track of the minutiae of government.
“Sitting at my desk in the office and sitting on my board,” he said, “it’s just two different worlds.”
