Thursday, October 1, 2026
As the season changes in Long Beach, most residents’ attention turns away from the beach to cooler-weather pursuits. But for Ed Segura, who recently celebrated 50 years with the city Lifeguard Patrol, the sand has been his second home for most of his life.
Segura, 67, grew up in and on the water. On summer days, his family parked their boats on Short Beach Island, in the West End of Jones Beach State Park. One day when he was 14 or so, he and three cousins swam a couple of hundred yards to an ice cream stand near the park’s Coast Guard station. When they returned, Ed’s father, longtime Long Beach Fire Department Capt. Donald J. Segura, granted him a longtime wish.
“You just passed your swim test,” Ed recalls his father saying. “When I get out of the firehouse this week, we’ll go buy you a surfboard.”
A few years later, when he was in 10th grade, Segura caught the attention of Woody Davis, the Long Beach High School swimming coach, during a swimming class in the school pool. Two years after that, as a senior in 1977, Segura broke two meet records in the Nassau Invitational Swimming Championships, in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle.
In 1976 he joined the Lifeguard Patrol’s Central Crew, which covered eight beaches, from Long Beach Road to Lindell Boulevard. He has worked on the beach every year since, and has been a lieutenant for the past 14 years.
Segura earned a degree in business administration from Duquesne University, in Pittsburgh, in 1981, worked for a few years at MetLife and then spent 25 years at what is now Federated Hermes, the investment management company, as a sales rep and vice president — all the while working on the beach on summer weekends.
In 1998 he met Henry Cutler, a Merrick native who had moved to Long Beach in 1979 and was a lifeguard as well. Cutler, who’s now 76, said the two have remained friends ever since, in part thanks to their shared interest in the stock market.
Cutler said they often referred to their patrol as the “Old Man Beach,” because it was staffed mostly by older guards. He recalled a 17-year-old member of the crew who would listen in on their conversations about finances.
“His dad was an accountant,” Cutler said. “I can only imagine dinner conversations where the father is going. ‘Where are you getting this stuff?’ I pity a 16- or 17-year-old kid, but that’s what we were talking about.”
While Cutler doesn’t work the beach anymore, he and Segura regularly make time to roam the boardwalk and catch up, often chatting about finances and their perspectives on life.
“Ed is one of the most responsible, knowledgeable lifeguards I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” Cutler said. “His knowledge of the ocean and beach conditions is unsurpassed, and really taught me a lot when we were working together.”
Segura retired from Federated Hermes in 2009 and, at age 50, began lifeguarding full-time during the summer. As a lieutenant, he has shifted his focus to teaching younger guards — about life both on and off the sand.
“From knowing their responsibilities on the beach patrol, to doing well in school and making smart decisions,” Segura said. “I just try to share wisdom with these young men and women, to help them avoid drama in their lives.”
As the years have gone by, he said, he has seen many changes. Long gone are the summers when guards slathered on baby oil to produce the darkest tan possible. And unlike the early days of Segura’s career, there’s now widespread use of vehicles to patrol the beach and audio communications among the patrol’s crews. Most recently, the lifeguards received two 2025 Yamaha WaveRunners and two Nissan Frontier 4x4 pickup trucks, equipment that was unimaginable in the 1970s and ’80s, thanks to funding approved at a January City Council meeting.
Mike Lundwall, captain of the East Crew and Segura’s superior officer on the beach from 2017 to 2022, described him as his right-hand man, who was always trying to “make a better day for a young guard.”
“He may be Central Crew lieutenant, but he bleeds purple,” Segura said — East Crew’s color.
In the offseason, you’ll find Segura working at the Long Beach Recreation Center on Magnolia Boulevard. But next summer, and for as many future summers as he can handle the job, he’ll continue to work the beach — because, he said simply, “It’s the best job in the world.”
