Reef’s beginnings were modest. Aguerre and his brother ran a surf shop in Argentina. Then, in 1984, after Aguerre finished law school, he and his brother met a supplier they had worked with at their shop.

They brought back a collection of sandals to San Diego from their surf trip to São Paulo, Brazil, and a sandal empire was born. Originally it was called Reef Brazil. The company grew to be a giant in the surf footwear and apparel industry, but the demands of running it became too consuming for Aguerre.

In 2005, he and his brother sold Reef. Now Aguerre serves on the boards of charities and advises several surf-related foundations.

Beyond that, Aguerre is also president of the International Surfing Association where he is actively campaigning for surfing’s inclusion in the Olympics. And Aguerre doesn’t just give lip-service to charitable causes; he opens his La Jolla home to about 400 attendees of a party that raises money for 13 charities.

The event, called Liquid Nation Ball, includes live auctions where Aguerre literally auctions the clothes off his back to help raise money. This year, Grammy-winning musician and San Diego transplant Jason Mraz will receive the 2010 SIMA Humanitarian of the Year Award at the ball.

Q: Can you talk about the process of how an immigrant from Argentina cofounded Reef, one of the largest surf and beach brands in the world?

A: I grew up in Mar del Plata, Argentina, which is the largest beach city in Argentina. During the ’70s, the military government in Argentina, in our city, banned the practice of surfing, so we created the first organization to lobby [for surfing]. And I was the president and the founder of the first organization. And I was running surfing contests to promote the sport and hopefully get the ban lifted. And eventually I succeeded - like a year later.

[My brother and I] opened the first surf shop in Argentina. We created the embryo of the Argentinian surfing industry. We both were marketers of the sport in Argentina and we decided to start doing that in the U.S. Of course we never had a view of how large it could get. It started like a walk where you don’t really know how it will end. And by the end of the walk you are somewhere else doing something that you never planned. Q: It sounds like your timing was just phenomenal.

A: Yeah, we paddle out, because we want to be in the ocean and it looks like there is a set coming. And then the set got bigger, and it was actually a swell. So we rode that swell, and we worked very hard.

And in the process we became American citizens, and we decided that this was the place we were going to bring our families and made it our home here in La Jolla, and that was 25 years ago.

And then you know in the first years of this century we kind of realized, we both have young kids, very young kids, and the business was quite successful but also was taking a toll on our family life and our relationship, you know with each other.

And material success was starting to destroy the lifestyle we wanted to preserve in the first place. You make money so you live better, but [if] your money-making kills your better living then it is wrong.

It doesn’t matter how much money you make. That’s when we decided to sell Reef. And we sold a majority of our shares in 2002, and then in 2005 we sold the rest and since then we’ve been free men. ...

Q: That’s an interesting quest you are on to get surfing in the Olympic games. Do you think that would change the way it is perceived?

A: I don’t think it is going to take away anything from surfing. I think it is going to add a new element or a new aspect that we don’t have right now, which is the visibility of the sport outside of the coastal areas.

You can surf with your body — you know, body surfing — you need zero equipment and no membership of any club you need to pay no fees to anybody. Surfing is a very democratic sport.

A: I don’t know if surfing, the industry, is selfish, but surfing, the sport, is selfish. It’s a sport where you look [out] for yourself and you don’t need really to look after anybody when you go surfing unless somebody is drowning, of course, which we do, we look after each other. But the reality is the pursuit of happiness. [In] surfing your happiness is limited to what you do with the wave, but you don’t really look at what happens around you like in team sports, in which you cannot win, or you cannot have fun unless everybody is on the same page.

And for me, you know, Liquid Nation and any of the things that the industry does or the brands do to reach out are a way of countering that particular quality of the sport.

Q: How much money have you raised for charity over the years?

A: The net proceeds that we have raised [from all the Liquid Nation Balls], so far already they are over $1.25 million, our gross revenue has been over $2 million. The organizations at the party they also get additional support. When the Liquid Nation is over, the people there are influential people, they get follow-through love for those causes. So a lot of those organizations pick up benefactors, donors, organizational volunteers after this party.

A: At all Liquid Nations, I wear these very funky outfits. If you look at the photos in the past, I’m always wearing flower pants or crazy jackets or whatever.

Every time, [at the auction we raise] $3,000 or $4,000 and the pants go. Sometimes I auction the shoes too. Last year a guy says, “What about the jacket?” “We want the jacket.” So I say, “OK.” This is the jacket that I just bought, but I say “OK”. Five minutes later the jacket sold for $7,000.

So here you go, I’m even the beneficiary of unexpected love from the guy that bought the jacket and loves it, and then after the ball he felt so good about it that he sent it back to me. He told me “Thanks for throwing the ball, but this jacket belongs to you.” These are a couple of things that happen when you give, give, give, give, give. It’s like a virtuous circle — instead of the vicious circle, the opposite. I squeeze people for service. So we have high-quality food and drinks, but we don’t spend a lot of money. Most of the money goes to the beneficiaries. I work for free.

A: I don’t want to talk — because my friends are going to kill me. The beauty about La Jolla is that the waves are high quality. But most of the high-quality waves are on pretty nasty reefs. There are no really beginner waves in La Jolla. They are good waves, challenging waves, but at the same time there is a lot of respect in the water, because we are not surfing on a stupid little wave. We are surfing on a wave that you can hurt yourself or hurt somebody. La Jolla is without doubt the best place for waves in Southern California. No doubt.

Q: What are you planning next?

A: I serve on the board of Save the Waves, which is a small organization with a very large world-wide footprint. And our job is to entice local groups and governments to protect surf and beach areas as part of their culture. Not because they are nice looking, but because they are part of their culture. Imagine if suddenly all the beaches or the surf areas of San Diego were destroyed, badly managed and destroyed. This wouldn’t be San Diego, it would be a different city.

In my case I have 13-year-old triplets, which means I’m not able to retire, for a while. And then every year a couple times I go back to Argentina, my dad lives there and we love to go back there with the children. And they become truly, not just bilingual but bicultural. A lot of people feel that you are at a disadvantage because you are an immigrant. I feel very rich — I’m very blessed.