Denny Schwartz was raised in Kahalu’u till the age of eight and has always had a love for the water. It wasn’t till moving to Niu Valley, on the SE side of O’ahu, that he started to get into Boogie boarding, and eventually surfing, that made him eventually realize in high school that he could have some career in the surfboard industry.
It took ditching his nice valet job at Hilton Hawaiian Village and getting fired from it in 1985 to realize this was meant to be?
Denny has had the lucky and grateful opportunity to build boards with some of the best in Hawai’i, if not he greatest. Stretching from 1985 to present, Denny has had a great schooling in the Surfboard building Craft..
He has been so fortunate to work with shapers such as George Vicente 89-90 R.I.A. (Rest In Aloha), Ed Barbera 90-91, Bob White (founder of WRV) 92-96, and Ben Aipa R.I.A.
Denny worked with Ben Aipa from 1995 to 2001 “ghost shaping” for Ben and his son Akila. This is his foundation for “Production Hand Shaping”.
In early 1992, Denny sailed over to Maui to learn how to vacuum bag windsurf boards with Bill Foote and the guys at High Tech. A skill he uses to this day building foil boards.
As a laminator, Denny has been fortunate enough to learn from Ed Barbera, and production laminating with Carl and Otis Schaper.
During the years of 2001-2012 Denny worked in the construction industry and eventually became a contractor in Green and Sustainable building on the mainland. This has led to him implementing this type of practice in his board building as well.
While working on the North Shore from 2013-2018 Denny was able to absorb a lot of information in the sanding process from Charlie Walker…a North Shore LEGEND! Kudos to Mike Lee for the teaching in “production sanding”.
Fast forward some 35+ years, and you can bet you will get a quality board built to your liking.
Aloha
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