Page 8 - Volume 15 Number 3

6 • ­TWIN & TURBINE MARCH 2011Jeff BergAny day that you can combine business with flying is a good day. For Jeff Berg, a successful surfing entrepreneur and owner of two Twin Commanders, flying and surfing make for many extra-good days.Jeff is chairman of a company called Surfline, which he describes as “the pre-eminent Web site for all things surf.” The company’s site, www.surfline.com, is one-stop online shopping for surfing news, features, gear, travel, photos, videos, and most important, surf reports, streaming cameras and forecasts for beaches around the world.Someone has to research the exotic surfing destinations that Surfline.com reports on, and who better than Surfline’s chief pilot.“That’s what got me started in flying,” Berg said. “I started going with friends who were flying regularly to some pretty remote places in Baja, Mexico, to surf. The more I did it I thought, ‘This is pretty cool.’ We were escapingthe crowds in California and finding phenomenal surf with very few people around.”As a teenager Berg used to fly with his younger brother, Paul, but Berg’s aspiration to become a pilot himself was set aside as he pursued an entrepreneurial career. His interest was rekindled when he hooked up with friends who were flying to good surfing destinations. “I thought, ‘Enough is enough.’ I really need to do this.”As soon as he earned his private certificate Berg began renting Cessna 172s to build time and experience, but he also quickly transitioned into multi-engine and instrument training. His fly-to-surf mentors were Mike Castillo and Vince Natali, whom Berg describes as “Baja bush pilot legends in the surf world.” Castillo had once owned a piston Twin Commander, and his praise of its capabilities was not lost on Berg when he began to research an airplane to buy.Chairman, Surfline