I know Todd Prestage from the early nineties Taylor Steele videos. He was one of the few Aussies to break into Steele’s format. Competitively, the Encyclopedia of Surfing describes him as “Thin, loose-limbed Australian pro surfer from Gerringong, New South Wales; world- ranked #12 in 1996.” Then there’s the early 2000s surf industry incarnation of Prezzo, tapping sales and management roles at Hurley and FCS during the industry’s glory days of the Big Three.
The latest version of Prezzo fittingly combines the above with wave pools and automated AI video. Today he heads Flowstate’s U.S. operations, working across business development, existing accounts, education and technical installations. The role reflects Flowstate’s expansion alongside the growing surf park sector, with upcoming camera installations at The Point in Florida and Buzios in Brazil among the many projects currently on his schedule. We spoke with him at Surf Park Summit in Virginia Beach this month to see how his game works into the wave pool world.
You’ve lived in the States for quite some time but still have an Aussie accent; where exactly are you from?
I’m from a really small town, and it’s a beautiful town. It’s got amazing waves, but it’s renowned for being a football town. And it’s all footballers that come out of there, and we’ve had some famous Aussie Rules and rugby league players emerge. So I went against the grain as a kid, wanting to be a surfer, but I was just driven. I wanted to travel. I wanted to see the world. I was fortunate enough to surf well enough at the time to be able to do that, and I had that competitive drive. And so that really enabled me to feed the surfing piece of it. And that just fed the traveling piece.
When you were a young gun, competition worked best, and as you got older, did the desk job work best?
I’ve been very, very fortunate to connect with the right people, I think, at the right time. Taylor Steele and Kelly, Shane, Dorian, Ross Williams, Taylor Knox, Rob Machado, all those guys. And Momentum Generation was such an iconic moment in time to be a part of. That was super special. And it naturally evolved. My career evolved. It probably finished a little short. I retired when my son was born. He was born in 2004 and I retired then, but I’d done 14 years at that stage on the world tour.
Did you qualify every year?
I qualified. It took the first three or four years. It was the old system, ASP, three rounds of pre-trial, three rounds of trials, then man-on-man. And then it moved into that top 44, and it took me about two years to qualify. And then from there I was on the CT up until the last year or so. And I dropped back into the shows, but again, it was just motivation. Really, it wasn’t; I mean, I was a better competitor. I actually surfed probably… I retired at 31, and my best surfing years were probably 35, 36. You know, I felt stronger and fitter than ever. And if the mental capacity was there to sustain, I could have. And you could see it with, I mean, Kelly and some of these guys now that went on. Kelly’s 54 now. He’s still surfing events.
So you’ve been through the competitive side, the surf industry side.
And so when I was finishing up my career, I remember sitting down with a mate and just chatting to him, Vince de la Pena. And Vinnie obviously was a great competitor in his own right and had done some really cool things with some of his brands, like Ezequiel and Marta and stuff like that. And he’s like, “Hey, you know, you can have just as big a high from winning a contest as you can from doing some business stuff.” And I’m like, “Mate, it’s been a long time since you won an event. What are you talking about, Vin?” But it was true. I think one of the other pieces of advice I got later on, too, was from a guy called Patrick Boyle, who was a banker on the stock exchange in New York. And Patrick just said, he goes, “Mate, corporate America hunts for athletes. Because you’re self-motivated. You don’t need somebody to tell you what to do. Every day you get up, and you drive. You want to win. You’re a competitor.”
And so that really stuck out to me. And it was like, you know what? I have a capacity to learn. I have the openness and willingness to do it. And so I was like, yeah, I’ve got the competitive nature to not want to lose. And so that was great. So as I started to dive in, I retired from comps in 2004 and went straight into coaching and then into sales and started with my own repping agency in southern New South Wales and was able to acquire brands like Hurley. And I had a great relationship with the likes of Bob Hurley and Paul Gomez through the years and connected with a guy called Simon who was heading up Hurley Australia.
And it was great. So the connection was there, and I learned a lot through the years and was able to transition from Hurley Australia across to Hurley USA and moved back across here (USA)at the end of 2012. And was with Hurley there, just learning as much as I could, and was surrounded by really, really good people. Guys like Mark Simpson and Ryan Mangan, Jeff and Ryan Hurley, Pat O’Connell. So it was a really, really good crew of people. Learned as much as I possibly could, and every day was a learning curve, which was great.
And then I moved on from Hurley and got the opportunity to go to FCS Surf Hardware and connected with Michael Heath, who was out of Australia. And Michael was one of the best CEOs that I’ve ever worked for. He was great. And so that was a whole other learning curve because I went from being a part of the system to being in charge of the system. And so at Hurley, I was in charge of wetsuits and footwear, the categories that were sort of Lycra, footwear, and wetsuits. So it was a bit more of the offbeat categories, but being in charge of those, it was more from a sales capacity. And then I went straight into there to core sales in the Ikon door program. Once I moved to FCS, I went into VP of sales and VP of marketing for the entire brand with the intention of always moving into the GM role.
So you’ve explained how you moved through pro surfing into the business world, and you drew up some wonderful comparisons of the two, which I wasn’t aware of. Can you explain now what you’re doing with Flowstate?
So since leaving FCS, I have been able to just get a little bit more into the consulting world. And as I was moving through that, an opportunity with Flowstate came along. Flowstate’s obviously a company that is expanding at a rapid rate, and the US market is expanding so fast, and they really needed somebody on the ground. And I think, as Luke (Wallace) has mentioned before, it’s super hard to find somebody with a surfing background that I have and the core background that I have, the authenticity that comes with that, but then the business acumen that comes along with that. The ability to be able to hit the ground running and not have to be managed from a distance was really appealing, I think, to the boys. And meeting Luke, meeting Ben, Mike, and Chris has been amazing. Those guys are so smart and are bringing such a cool, innovative product to the market.
Yeah, they are. Every time I talk to them, their intelligence rubs off.
It does, it does. And the fastest way to grow is to surround yourself with smarter people. And I love that. I have a great network here in the US, both coasts, all the way through east and west and everything in between. And it was a natural fit. Luke and myself really kicked it off by just saying, “Hey, let’s just organically do this. And if it makes sense, it makes sense.” And it has.
What are your job duties? If you can hit me with a shopping list?
Sure. I’m US ops. So I’m sourcing new leads for Flowstate product to be a part of new projects coming on the ground here in the US, also managing existing accounts and relationships. And then the educational piece: expanding that knowledge base for everybody out there to understand what Flowstate has to offer. When you bring a facility like Atlantic Park or a Waco or a Revel to the forefront, there’s a lot involved. We heard Cole Cannon speak earlier on, and he highlighted the amount of detail and depth you’ve got to go into to bring an $80 million project to life. Flowstate is obviously a part of that.
We’re on that back end where we can really emphasize and capture the memories that he’s talking about, right? So it’s a special piece. So I think for me, it’s having that ability to have really good conversations, make those relationships, and make them lifelong. You’re not only making relationships with pools and operators and pool construction, all the facets that go in between. So it’s multi-layered, which I love.
So, what did we miss as far as your job title and job duties?
I’m sales, marketing, and ops. I do installs with Ben and the team. We’ve obviously got two projects coming up here where we’ve got to do camera installs, which is The Point in Florida and then down at Buzios in Brazil. And so I’m sure that I’m in North America and South America, which is my territory. I’m going to be going with Ben Robertson and climbing up poles to install cameras. So it’s everything in between. And that’s one of the things that I looked for when I was a GM and when I was hiring people, was somebody who can problem-solve, somebody who can wear multiple hats because you’re getting more bang for your buck.
And I think in this day and age, that’s a requirement. And I think that’s the strength at Flowstate. Yes, I have the business acumen. I have the authenticity for surf. I have relationships. I have a sales background. But hey, I’m pretty handy with the tools. And so I think it’s what’s required in these early startup stages of companies. You just need to be able to cover so much ground.
