About the WetsuitCenter Team
We are an independent wetsuit research site based in Portland, Oregon. Our credentials are real, our recommendations are independent, and our priority is helping you find a suit that actually fits your water and your budget.
Published
Who we are
WetsuitCenter is a team, not a personality. Articles publish under "The WetsuitCenter Team" because we want your attention on the recommendations rather than on who wrote which line. Every guide on the site has been written or reviewed by at least one team member who actually uses wetsuits in the activity the guide covers. Surfing guides get read by people who surf. Triathlon picks get read by people who race in them. Cold-water guides get read by people who have spent winters in actual cold water.
We do not maintain individual author bylines, follower counts, or personality-driven channels. The trade we are making is straightforward: you get less of an author brand and more accountability. The work is the work.
Where we are based
The site operates out of Portland, Oregon. That matters for one specific reason: the Pacific Northwest is the part of the country where wetsuit performance has the highest stakes. Water temperatures sit between 48 and 58 degrees Fahrenheit for most of the year. Sessions get cold, gear gets tested, and bad fits show up fast. Living in a region where a poor wetsuit choice means a miserable hour in cold water tends to focus the mind.
Most of our cold-water testing happens on the Oregon and Washington coasts, with occasional trips north into British Columbia and south into Northern California. When we recommend a suit for water below 55 degrees, we are recommending suits we have actually worn in that water.
Our credentials
Among the team, we collectively hold the credentials we believe matter for talking about wetsuits with authority:
- Current lifeguard certification, with the open-water training that goes with it.
- Competitive swimming background, including USA Swimming time in the pool and open-water work.
- Swim instruction experience, teaching everyone from first-time toddlers to adult learners returning to the water after a long break.
- Water and beach volleyball experience, which means time in suits across a range of climates and a working understanding of how thin neoprene tops and athletic gear pair with water work.
- Pacific Northwest local water knowledge, accumulated over years of regular sessions in cold, often wind-blown conditions.
We are not professional surfers, professional divers, or commercial wetsuit testers. We are not affiliated with any wetsuit brand. We are people who use this gear, value getting it right, and built a site to share what we learned.
Our mission
Help people find the right wetsuit without the confusion. The wetsuit market is full of marketing copy about "revolutionary" neoprene and "ultimate" warmth. Most of it is meaningless. Most buyers end up either overspending on features they will not feel or underspending on a suit that flushes constantly and ends sessions early. We want to shrink the gap between what you actually need and what you end up with.
The best outcome for a reader, in our view, is a suit that disappears once it is on. You stop thinking about it. You think about the water. We try to point readers toward suits that do that for the activity, water temperature, and budget they actually have.
Editorial standards
We publish detailed methodology in a separate page. The short version: we test what we can test, we research what we cannot, and we say which is which. We do not accept paid placements, sponsored ranking, or pay-to-feature arrangements. When we recommend a suit, it is because we believe it is worth the price for the use case described, not because a brand paid for the slot.
For the full breakdown, see How We Review Wetsuits.
How we make money
WetsuitCenter is funded by affiliate commissions. When you click a product link and buy something from the destination retailer, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. That revenue keeps the site running and the research independent. It does not change our recommendations. The full breakdown of programs, networks, and the firewall between editorial and revenue is in our Affiliate Disclosure.
Get in touch
Spotted an error, have a suit you think we should test, or want to tell us we got something wrong? Send us a note. We read every message and reply to most within a few business days.
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