Community Highlights: Meet Kris Puanani Primacio of International Surf Therapy Organization

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kris Puanani Primacio.

Hi Kris Puanani, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I never really felt like I belonged anywhere. For most of my life, I blamed myself and tried to handle the insecurities that came with it. Being Hawaiian and Filipina meant I looked different, ate different food, and sounded different, especially growing up in Seattle, far from either side of my family’s ocean. As a kid, I didn’t have words for it. I just always felt like an outsider (despite my loud, need-for-attention exterior), and those insecurities stayed with me into adulthood.

I used to watch surfers during summers in Hawaii, and I even tried it once on the Big Island for about half an hour, but I didn’t get hooked. Growing up, I never saw women who looked like me surfing. After I moved to Manhattan Beach, my neighbors encouraged me to give it a real try. At 41, a friend helped me catch a wave at San Onofre. I can’t fully explain it, but something inside me felt alive for the first time. In the water, I didn’t have to be anyone special. I wasn’t too much or not enough. I was just a person in the ocean, doing what people do.

I got addicted to surfing quickly, about six months after my dad was diagnosed with cancer. I started losing him just as I was finding myself, and now I know that wasn’t a coincidence. I needed somewhere to put a feeling that was too big for land. He passed away in 2016. A month later, I was asked to lead a surf therapy program in Manhattan Beach. Every year since, I’ve watched others find in the ocean what I found: a place that doesn’t ask you to explain yourself.

Now I live by the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. I’ve realized that the girl who always felt out of place has ended up, when it mattered most, belonging to the sea. Not to a country, a hometown, or an organization, but to the sea itself.

My dad taught me to work hard and love deeply, and I think he would recognize this life, even though it looks nothing like the one he raised me in. I found my people and my purpose in salt water much later than I expected, and I stopped needing anywhere else to fit in. All of that led me to become the CEO of the first and only international organization focused on growing the global surf therapy sector by supporting the caretakers. It’s a wave I hope to ride for a long time.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It hasn’t been easy, but I don’t think anything worthwhile ever is. The personal side was tough before the professional side even began. So this whole journey started with grief, and for a long time, the work and the healing were tangled up together in a way I couldn’t separate.

On the organizational side, building ISTO from the ground up has had its own challenges. Like the ocean, things change all the time: swell, wind, tide, and weather, and running a nonprofit means nothing stays the same for long. Just a years into my role, I was already raising money for our first-ever Surf Therapy Symposium. The most significant challenge has been fundraising. Surf therapy was, and still is in many ways, a small and scattered field. Convincing funders and the wider mental health community that this is real, evidence-based care, not just a feel-good activity, has taken years of building research, data, and credibility from the ground up.

There’s also the personal sacrifice you won’t find in any mission statement: no real savings, no 401(k), and working part-time jobs to support the work I care about most. I gave up a lot of the usual signs of stability to build something new. But I’d make that choice again. When your work is driven by purpose instead of just a paycheck, it stops feeling like a sacrifice and starts feeling like the only thing that makes sense.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about International Surf Therapy Organization?
The International Surf Therapy Organization (ISTO) is the global body for surf therapy, supporting the well-being and growth of surf therapy leaders worldwide. We’re not a program working directly in the field. Instead, we provide the foundation for the hundreds of people who are. We offer research, advocacy, connection, and education. Instead of everyone working separately, we help bring people together so they can do this work better.

We have been doing this for almost nine years now. We started with eight organizations meeting in a room in Cape Town, and today we have grown to over 144 member organizations across 41 countries and six continents, together serving more than 27,000 participants each year. To me, that’s the real story: how many extraordinary people are already doing this work. Our job is to support them, help them keep going, and make their impact even bigger.

We have also worked hard to make this network truly global. We have held conferences in South Africa, the UK, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Manhattan Beach, and online. This way, practitioners who cannot always afford to travel still have a seat at the table. We have achieved a lot with very little, and I am proud of that. We have helped quadruple the research base around surf therapy since we began, because evidence is what turns “that sounds nice” into “that’s medicine.”

And it really is medicine. We know this from both lived experience and data. One study showed that 58% of veterans in a 12-week surf therapy program saw their PTSD symptoms improve. Another eight-week program showed significant gains in self-efficacy and resilience among young participants. We have seen nonverbal children speak for the first time after just one surf therapy session.

Our values guide everything we do. We call them WAVES. ‘Wellbeing First’ means we support mental, emotional, and physical health, starting with the people we serve. ‘Accessibility’ means we work to break down the barriers that keep surf therapy from reaching everyone who needs it. ‘Vulnerability’ matters because real healing needs safe spaces where courage and openness can exist together. The ‘Environment’ matters because we are stewards of the sea and land we depend on. ‘Science-Driven’ means evidence and results help this field grow and gain recognition.

Our vision is universal access to surf therapy as a trusted pathway to well-being. That’s what we’re building toward, because we’ve watched it change lives, one wave at a time.

How do you think about happiness?
The ocean makes me happy, truly, in every way: mentally, emotionally, and physically. When I’m out in the sea, everything else fades away. I’m not thinking about fundraising deadlines, global conferences, emails, or anything waiting for me on land. I’m just present. I know it’s real happiness, not just a distraction, because it has carried me through the hardest times. The ocean didn’t just take my mind off things. It gave me somewhere to feel them safely and come back out the other side steadier than I went in.

Watching other people find that same thing makes me just as happy, maybe even more. There’s always a moment during a surf therapy session when you can see it on someone’s face, the thrill of catching their first wave. It’s not performative; for an instant, everything is okay, and many of our surfers don’t have enough of those pivotal moments. A veteran who’s been braced for something his whole life finally exhales. A kid who was nonverbal, talking. I witness it every session; I built a life and an organization around witnessing it on purpose.

Pricing:

• $1 Monthly Giving ~ One dollar doesn’t fund one session. It funds the person who runs a thousand. Your support funds the practitioner. This commitment keeps a wave moving around the world. By turning every $1 pledge into a single drop that joins one continuous, never-breaking wave.
• $10 Monthly Giving ~ ISTO is the glue that keeps surf therapy leaders connected and educated worldwide. “A Wave for Good” makes that invisible infrastructure visible.
• $25 Monthly Giving ~ Fuel a Global Conversation: Your kindess helps distribute critical research to a practitioner across the world. This gift ensures a frontline surf therapy program in a developing country can access ISTO’s latest evidence-based guidelines, helping them provide safer, more effective care. You’re not just donating; you’re equipping a healer with knowledge.
• $100 Monthly Giving ~ Certify Changemakers: Your gift sponsors five scholarships for practitioners to attend a vital ISTO webinar. This provides practitioners with best practices in trauma-informed care, water safety, and ethical storytelling. You’re investing in expertise that elevates entire programs and protects the vulnerable people they serve.
• $250 Monthly Giving ~ Build a Stronger Network: Your gift empowers our global community by translating essential resources into a new language. This breaks down barriers to entry, ensuring every organization, no matter its location, can implement the highest standards of practice. You’re not just funding a translation; you’re building a more inclusive, unified global movement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://intlsurftherapy.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intlsurftherapyorg/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/intlsurftherapyorg
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/international-surf-therapy-organization/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@isto
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@intlsurftherapyorg?lang=en

Image Credits
Photos of Manhattan Beach Pier during our annual global conference paddle out were taken by Ken Pagliaro INSTAGRAM: @kenpagliaro