Audie did not have an initial love for the water or swimming like most swimmers. He and his family had a membership to the neighborhood pool which they frequented almost daily during the summer months. Unfortunately Audie was terrified of the water and hung poolside with a bucket of water, which he would occasionally pour over his head and then tell everyone that he just went swimming. His two older sisters eventually provided him some tough love and threw him into the deep end, forcing him to learn how to swim. Audie immediately fell in love with the water. No one could get him out of the pool.
Audie began to swim competitively during middle school on a local age group swim team and continued to swim with his high school team. He embraced the double day workouts and pushed himself to become a better swimmer, eventually also joining the high school water polo team.

Audie moved to a neighboring city to attend community college, where he again joined both the swim and water polo teams. During the first half of his freshman year, he focused on conditioning and the water polo season. After his team won the community college water polo state championships, Audie decided to retire from polo while on top to focus on swimming. Audie joined a competitive US swimming team age group team, which was home to swimmers from NCAA Division 1 California University teams. All of who pushed him to become a more disciplined and competitive swimmer.

Audie completed his associate’s degree and was invited to join the UC Santa Cruz swim team. While at UCSC, Audie had the opportunity to train, compete, swim a 26 mile relay from Santa Cruz to Monterey and traveled to Barbados to compete against the national team.
Upon graduation from UCSC, Audie spent a few years away from the pool until discovering Tsunami in early 2009. Audie is one of the regular morning swimmers, currently assists on deck for both Saturday workouts and substitutes whenever available to do so.
When out of the water Audie enjoys spending time with his boyfriend Curt and currently works as an auditor for KPMG….yes he is aware that he is “Audie the Auditor”.