....born in 1949...... began surfing Cowell's Beach around 1959.....started working at Otto's in '66 giving surf lessons ...glassing surfboards for him in the summer of '67 ...winter came and I volunteered for the army and went to Vietnam where I was with a heavy combat unit, part of it being with the 1st/16th Rangers....returning home no one was riding longboards anymore, Hanging Ten was obsolete.... surfed Cowell's at night for a long time.....began riding a 5'6"fish in '73 until '89... to control the Rivermouth we formed a club/gang called the Piranha's....we were wild and I left and went to Hawaii for a year in '75, came back and started Mott St., a large gang of surfers who lived and surfed at the Rivermouth, had raging parties..27 keg parties in one month at my house while I was in Mexico, and tore houses apart... I got blamed for everything....on the nice summer days it wasn't unusual to see a row of bikes parked in front of my place, all belonging to Hell's Angels....I made a living by making shoes and sandals...during the mid '70's as I was traveling in mainland Mexico, I ventured into Puerto Escondito, later to be known as the Mexican Pipeline... surfed it for a month with it getting 8' plus and I rode it on a 5'6" fish...and surfed perfect peaks by myself before the surf magazines heard about it...spent a month there every year until '82 
....early 70's I traveled north as far Westport Wa., where 2 Aussies were staying and I was the only surfer they'd seen in 6 momths....in the '70's we not only made our own surfboards, but we also made our own fins...most of our boards had no logos....when you had a board made you were there while it was being shaped ...we glassed boards right in our yards...you could drive out of town and find perfect uncrowded waves...everyone was territorial about they're surf break
during the 70's and 80's only a handful of guys were riding longboards...I started riding them again in the late 80's, when I realized there were no crowds on the small days and tons of waves being unridden.....opened SANTA CRUZ'N the 1st longboard only shop in the late 80's and started shaping surfboards......my golden moment was last fall when O'Neill's did a big feature of me on their website...I had to tell all my friends