Los Angeles, CA – February 23, 2015 Los Angeles Business Journal
Surfing and sunshine: two elements of the Southern California dream, and Jonathan Port is living them both.
Port, 50, spends his workdays harnessing the sun as founder and chief executive of PermaCity Solar, a rooftop solar-power developer, located just blocks from the ocean in Santa Monica.
When he’s not working, Port pursues his other passion: surfing.
“I grew up loving surfing as a kid,” he said.
His boyhood idol was South African surfing legend Shaun Tomson, whom he met for the first time recently at a surfing fundraiser for UC San Diego.
The high point of Port’s surfing life came four years ago when he surfed a wave off the Peruvian coast that others measured at 1.5 miles in length.
“It took me eight or nine minutes to ride that wave and that was the ride of a lifetime,” he said recently.
Since his solar business has taken off, Port said that he has had less time to devote to surfing. But he’s still managing two trips this year. After a solar-power conference in Panama City, he plans a surfing side trip to Panama’s coast. And then it’s off to Hawaii’s famous North Shore, a surfing mecca.
While he has competed in surfing fundraisers – his team took second in that recent fundraiser in San Diego – Port said these trips will be just for fun.
Source: Los Angeles Business Journal
