Kit Keating makes surfing sustainable

Kit Keating, ‘26, loves blue. 

Her water bottle’s blue. Her phone case wallet is blue. It’s that bright, unrelenting hue that calls her back to the East Coast surfing community.

If you ask Keating, she’s looking to make oceans “blu” again: clear, persistent, sustainable — like the tides washing in and out of her Long Beach Island hometown and her company, RenewBluSurf.

Keating, a business management major, combined her passion for sustainability and surfing when she founded the business in 2021. They sell 100% organic cotton apparel and eco-friendly surf and beach accessories — something Keating says isn’t common in the surfing industry.

In a case study from the National Institute of Health, researchers found that surfers’ aspirations to be sustainable didn’t align with the products they were buying. So Keating set out to spearhead a petrochemical pollutant wipeout.  

“I want to make sure that we’re protecting (locals’) natural habitat, which is (the) No. 1 priority,” Keating said.

Keating has known these waters for years. She took a board into the surf for the first time at age 14. 

Kit and her siblings Jack and Amy Keating would wander the LBI coast on summer days, cleaning up the shores as a family. For Kit and Jack it was their mom’s love of nature and entrepreneurship that drove them. Amy got it from her father, who she calls “Papou.” He held several patents in several industries. 

Kit Keating wanted to find a way to preserve the surfing community on 18-mile LBI. During her junior year of high school, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the family moved to LBI full-time. 

“School wasn’t the best environment with COVID,” she said. “A lot of my friends ended up moving to the beach and switching over to online school, which I did, so I wouldn’t say I was homeschooled for two years, but in an online program, which actually really helped me to form the business.”

Keating spent anywhere from two to three hours a day online at school, and six to eight hours a day were spent on RenewBlu Surf. Marketing, product development and design weren’t new to her as a student entrepreneur on Lehigh’s campus. 

Even when the sand no longer felt warm between her toes, she would bundle up in a sweatshirt and sweatpants, park her foldable chair against the beach dunes, and tie her computer into her sometimes unreliable cellphone hot spot. There, she’d spend the day designing her “protect the locals” graphic that adorn many of the accessories she sells as that ocean blue looked back at her.  

Keating has developed a framework to both protect her home and promote it. She sells clothing, towels, photo prints, stickers and bamboo combs that scrape the wax off surfboards.

Her merchandise reads “protect the locals” and “save our surf,” which are made with 100% cotton clothing and water-based ink. All packaging is biodegradable and recyclable.

To Keating, she’s not just selling her merchandise – she’s selling herself. 

Born Kathryn Keating, her mother started calling her Kit at a young age. She said it “just stuck.”

“I can’t be basic Kathryn,” Keating said. “I have to be something special.” 

And so does RenewBluSurf.

The company gives 10% of its proceeds to the Jetty Rock Foundation, which aims to protect oceans, waterways and “the people who build their lives around them,” according to the foundation’s website.

Keating also hosts community events such as an environmentally based surf competition called the ALO Classic, and supports the Black Eyed Susan Farmers Market every week of the summer.

But when Keating’s not home on LBI, she can usually be found hunched over her cubicle on the second floor of the Business Innovation Building, researching the sustainability of her latest product for her business.

Canaan Kimball, ‘26, shares the cubicle with her. He said when the sun sets itself into the Lehigh Valley, it’s just Keating and him fine-tuning their products, late into the night.

He said it helps to have someone “grinding” right next to him, and they keep each other motivated, turning weekly sales into a competition.

But it’s about building each other up, too.  When Kimball needs Keating’s photography skills for products and Keating needs help developing computer-aided design, the two trade. 

The Venture Lab’s walls are glass, and with the office situated at the bottom of Lehigh’s campus, the pair often watch the South Side light up on the weekends as students flock to bars and fraternity parties.

“We always joke because we see people walking to the bars or parties, and we’re up here grinding,” Kimball said. “It’s kind of a good feeling. It’s just extra motivation.”

Michael Rinkunas, ‘02, ‘08G, remembers being a senior at Lehigh developing his own startup. He now serves as the director of the Ventures Lab, helping students like Keating and Kimball get their business ventures off the ground. 

From the moment he saw Keating onstage at the Joan F. & John M. Thalheimer Grand Prize Competition, he said he knew he was looking at someone special.

According to the Baker Institute, the competition has a four-step process that guides students from a business idea to an in-depth business plan. Students then have the opportunity to pitch their business plan for a chance at funding. 

“So you knew right from the beginning that there was something special here, looking to change the world, but also to literally create the means of how she wanted to change the world as part of the process,” Rinkunas said.

Keating said while preparing for the competition, she learned to put herself in front of people to represent her brand.

“It’s a learning curve, and it’s all about growing the confidence,” Keating said.

She said she wasn’t the shy, timid girl she once was when starting RenewBluSurf. By putting out her brand and seeing its success, she realized the uniqueness of her brand and story was important. 

The $5,000 first-place prize to support her business didn’t hurt either.