Aaron Byzak

My life has been pretty crazy. We came from a tough household. Lots of drugs, alcohol and abuse. Sometimes when I think back on some of the insane things that my brother, sister and I went through, it’s almost as if I am watching a movie of someone else’s life. One thing that has always been a constant positive in my life is action sports, particularly bodyboarding and surfing. My dad is a pretty well known surfboard shaper so we always grew up around the surfboard industry. Spending a ridiculous amount of time at the beach and riding waves came naturally. Despite my dad shaping surfboards, I always gravitated to bodyboarding. As I grew up bodyboarding became a little more difficult because I got pretty big (how many people who are 6’3”, 220 lbs with size 16 feet do you see bodyboarding?), but I still love bodyboarding more than anything. Now as an adult, I still find any and every excuse to be at the beach or in the water.

I remember how good Tamarack used to be. That’s why Carlsbad has produced some of the best bodyboarders around including George, Kirk Blackburn, Eli Abby (RIP), Phil Antonopoulos, Ray, Matthew, Justin and Rusty (to name a few). Now, with the sand being piped in to prevent beach erosion, the way the waves break there has changed and it doesn’t get quite as good as it used to. I remember one day back in the late 1990s surfing with Ray and my brother Matthew at Slammers (the break right in front of the jetty) and getting hour after hour of macking barrels. My brother took off on a nugget 6 footer at the end of the session, charged into a closeout barrel, disappeared for a few seconds and doggy-doored it out of an opening at the end of the wave that was only a foot and a half high. So epic!

I have known Ray for a long time, probably 15+ years. I was in the same grade as his brother, Lawrence, and we were all rats that used to surf at Tamarack. Rusty was part of the new crop of young bodyboarders that came out of Carlsbad and came up in the years following my brother at CHS. Over the years, going to tons of contests together and surfing together around Carlsbad, we all became friends. I count a number of the RXYM XRMY members as some of my best friends. When Ray started RXYM Fashion, he came to me for business advice because I grew up in the surf industry and I was getting my Masters in Business Administration. For the past year I have been serving as the Director of Operations for the company and helping to guide things like strategic planning, budgeting, marketing, and business development.

I have the pleasure of serving as the President of the Board of Directors for NCPC. This is an incredible non-profit group of local organizations that works together to help keep kids away from drugs, alcohol and tobacco. They have been around for 15 years and continue to get better and better at what they do every year. I believe that if kids make the right decision—to avoid the trappings of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco—their lives will be much easier. I realized my parent’s mistakes very early and made the decision to never, ever touch these things, and I credit that decision with providing the solid foundation upon which I built my life. I want other kids, especially those in at-risk homes (homes where drinking and drug use is common) to be empowered to make healthy decisions and to dedicate their lives to something more productive that getting drunk or high. When I became President of the coalition in January of 2008, I set a very aggressive agenda for expanding our influence in the community. I saw us becoming the national model for community prevention efforts and envisioned a scenario where other coalitions across the country looked to us as an example of how to leverage community support and good ideas to effect measureable change in the community. We took the great programs we already had, increased the scope of our outreach and maximized media activity. And it worked. This past October, the Deputy Director from the White House’s Drug Policy office called us a “national model” and in December it was announced that we are being recognized nationally as the Coalition of Excellence and Coalition of the Year. I’m going to Washington DC with the coalition staff in February to accept the award. For the past few months we have been doing strategic planning for 2009 and we are setting even loftier goals and going even bigger. Go big or go home, right?

I pushed Matthew a lot when we were younger. He was kind of like my brother and my son at the same time because my parents didn’t really act like parents. In fact, people used to ask him all the time if I was his dad, even though I’m only three and a half years older than him. From an early age Matthew showed that he could kill it on a bodyboard, so I tried to nurture that. I distinctly remember the first time I saw him do an ARS at Maple Street in Carlsbad—he was probably 13 or 14 years old. That’s when I thought, “Wow, he could really make it.” I would pay for his contests and take him to them on weekends. And I always tried to give him advice on contest strategy and whatnot. But sometimes I definitely pushed him too much. I just wanted him to succeed so bad and thought that being super competitive was the way to go. Unfortunately, I was just a kid too so I wasn’t really equipped with the tools to be gracious or tactful. Boy, did we get into some beefs with judges over the years! Funny enough, I still think he got robbed a few times.

RXYM is so different because we don’t just talk a good game. We live what we preach. We want to influence kids to become successes in their lives and to feel stoked on what they are doing, whether that is action sports, or pursuing their education, or helping the community. Our clothes and what the Remedy Youth Movement stands for will hopefully demonstrate for young people that there is a right and a wrong way to do things and that there are companies and people out there who will support them as they grow into responsible adults.

In the next year, RXYM will fully develop their business model, streamline their manufacturing and budgeting processes, and significantly expanded the number of retail stores carrying the brand. Also, RXYM will participate in dozens of community activities and capitalize on opportunities for both branding and marketing. Over the next three years, RXYM will continue to refine the way we do business, and emerge as an industry leader in the production of fashion oriented actions sports clothing and a community leader in empowering young people to excel in their lives.

Being a dad is without a doubt the coolest thing ever. Sometimes I look down at the little guy and I see part of me, other times part of my wife. There is nothing better than hearing him laugh at something he thinks is funny, or seeing him get interested in music or toys. We always play music in his room while we are playing and whatnot. One day, he just started dancing. He had never seen us do it; he just started moving with the music. Totally cool. I see being a dad as an incredible opportunity to right some wrongs in our family, to end the cycle of addiction, and to promote education in a way that our family has never known before. Above all, I want to help my son realize his dreams.

Dude, the whole team is trying to get me to go with them to Hawaii this year, and I want to more than anything. I’m just not sure I can take the time off of work. Remember, in addition to being the Director of Operations for RXYM, I have a full-time day job as a political advisor. Hopefully things will work out and I will be able to go on a trip with the team. After many, many years of working really hard and going to school full time, I think I deserve my first official surf trip. I’m working out like crazy right now so I will be ready when the time comes.