Board's up: wakeboarding = meditation for Full Spectrum's CEO

South Florida CEO, Dec, 2007 by Oriane Lluch

GROWING UP IN WISCONSIN surrounded by farmland, Randy Schneider always felt like a "frustrated surfer," he says. It is part of the reason the CEO of Fort Lauderdale-based Full Spectrum Media, a communications firm with revenues just under half a million dollars last year, chose to make South Florida his home. And Schneider is no longer frustrated. Now, he wakeboards at least twice a week, and skateboards as well.

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"I love board sports," says Schneider. 32, who hopes to compete in a wakeboarding contest next year. He says it is "truly time for me to clear my head." If you cannot find him in the offices of his 10-employee company, chances are he is hitting the water at a local cable park, where overhead wires enable watersports enthusiasts to try out different moves.

Wakeboarding is similar to a snowboarding on water while being pulled by a boat, preferably in calm waters. It evolved from the techniques used in water skiing, snowboarding and surfing: Wake-boarders strap their feet to the board, hold onto a tow line, and ride on top of the water behind a boat, getting enough speed to do tricks. "When I'm behind a boat or at Ski Rixen, the cable park, there is no better feeling than flying through the air at 20 miles per hour, holding a handle and flipping or spinning your body," Schneider says. "The adrenaline rush is indescribable, especially when you learn a new trick. The high lasts for a week."

Although Schneider still surfs and skateboards, he explains that since he picked up wakeboarding in the early 1990s it has been his passion--despite having "blown out" both of his knees and injured a rotator cuff. He attributes these bodily sacrifices to his affinity for learning new tricks. Today he owns seven wakeboards and dozens of skateboards. Even though he practices yoga, Schneider finds his wakeboarding hobby to be his real form of meditation. "Luckily, I'm now in a position where if I wanna go, I go," he says.

Schneider's entrepreneurial instincts came as early as his interest in boarding sports. By 13 he was selling skateboards from his parents' basement. A self-taught businessman, Schneider decided to find a way to turn his adult passion for board sports into a business, too, and founded 5boards.com, a Web site that sells wakeboards. "If I love something, I spin it into work," he says of the site, which gets almost 200 visitors each week and updates fellow boarders about local events. Anyone who contributes work to the site gets a share of its profits. "Someday that site will be very busy." he believes.

His ultimate goal, though, is to resemble a fellow wakeboarder who is 75. "He is in incredible shape. He loves wakeboarding, and it's his only exercise. I could only dream to be like that [at his age]."