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Masterful big-wave rider from Santa Cruz, California; winner of the 2011 Big Wave World Tour as well as the 2013 Maverick's contest; widely regarded as the best mainland American big-wave surfer of his generation. "Mel set the standard at Maverick's,"sportswriter Bruce Jenkins said in 2013. "Dating back to the early '90s, nobody else surfed the place with his combination of style, virtuosity and raw courage."

Mel was born (1969) and raised in Santa Cruz, the son of boardmaker and manufacturer John Mel, and began surfing at age six. At 15, he placed third in the juniors division of the 1984 United States Surfing Championships, and by the end of the decade he was recognized as one of the state's best all-arounders: an aerialist in small waves and a steady hand in 10-foot-plus surf at local reefbreaks like Steamer Lane and Mitchell's Cove. Mel was influenced by Richard Schmidt, the blond-haired Santa Cruz native who was then California's undisputed top big-wave surfer. Mel, like Schmidt, seemed to have an inborn composure in heavy surf, but his style was more fluid and expressive. Well-proportioned at 6'2", 200 pounds, Mel drew polished and powerful lines on the wave, and rode with his long arms extended and often swept back; he was known as "The Condor" years before coming into big-wave fame.

Mel first rode Maverick's in 1990, and within four years he was the break's most accomplished rider. He performed well in the small number of big-wave events that were held in the late '90s, finishing runner-up in the '98 K2 Big-Wave Challenge, and fourth in the '99 Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau contest at Waimea Bay. Mel was an odds-on favorite for the Maverick's contest, first held in '99, and while he made the finals, first place went to fellow Santa Cruz charger Darryl "Flea" Virostko. For the next two Maverick's events, the story was the same: Mel gliding his way to the last heat of the day, but Virostko taking the win.

In 1999, Mel began tow-in surfing waves at Maverick's. Using a 7'4" board (three feet smaller than his paddle-in big-wave board), he was able to carve long, elegant high-speed turns, the likes of which had been performed in big waves only by Hawaii's Laird Hamilton. On October 28, 1999, he caught what was up to that point the biggest wave ever ridden outside of Hawaii. The smiling, easygoing Mel was by that time one of the most popular surfers in the world, placing 8th in the 1998 Surfer Poll Awards, between Shane Dorian (7th) and Sunny Garcia (9th).

In 2006, married and raising two children, Mel checked himself into rehab to get over his addiction to methamphetamine. In his early 40s, Mel's career as a big-wave competitor went into a second, even more high-achieving phase: he won the 2011 Pico Alto Peru contest, which lifted him to that year's Big Wave World Tour title; in early 2013, at age 43, he finally got the Maverick's win that had repeatedly eluded him in years' past.

Mel was already moonlighting as an on-site announcer at ASP contests, and in 2014 he was hired to work the entire WCT schedule.

Mel has appeared in more than three dozen surf videos and movies, including 

(2010). He also appeared as himself in the 2012 Hollywood production of 

Mel, Peter

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