On February 24th, 1979, Jesse Billauer was born at the Natural Childbirth Institute in Culver City, California. This facility was a birthing center, not a traditional hospital, with midwives making deliveries, not doctors. Perhaps this was the reason that this little boy would go on to live a non-traditional life as well.

For as we look back on the first 24 years of the life and times of Jesse and try to create a vision of what the future holds, we see a unique story of a person with a passion for life, who is forced to overcome some serious obstacles and yet comes through with an even greater passion.

As a youth, Jesse Billauer was blessed with the desire and coordination to excel at a wide range of sports in his hometown of Pacific Palisades. He developed a reputation as a star athlete in sports like baseball, soccer, and floor hockey. In baseball and soccer he played up to the high school level until surfing became his true life passion. In floor hockey he had one season where he was known as "Wayne Gretzky" for his domination of the league's titles and needed a shopping cart to carry away all the trophies he received at the season ending awards banquet. In his spare time, Jesse spent some time snowboarding, water/snow skiing, and playing ice hockey.

With time, he developed a fascination for the water. It seemed to hold a special place in his psyche. It soothed and relaxed him. It was his source of strength. It was where he wanted to be when he wanted to be alone, to contemplate, to problem solve.

Jesse started surfing around the age of nine. It was his brother Josh and friend John Hearne (Brendan Hearne's father) who first exposed him to what the ocean had to offer. It was love at first site. Before long, it became his passion at the expense of almost all other activities. Originally they surfed only Topanga, but with time could be found anywhere up and down the coast. His favorite spots included Point Mugu Military Base, Zuma, and Supertubes.

In those early days, his love affair with the ocean extended his activities to fishing as well. He and his family took special fishing trips to Cabo San Lucas where deep sea fishing became a second passion of his. The first trip, he caught his first marlin, a catch more than twice his size. This new passion became so intense that he took a job as a deckhand on the "Happy Man" fishing charter out of Marina del Rey. The deal was: free fishing all day, but Jesse had to do all the dirty work: cleaning the fish, baiting people's hooks, untangling "crow's nests," and at the end of the day, swabbing the deck! Although he came home stinking of fish, he always had the biggest smile on his face as be took his "catch of the day" and prepared his own dinner.