THE PARTNERS WHO MAKE THE WORK POSSIBLE
OPTUS — KEEPING ME CONNECTED
22 years as my employer. Major sponsor of my career as a professional athlete for 15 of those, in parallel — every gold medal, world title and world record. Most companies wouldn't have given me the flexibility to run both careers at once. Optus have. The people who covered my role are my second family.
BILLABONG — COVERING ME WITH CONFIDENCE
Billabong backed me before my first surf contest. Four world titles and a Guinness World Record later, they still do. Every wetsuit and every pair of boardies I've competed in came from them. And at Nazaré, the inflation vest they supplied is the reason I came home to my children.
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JS INDUSTRIES — TOTAL TRUST IN MY QUIVER
I rode a stock JS at the 2022 US Adaptive Open and won. I have worked with Jason Stevenson ever since. He personally shapes every board in my quiver and listens to what I need as a blind surfer. The fastest small-wave boards in the world, and the boards I trust in heavy water.
INSURANCE ADVISERNET — MY TRUSTED ADVISER
I trust JS to shape my boards. I trust Billabong to keep me safe in the water. I trust Insurance Advisernet for the advice that keeps me covered. I don't need to be an insurance expert. I trust IA. I can focus on charging heavy waves and diving deep on one breath.
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
INVICTUS AUSTRALIA — STANDING WITH OUR VETERANS
I have not served. My grandfather did, fighting in Papua New Guinea in World War II. I carry his pride in what our Defence Force does for our country. Veterans return carrying physical and psychological trauma most of us cannot imagine. Invictus gives them purpose through sport. That work I am proud to stand behind.
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VISION AUSTRALIA — LIVING THE LIFE WE CHOOSE
I am a member of the low-vision community. I want the world to be better for kids growing up the way I did. For more than a decade I have been a Vision Australia ambassador. Awareness campaigns, advocacy, media, and supporting their work on The Blind Sea. Their mission is to help people live the life they choose. So is mine.
WHAT ABILITY — REMOVING THE BARRIERS
Steve Dresler and the What Ability team support some of the most vulnerable people in our community. They get them out into the world doing things most never thought possible. Nothing is too hard. No fuss. No show and tell. Just authentic work, all about the people they support. I am a fan and a friend.
PROJECT SEA CHANGE.
Teaching blind people, and people with other disabilities, to feel the freedom of the ocean.
Channel 10's The Project on Project Sea Change at the Surfing Australia HPC.
In 2017 Matt started something at Blacksmiths Beach on the Central Coast. He wanted blind people, and people with other disabilities, to know what he knows about the ocean. Since then it has run across multiple states of Australia and overseas, with hundreds of participants. It is not a formal program. It is something Matt built and now runs alongside Surfing Australia, Vision Australia, and the surf schools who back the work.
The world told Matt at five years old that he would never play sport. Decades later he was a world champion surfer. The kids who come to Project Sea Change have been told the same thing in different words. The first thing Matt does is take them into the water without a board. He teaches them to feel the freedom of the ocean with their hands. To feel how water moves. How energy moves through it. The same way he teaches it in Surfing in the Dark. On land, he moves their hands, feet, and knees into the positions they will need on a wave, because they cannot see a coach demonstrate. The methodology integrates skateboarding so they can feel a board moving under their feet before they ever paddle out. No one in the world teaches blind people to surf this way. Matt learned it because he had to.
One of the kids in that segment is Angelo. A young indigenous boy who arrived at the camp at the Surfing Australia High Performance Centre having never been in surf. By the end of the camp he was riding waves on his own. That is the entire program in one sentence. A young woman who came to the program years ago with vision loss and balance challenges is now a recording artist and a representative football player. Hundreds of stories like these, from a thing Matt started on a beach in 2017.
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