We spoke with Amanda Nestor of URBNSURF about her experience working at a surf park. Amanda’s role is focused on maintaining safety, enhancing guest experiences, and leading her team in a constantly evolving environment. Careers in wave pools require a dynamic approach, balancing safety with creating an exciting surf destination for visitors.

Amanda, as the aquatics manager, oversees all aspects related to lifeguards and surf guides at the surf lagoon. Her job duties include:

1. Lifeguard Management: Ensuring that lifeguards are performing their duties correctly, maintaining guest safety, and standing in the appropriate areas. This is a key aspect of wave pool employment, as lifeguards play an essential role in guest protection.
2. Training and Rostering: Managing the training of lifeguards and surf guides to ensure they are well-prepared and knowledgeable about safety protocols and guest interactions. Careers in artificial wave surfing require ongoing education to maintain high standards.
3. Guest Experience: Working with surf guides to deliver a high-quality experience for surfers, which includes providing safety briefings and ensuring guests understand the surfing process and rules. Many surf park jobs focus on enhancing visitor engagement.
4. Safety Oversight: Developing and implementing safety standards and procedures specific to the surf park environment, including creating deployment zones for lifeguards based on industry standards. Working as a surf coach at a wave pool also requires adherence to these safety measures.
5. Adaptability: Continuously adapting safety protocols and procedures based on operational experiences and feedback, especially as the surf park is still in its early days of operation. Careers in wave pool operations demand flexibility and problem-solving skills.
6. Team Management: Managing a large team of casual staff, fostering a positive work environment, and ensuring effective communication and teamwork among staff members. Surf park management careers require strong leadership and organizational skills.

Overall, Amanda’s role is focused on maintaining safety, enhancing guest experiences, and leading her team in a dynamic and evolving environment. Her position highlights the growing demand for professionals in the surf industry and showcases the many career paths available in wave pool employment.

For those interested in working at a surf park, there are a variety of opportunities available, from lifeguard roles to surf park management careers. To explore current openings in the industry, visit WavePoolJobs.com, a dedicated platform for wave pool employment and surf industry careers worldwide.

And what is your job title here?
I’m the aquatics manager.

Aquatics manager? What does an aquatics manager do?
I kind of oversee everything having to do with lifeguards, surf guides, everything in the water. Things like training, rostering, safety, all that.

So what are you responsible for in the pool if you go piece by piece?
Starting from the very beginning, the lifeguards, making sure that they’re doing the correct thing, keeping all of the guests safe, that they’re standing in the correct areas, that all of their training is up to par. Everything like that. And then the surf guides making sure they’re delivering that high guest experience. We like to say deliver the stoke. They’re keeping surfers excited to be there, making sure they’re understanding how the whole process works with the lineup and where the takeoff zones are, everything like that, and then delivering the safety briefing.

Can you train someone to be a good surf guide?
That’s a great question. A lot of it has to do with personality. We really look for people that love to have chats and great conversations and are willing to get to know people and become comfortable with them in the water. And then someone that has that commanding presence to make sure everyone is staying safe and following the rules because we are different than a beach. We don’t want people duck diving or cutting in or snaking or anything like that. So it’s really just people with that big personality that’s willing to talk to people and get involved in that sense.

What is the hardest part of your job as aquatics safety manager?
I would say definitely that it’s always kind of changing. We have to make updates on the fly, and especially because we’re still learning about the industry and especially with our lifeguards, there’s no such thing as a surf park lifeguard, right? There’s beach lifeguards, there’s pool lifeguards, there’s water park lifeguards. It’s needing to combine all those things and figure out what works. This is our first ten days of operation. We’ve already had to change things. Some things might not work. Some things might work better at a certain time. It’s being able to adapt to all that. And then just having quite a large team of casual staff is always a joy to manage. But it’s great. We’re really lucky. We have a pretty solid team so far, and we’re excited to keep growing it and see how they’re adapting as well.

As a customer walking in and seeing your surf lagoon, tell me something that I don’t see in the surf lagoon that you look at each and every day.
My first thought is always looking at where the lifeguards are standing. I’m checking how many lifeguards we have, where they’re standing, and if they’re doing the correct thing. I’m looking at how many people are in the water, but also where my staff is positioned.

How did that come about? Did that come about through urban surf or local regulations?
Kind of a combination of both. Because there is no wave pool lifeguard, we had to create different types of standards for what we knew would work. We created something called a 2040, and it has to do with where the lifeguards are positioned and how long it’ll take them to recognize someone that needs assistance in the water and get to them. Their positioning was all based around that. We did so many different tests to make sure that those deployment zones were accurate. We looked at other industry standards and lifeguarding agencies, LA and Royal Life, and figured out what their standards are and how we can adapt that to make that work for our lagoon.

Did you create the 2040 in Melbourne and then adapt it here?
Yeah. I only started at the end of March 2024. This is kind of my understanding, but they created the 2040 in Melbourne. Now we have adapted that here as well and figured out what works for us because the lagoons are slightly different from Melbourne to Sydney. I’m just making sure we’re following those standards.

What is your school and work background?

I’ve been in aquatics basically my whole life. I started as a lifeguard when I was 16, and I’ve always been a water park lifeguard. I was at my first park for five years. I worked my way up and became the aquatics manager there. It was a little indoor water park back in the States, and I became a lifeguard instructor so I can teach lifeguard courses. I worked at a trampoline park for a little bit as an operations manager, and now I came over to Australia to work at one of the local water parks, Raging Waters, as a lifeguard through their international program. The season had just ended, and then I got the opportunity to work here. I figured, hey, I might as well.

Where are you from in the United States?
I’m from Boston. So East Coast, we get lots of snow.

Is there anything you want to add that maybe I missed in our interview?
We’re learning every day. There’s no rule book for aquatic safety when it comes to a surf park. It’s such a neat opportunity to figure out how to keep guests safe and come up with the rule book. We’re writing new policies and procedures every day, and it’s such a cool environment to be a part of. The team is the best team I’ve ever worked with, honestly, and to come into work every day and have people that genuinely want to be here because they’re so passionate about surfing is refreshing to me. It’s a really unique job. We’re just continuing to learn every day. It’s really good for me on a personal and professional level. It’s been amazing. I love it.

Thank you for sharing.
Yes. Thanks so much.