RYAN DADDS

In 2010, I started paddle boarding on flat water as a way to get exercise when the surf was flat. Two years later, I was introduced to SUP surfing by a friend who owns a paddleboard company and fell in love. I now SUP surf more than surf and have continued to improve and compete since 2013.

Paddling means freedom to me. It gives me the ability to move freely in the water and gives me the ability to surf more waves and farther on waves than I did ever before on short boards.

I am proud to have attended Stanford University School of Medicine and have graduated with a degree in Physician Assistant Studies. I am proud to be a great medical provider and to have the honor to take care of patients on a daily basis.

My next goal for SUP surfing is to be able to do a round house/slingshot cutback and improve my paddling out skills in big surf.

I am interested in being a role model to up and coming young women paddlers to show them they can achieve success in the water and out of the water at any age as long as they work hard and are persistent. 

I am the volunteer coordinator for the Sebastian Inlet Chapter with Surfrider Foundation and our mission is to bring awareness to issues facing our ocean such as plastic pollution and offshore drilling. Without clean and safe oceans, we will have no playground to paddle in. I participated in Surfers Healing in Charleston, SC in 2015, which is a non-profit organization that teaches children with Autism to surf. For the past 3 years, I have attended the Lake Eden Arts Festival, a non-profit organization established to build community and enrich lives through the arts in Black Mountain, NC, and taught paddleboard yoga to adults and children. I have also participated in Dragon Boat Charleston races over the years that raises money for cancer survivors.

I’m very competitive at heart; not only with others, but with myself. I have a constant need to succeed and improve in my abilities as a SUP surfer and to be a better person.

I value strong, influential leaders that are well respected and can remain that way even throughout today’s times where all aspects of their lives are placed in the lime light. Jimmy Carter is a great example of this who continues to be a humanitarian at the age of 93.

Read about Ryan Dadds’ medical mission to Honduras here. 

Ambassador for:

• Bishop Boards, a paddleboard company out of St. Augustine, FL
• Unsinkable Polarized, a sunglass company that produces sunglasses that float

Contest and Race Results:  

• 1^st in the 2013 Folly Beach Wahine Women’s SUP Contest.
• 1^st in the Wrightsville Beach 2015 Hobie Pro-Am Amateur Women’s SUP Contest,  and in the same contest competed in the Pro Division  and placed 4^th.
• 2^nd in the 2016 and 2018 National Kidney Foundation Women’s SUP contest.
• 3^rd in the 2018 Villon Locals Only Contest which was co-ed .
• 1st in the 2018 New Smyrna Beach SUP CUP Pro Division.