Dennis Frank

As soon as I sat down with Dennis he put his hands out in a “hold on a sec” motion and warned me, “I just want to make sure you know that I’m not some great surfer.”  I liked Dennis right off the bat.  
Considering his background - CEO of Silvergate Bank, board member of Surfrider Foundation, world traveler/surfer, avid snowboarder and water-skier  – he could have approached me with a “who the hell are you” attitude and I wouldn’t have been altogether surprised.  Luckily, that was far from the case.
Growing up in upstate New York, Dennis had the Hudson River for a backyard.  “I was a water rat, no doubt.  I spent all the time I could in it and fell in love with the water.”  Imagine how he felt as a nine-year-old when the river was closed due to the pollution of the city. His playground was shutdown forever, only to remain as a ghost of what it once was.  
There was something he felt on the day he encountered the “Polluted” sign that stayed with him, and later became a driving force behind what he is today.  For the past year Dennis has been an active member of the board at Surfrider, combining his financial background with the conservational objectives of Surfrider (he calls it “a blend of the fish-hugging and money-raising”).  With his role as CEO of a bank, his focus remains steadfast; Silvergate Bank is the title sponsor of the UCSD Cancer Center Luau & Longboard Invitational and fundraiser for the Day at the Beach event for underprivileged and at-risk children.
How Dennis came to be involved with Surfrider and similar causes is a true testament to his ambition and enthusiasm for the water.  However, his love of surfing wasn’t born on the Hudson River, but blossomed somewhere in Malibu when he moved to the west coast a decade ago.  Learning to surf was “one of the most frustrating endeavors” he had ever encountered, but he stuck it out, moved to San Diego, and eventually “sucked less enough to venture out of Tourmaline.”  
And venture he did.  Dennis found himself in Costa Rica, Tonga, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, the North Shore of Hawaii, and even (get ready) Antarctica. Still, none of those places compared to paddling out at Windansea as an outsider among those leathery locals. Despite his status, he did, before dawn of course.  Slowly he became a familiar face with the Windansea crowd, started to surf when it was light out, and, naturally, became involved.  It was there in front of the shack he met the likes of Mike Doyle, Scot Cherry, and others who were involved with these invaluable surf events.  
“How well everything has worked out is simply amazing.  Cancer research, environmental conservation, helping underprivileged children… all of it because of surfing,” he said.  To him, surfing had an underlying theme of helping, the helping of others and the helping of the ocean.  Whether Dennis found surfing or surfing found Dennis is unclear.  But after talking with Dennis, one thing was definitely clear to me -- Dennis Frank is one great surfer.