Fun fact: During Hollywood’s golden era, most actors were required by contract to stay within a two-hour drive of Tinseltown in case they had to be called to the studio set. Palm Springs, pre freeway congestion, soon became a favorite under-two-hour getaway. The desert town provided a total change of scenery, wrapped in an air of club-esque privacy. We mention this because Jake Caliger looks like he just walked off the set of a movie. He’s a throwback to Golden Age swagger and steez and just looks like he’s waiting to be called in as Montgomery Cliff’s stund double or for his big break as “Pool Club Lifeguard #2” in a Tab Hunter movie.
Jake works in surf patrol and surf operations at the Palm Springs Surf Club, where he helps manage safety in the water while also testing and refining the wave technology. A former Laguna Beach lifeguard, he joined the project in late 2023 after visiting the facility and immediately seeing its potential. At PSSC, Caliger is part of a tight-knit crew that operates in an environment where responsibilities are shared rather than handed down in heirarchal management style.
What is your job title here?
I am Surf Patrol, and Surf Operations. What’s really cool about this job is, first of all, we’re all such good friends. A lot of us knew each other before we came out to the pool. And then once we were here, there was another crew from Huntington, and we kind of linked up with them. So we all became super good homies.
What’s really cool about what we get to do is not only are we making sure everybody in the pool is safe and following the rules, but we get to design waves, we get to test waves, and we get to stoke people out all day. I think that’s the coolest part about the job. So that’s what I get to do every day when I come to work with all my friends.
How does it work through the chain-of-command?
Chance, Jake Levine, and James Dunlop are running our whole surf operations right now. So they’re the head honchos. We’re just the little minions that keep the machine going. But yeah, we all do more or less the same kind of work. I think we all have our strengths and weaknesses, so we just kind of pick up on each other there. It’s super great. It’s not this corporate feeling where it’s like, you have to report this to this person, then this person, and go up the chain of command. We’re all good friends. We can talk. We can work stuff out. If there’s an issue that needs to be addressed, we address it as a team rather than pointing fingers and waiting for someone else to solve it.
So no filing a report with HR?
Exactly. None of that.
What is your history here with the wave pool?
I came out here in December of 2023. I was lifeguarding with Chance (Gaul) on the coast in Laguna. We did our first year, our rookie summer lifeguarding, together. From being friends with him, I knew he was super involved with this from the beginning, back in 2019. As they got closer to opening, he mentioned that they needed a team of guys to come out here and work and run the wave pool. I was always like, yeah, it’d be cool, but I had a pretty good gig lifeguarding and making decent money, getting to hang out at the beach.
Then I came out here for a day before it was open to the public. Chance walked me around and I checked out the property. Instantly, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to work here 100 percent.’ I came for one day, and the next day I was on payroll. I stopped lifeguarding and started doing this.
How did it go in the early days? It was 2023, and you opened in 2024 and there was a bit of stop-start, right? And now, do you feel like you’re firing on all cylinders?
I do. With these wave pools, the technology isn’t necessarily new, but the way it’s being applied is new. So I think there are always going to be kinks you’ve got to work out in any of these new wave pools coming up.
We had the pleasure of figuring out issues early on. So now, when those problems arise, we’re able to attack them with a much better understanding of what’s going on. Now we know how to give the machines maintenance and just make sure we’re paying attention to all the little things. We know what to look for and how to address it. It goes a lot more smoothly now.
So you’re a little more proactive now?
Exactly. A lot more proactive nowadays, for sure.
It seems like you have a good crew here and a seamless working environment. What do you attribute that to?
The secret sauce is that we get to surf a lot. That’s what keeps us together. It’s hard to get a group of guys from the coast to come spend half their time in the desert. We’re spending four to five days a week out here, then we go home for four days. That’s a lot to ask from people who grew up at the beach and love the ocean.
What keeps us here and working well as a team is being able to joke around with each other at work and not having it be this super corporate environment. And we get to test new waves, stoke people out, surf, and watch people progress in surfing. That’s what’s cool about it. If it was a full-blown corporate deal with tons of rules and regulations surrounding employees, it’d be a lot different. Not that there aren’t rules, obviously, you can’t go around being an idiot. But the way we have it set up right now, it doesn’t feel like work.
How do you hope customers experience Palm Springs Surf Club and what do you want clients to leave with?
For people coming from the coast who are actual surfers, we want them to leave going, “Holy crap, that’s a real wave. That’s a sick wave.” The public sessions offer pretty user-friendly and really cool waves. But what really stokes me out is when good surfers get to surf our private waves like the slab setting that you got to surf earlier. When pros come out and surf that and leave saying, “Holy crap, that was nuts,” that’s what stokes me out. That’s what I want to see when they leave.
Then there’s the other demographic, people who don’t know how to surf and have never surfed before. What’s really cool about the wave pool is that it’s very repetitive. You can put someone in the same exact spot and you know exactly what the wave is going to do. Seeing someone progress in just one session, you know, getting to their feet, catching their first waves and then leaving saying, “Oh my gosh, that would’ve taken me two years in the ocean, and I just did it in an hour in the pool.” Seeing and hearing that is amazing. So there are two different sides: the advanced surfers and the learner demographic.
How do you put someone at ease when they’re in the pool and obviously nervous?
You just let them know it’s a controlled environment. That’s the big thing. There’s no sea life threat. A lot of people worry about sharks and stuff. There are no chlorine sharks, which is good. Really, it’s about calming and reassuring them. Encourage them, tell them they’re doing a great job, and they are. Then they’ll just want to keep surfing and get better.
Where will this weird little surfing niche go in the future?
I’m just super excited for the future of wave pools and what’s going down. This is a great step in the right direction. In this highly competitive wave pool world, it’s really cool to see a bunch of companies doing different things and attacking it from different angles. Some pools are doing really long surfing waves, like Kelly’s. We’re focusing more on heavy barrels, creating these really heavy, unique waves. That’s what we specialize in.
Other companies are doing different stuff too. It’s just cool. I think in five or ten years, we’re going to be like, “Holy crap, this is getting out of hand. It’s getting nuts.” That’s what’s exciting about it.
