We were lucky to catch up with Mike Schwaab recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mike, thanks for joining us today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

We’re always working towards curating a hospitality experience that is location-specific to Waco Surf. This runs through everything we do, from our hotel towel quality to our surf wave settings – every decision we make is based on what we want our guests (and staff) to experience while on-site with us. Having a wide variety of activities including the waterpark and the cable park also allows us to introduce surf culture to guests who may have never been around it before, and it is incredibly contagious once you experience it!

We’re stoked to be a (small and humble) part of the Texas surf culture, including hosting the Texas Gulf Surfing Association competition here every year – because Texas Gulf surf can be unpredictable at best!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Mike Schwaab, the General Manager and a part-owner of Waco Surf. My journey in the surf industry has taken me to Australia, Hawaii, San Diego and now to Waco, Texas. Out of all the places I’ve lived, Waco Texas has the most consistent surf out of them all :)

Creating a surf culture hub in the middle of Texas seemed like an impossible and weird task, but the staff on site and the guests we see here bring so much stoke. We have several surf team members on the staff who started off working here as cashiers, lifeguards and bartenders and have since learned to surf and moved to the surf team – having never surfed in the ocean.

How’d you meet your business partner?

I’ve known DT (Dave Taylor) for almost 20 years. We met in San Diego through mutual friends and bonded over our love of surfing.

I was living in Hawaii at the time thinking about what could be next for my career when Dave called me after having just experienced Waco Surf. Blown away by the potential, from the property to the wave technology, he suggested we “try and do something silly.” I lived in DT’s backyard while we did the due diligence over the next few years and worked through acquiring the property, then when the time came – we both made the drive from San Diego to Waco to start our wave pool journey.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

When it comes to managing a team and maintaining high morale at Waco Surf, it’s really important that we create an environment where everyone is genuinely excited to be here and be a part of something special in our industry. Mistakes will inevitably happen, but as long as we’re learning and growing from them – there’s no reason to get down about it. We also have some rad staff perks like multiple staff surfs a week, free waterpark and cable park passes for friends and family, discounts on food and merch and more.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wacosurf.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wacosurf_tx/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wacosurf
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/waco-surf-tx/
• Twitter: https://x.com/WacoSurf

Image Credits

Waco Surf