Mark Brown and Dave Vernor are partners. Their mission and passion is to build better surfboards. And you know what? Many people firmly believe that they do in fact accomplish this. It's an industry chock full of people and companies that make surfboards of every possible description, using all imaginable technologies. So how are the boards from Vernor Surfboards any better than other boards? This is part 2 of these Chronicles, an interview with the Man himself, David Vernor. You can see part 1 of this series here. This week, check the words of Dave himself as to why Vernor boards are better boards. And ask yourself, shouldn't your next surfboard be a Vernor?

DogMan: I'm hanging here with Dave Vernor and Hailey, and we're talking about Vernor Surfboards . Let me start with something simple like, "Hey did you surf today?"
David Vernor: I did not. I have not surfed in about four days.

DM: Neither have I. Well, there has been some swell, and I'm looking forward to maybe this weekend getting something. I haven't seen you out at the , I guess we just haven't connected.
DV: I'm usually there in the mornings early.

DM: Usually that's my time too. Speaking of that, how did you get started surfing? Did you grow up in Santa Cruz?
DV: I did grow up in Santa Cruz. I lived in Bonny Doon when I was a kid. We always Boogie Boarded since we were about six, and then I started stand up surfing in about junior high.

DM: What was the first surf break that you remember?
DV: The first time I stood up on a surfboard was at Cowells. It was like a 7'0" pintail single fin; wish I still knew where that board was. It wasn't like the normal Cowells where it breaks on the outside. It was like kinda on the beach break where I would like run into the sand. It was a top to bottom wave, it wasn't really just a roller.

DM: That's kind of a brutal first wave to get into.
DV: Yeah, it kinda scared the crap out of me.

DM: And that's not usually how Cowells breaks either.
DV: No not at all. Cowells does this weird thing about every seven years it gets a sand bar and has a totally different characteristic to it.

DM: Yeah, the bar will reach up all the way by that stair case.
DV: It was the biggest sand bar I've ever... that I can remember. It comes and it goes. It was... I want to say it was like seventh grade for me. I'm going to be 38 in a week or two, so I was probably 12.

DM: Yeah, that's a typical age, especially when you live in a beach town and there's waves, you know. It's a natural. Have you had occasion to travel for surf? Have you been cool places like Bali?
DV: I have not been to Bali. I've been to Hawaii a lot, mostly in my 20's. I went to Maui a lot in my 30's. I've been to Costa Rica to surf. Bali is usually really good when I am busiest at work. So for me to travel in the middle of summer is missing the high time at work.

I went to North Carolina and Virginia to surf twice this year, and that's because I have a lot of new stores on the East Coast that are selling my boards. Jessie and Owen are staying at my house right now, and they are from North Carolina. Jessie manages a store in Ocean Island Beach. No, the surf is not very impressive there.

DM: I learned to surf in Florida, so I am aware. You have to work really hard to surf on the Atlantic Coast. Chasing hurricanes is not real easy to do, and it's mostly just junky little wind swell. I know you also shape wake boards, do you wake surf too?
DV: I wake surf, not this last summer but the summer before I didn't surf in the ocean for at least three months. Wake surfing is just... every Tuesday I was on the boat wake surfing for eight hours. Summertime swells don't really impress me as far as like sitting there waiting for 20 minutes for a 10 wave set that 15 guys all want to catch.

DM: And it's waist high.
DV: Well there's big south swells, but it doesn't matter how big or how good it is. There's still that waiting period; people are usually more angry in the water in the summer time because they just haven't surfed in a week or two. Like I said they are all waiting for the same wave. Growing up here in Santa Cruz, the wave breaks in the same place. It doesn't matter where you surf, you know where the bowl is, and so does everybody else.

DM: That's one of the down sides to the point and reef breaks, is the lineups are so defined. Whereas beach breaks can be more scattered. It takes more wave anticipation, and a little bit more luck. What particular lake were you wake surfing?
DV: We go to Lake Anderson, which is just over the hill, outside Gilroy. We take off from the factory, usually about 8 O'clock in the morning. That's where everybody meets.

DM: Do you have a boat?
DV: I don't have a boat. My friend Skip, he's a Watsonville policeman, he has an '05 Malibu Wakesetter. We weight it... we put about 5,000 pounds in the tail of the boat. If you ever want to come, we go all summer.

DM: Absolutely! I've never tried it, but I've water skied. Sounds like fun. Like you said, compared to the surf in the ocean in the summer.
DV: Well the nice thing is you... we've definitely worked on it. Depending on what boat you have it's kind of a technique to figure out how to get the best wave. So, you know, you put weights on different sides. Sometimes you have four people and sometimes you have eight people. To get the wave as good as we have it now took us a couple years of trying it. It definitely wasn't... we didn't have the great wave that we have now, right away.

DM: On a different note, I know from your web site that you started working for [Doug] Haut when you were just a youngster. How did that come about?
DV: You know, it was really weird. I told my Mom when I was six, she tells this story all the time, that I wanted to be a surfboard shaper. Or I wanted to make surfboards, I probably didn't say "shaper" at that point. Growing up, I really looked up to, I really like how people responded to people who made surfboards. It was something that I thought that I could do; I didn't realize there was not as much money in it as some other jobs. But I get up and go to work every day and I really like what I do. So I think that's worth making less money and being happier.

I started at Haut when I was 13, 14, something like that. I swept the shop, and eventually they let me start doing stuff. It was in the '80's when the sail boarding industry was real big and was still made in America. I would take the foam from the sail board blank cutouts and run a grinder and grind all the foam into a box. Then they would sugar-deck the boards, which is kind of a lost art form. I can't remember the last time I actually saw that done to a surfboard.

I definitely sought Doug and Susie [Haut] out, and they gave me a job cleaning up and that was the start.

DM: When did you transition into your own business?
DV: Well, I started working for Mark Goin . He and Stretch were down at the same place, where Costco is now. The city actually forced him to sell his property so they could build the road where his place was. Mark owned the property. I know Stretch was there but I don't really have a lot of memory of him being there as a kid. It was mostly Goin's boards that were there.

I started putting fins on, because there were no removable fins in the '80's. FCS was the first removable fin, and it didn't come around until the '90's. So I would glass fins on after high school. I would go down there and glass fins on every day. I really wanted to be a shaper because I just liked they way people were like "Wow, Goin's a shaper." I just liked the way people idolized or respected or whatever, however you want to explain it.

And so Goin had me do cutouts where he would template the boards and I would cut them out. Then he would have me do different steps of the boards. I was glassing boards in my back yard at my parents house. So I always had my own little business coming out of my house. I was trying to do it on my own. Then, it was Adam Repogle and Tem Keckley took me down to meet Mark Goin. They told him "Hey, this guy wants to learn how to make surfboards correctly." [Chuckles] Because they were pretty funny looking in the beginning. [Chuckles]

DM: Well that's all part of learning. How did you meet Mark Brown?
DV: I met him when I was, well.... let's see, how did I meet Mark? I met him when I was about 17, 18. I was looking for somebody to glass my boards. I kinda was getting over the whole glassing part of it, and I just wanted to shape and have somebody else glass them. In the beginning I used to have Mark glass the boards, then I'd have Ben Fletcher sand them, so I'd take them back over to the Haut shop. Mark had a place in his back yard where he glassed, you know his garage, and then he also had a shed that he turned into like a sanding and shaping shed. I think he got an inheritance of some sort. He said "If I put the money into building this place in Watsonville, do you think you are going to make enough surfboards to pay the rent?"

I said "That's what I always wanted to do, so I guess now I'm going to have to do it." I was about 23, I think, when I just said "Alright!" Because I used to wait tables, and make surfboards to build a reputation for doing it. I just [sighs] went in and quit my job, or I probably got fired. I usually got fired from most restaurant jobs, because I don't think I was ever meant to work for somebody else.

I work all the time. I'm there 10, 12 hours a day. It's because I like it. Mark's quiet; he couldn't sell a surfboard to save his life, but he's there and he works hard every day. So I take care of most of the business for him, like getting other shapers in there. Everybody calls me, because Mark never answers the phone. I always answer the phone. Even if I don't want to talk to you I still answer the phone. I say "Hey! I don't want to talk to you!" So I am really good at communicating and selling, which is an odd thing to find in a shaper. Most shapers are withdrawn and hard to talk to. So it's worked out.

DM: I agree. I find you real easy to talk with. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to do this interview. It's because you speak well, you know, and it's fun to hear. And I think a lot of people will enjoy hearing your story. I'm really interested, in the video on your web site about the I Beam suspension featured on most of your boards. Is this exclusive with you? Is this something you invented? How did that come about?
DV: It's something I've been working on for 6 years. It has, definitely in this economy and just in general, given me a product that people search out. All my boards on the east coast are suspension boards. Almost everything I do is EPS epoxy on the east coast. On the west coast I do hybrids and some long boards, and I do a ton of custom short boards. The hybrid thing was just, you know, people were willing to buy them. And so I've kind of had to get away from the fun board stereotype, and reinvent myself as a high performance custom surfboard shaper.

Future fins came to me and said "Hey we have this idea. Shape yourself two boards and we are going to come and put this idea into your boards." They invited everybody, and nobody showed up. But they were coming to my shop to do it, and I'm like "OK." You know, they took a Dremel tool and just cut this huge thing in my board. I'm screaming "OH MY GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

So they explained it, and I'm a fin fanatic. I'm really into fins. The vector foil fin that they came up with is 50% of the suspension system. What was going on was, when you design a fin you make it out of G10, which is a really hard epoxy material layup. You make it on a CNC machine, and then you hand finish it. Those fins were holding so much energy to the fin, they were ripping fin boxes out. So they kind of stumbled upon the suspension idea. They came to me, and I did it. I went out and surfed , and had never surfed like that in my life. I mean it was just... I was coming off the bottom and I was just springing into off the lips and making sections that I had never done. I had never made a surfboard go that fast in my life. And so I was like "Wow!"

They were trying to patent the idea, and they were telling me not to do it. I'm like "Unh unh. There's no... I gotta do this." So I went to Dave Coligon and said "Hey I need to figure out a way to make this, and make it light weight, and make it so that surfers will want to use it, because surfers really don't want heavy surfboards. So we vacuum bagged the sticks, and basically, I lay it up in a huge plate and I take it over to the wood working shop. We cut it up into stringers that go into the board.

DM: It gives you a unique advantage over other shapers and other surfboards. I am looking forward to my first Vernor surfboard in the near future so I can give it a try too. One thing I asked Mark, he said "No you gotta ask Dave," is this: What's big in boards this year? What are people looking for? What are you going to make a lot of?
DV: EPS is big, the hand-shaped epoxy boards. You know, like Mike Detata's board that was sitting there [in Dave's shaper's bay], that's an EPS board. All of Mike's boards are EPS boards. This year and last I would say improving materials has been a bigger deal than the design for them. There's so many good shapes, and good shapers, and surfboards that work. You know people keep bringing back retro stuff. Everything floats, it's just that we've worked really hard to make a surfboard that lasts so much longer and doesn't loose its spring. The polyurethane boards are like a tennis ball. They are great when you get them; they fall apart really quick. Like a tennis ball they just loose their pop. The epoxy boards, I have a couple EPS boards that I have been riding for a year and a half. They still feel like the first day I got them.

We've been working with different kinds of woods, stringers. We tried plastic, we did PVC stringers. And I've worked with all different kinds of epoxy resin, because on a polyurethane board, if you use crap resin or you have quality resin, you are only looking at maybe a 10% difference. But with epoxy, if you use crap epoxy or if you use good epoxy, you can be 40% maybe 50% different. So when someone says that they are building an EPS board, you've got to check into the quality of what they are building before you make the purchase.

DM: You mentioned communication and selling, one thing I notice about you when I see you out at is you are not only surfing out in the water, you are selling. How does that work for you? How did you get into it? It's fun to watch.
DV: Most people like it. There's a few negative people at the beach that don't. I've always been real social; it's a toss up, some days I like selling more than I like shaping. I'm a pretty social creature, and being in a room by myself, shaping surfboards everyday isn't always fun. Some days I love it and some days I need to go out in my stores and shake hands and meet people. I see surfers mostly, I'd say 80% of surfers just don't have a full grasp on what they should be riding. I like to ask people "Hey, what are you riding and how come? You want to try what I'm riding?" I push my board over to people all the time out in the water.

DM: Along those lines, how do you work with an individual? Your web site indicates you involve them in the shaping process. you mentioned people don't really know the optimal thing that they need for their style of surfing. How do you better match that with the surfer? What do you do to get a better match of board to rider?
DV: When I start working with someone on their first [Vernor] board, a lot of people look at the web site then call me on the phone. So I go "How old are you? How much do you weigh and how tall are you?" That gives me an idea of who the person is. Then we discuss their ability, where they are at in their surfing. Whether this is their first board or whether it's their 15th or 100th board from surfing for 25 years. The I ask them what they are riding now. They will usually say "I'm riding a 6'2". It's 18 and 3/4" wide and it's 2 and 1/4" [thick]. I try to get an idea of what the board is doing or not doing for them, then I can make suggestions on how to create a better board.

Even if I make a board for you and it's the best board you've ever ridden, I usually can improve it on the second board. To be fair to the other shapers, if someone is bringing me an Al Merrick, or an M10, or you know another company besides myself, it's easier to improve on something that somebody brings me, rather than going from scratch. That's how I do it.

DM: What famous riders or team riders use Vernor boards?
DV: I don't put a lot of effort into the team rider thing. We definitely have top guys riding our boards. I don't even really look at it as a team; I look at it as a family. I don't bank my business on the fact that one guy or another rides my boards. I'd rather not name names. Those guys are out there, and they are on the site.

DM: That's fine, [chuckles] I see their logos.
DV: And I treat everybody the same. I don't really care whether you are a team rider or you are a Boogie Boarder getting your first surfboard. I try to look everybody in the eye, and it doesn't matter whether it was Kelly Slater who was calling me, or the guy down the street. I would give them the same amount of time and the same amount of effort in the board.

DM: Tell me about Hailey. Your email address is VernDog, and I'm the DogMan, so obviously dogs are important to us both. How does Hailey fit it? I've seen her at , and obviously she plays a big part in your life. So tell me a little bit about Hailey.
DV: Hailey is my Queensland Healer; she is on the site. My friend Pete took a picture of her, and his caption was "Queen of the Mile." Ever since I was a kid people have called me VernDog. My dog that I had for fourteen years before Hailey, his name was Surf, and he was pretty famous. Everybody called him "Surf Dog." And I think that's where I got the email address. I'm really into my dog, and I was really into my dog that I had before. I am a one dog person. Hailey is new, she's only two years old, so we are still working on her.

DM: Dogs play a big role in my life too. And then finally, a question I like to ask everyone, it's a little more reflective or philosophic. Since this is about surfing and getting away from your job as a shaper and a businessman, what role does surfing play in your life?
DV: That's a good question. It's not as big a role as an outsider looking in might think. It circumferences my life, because, it's what I do for a living. I guess there are surfers out there who don't surf, but I'm finding that the more I surf, the more I'm involved in the designing of the boards. People really like that. Our mutual friend Mike Detata, has told me multiple times that he really enjoys the boards that I build him because I'm out there trying different [things].

When I'm out at , I'll ride the same fins on three waves, then come in, change my fins, and ride three more waves, and come in and change my fins... I'll bring fins to the beach and walk up to somebody on the beach and say "Here, try these. And let me know what they are doing for you." I love to surf, but life's just good. I like walking my dog as much as I like surfing. Spending time with my girlfriend; it's nice that she is a photographer also because I get to go surfing and it's still quality time, which I think is a pretty neat balance.

I love surfing; it's not the most important thing in the world to me. I don't know what I would do if I wasn't surfing, but it rates. It's up there in the top five.

That's it, a two-part DogMan Chronicles interview with Mark Brown and Dave Vernor of Vernor Surfboards. You want to take your surfing to another level? You want to ride like you never have before? Get a board from Dave and Mark.

CU Out There,

DogMan