Greenlight Surf Supply | ||
| In just the past 12 months, 4 separate friends have all shaped their first board and all have been unbelievably stoked with the process and how they went in the water. 3 of the boards were Fish, while the other was a bit of a Bisquit/Fish mix. The boards have become the ‘go-to’ in each of their quivers and I swear every guy is surfing better than I’ve ever seen them surf. They ramble on over beers about the design minutiae, the things they’ve learned throughout the process and the pride they felt paddling out for the first time on a board they created. It has made their surfing seem |  | |
| Photos by Jonathan D. Nimerfroh | ||
The local legend also possesses a bag of tricks and a style that belies their surroundings. They are the first whiff of what it must be like to sit in the line-up at a place like Pipeline and watch the Slaters, Irons and Hobgoods do their thing. While growing up in Ocean City, NJ in the 80's and 90's, that guy for me was Mitch Leonard.
Q: Name, where you from? Brian: Brian Gagliana from Greenlight Surfboard Supply, from Abington, PA, just outside of Willow Grove. Q: Why run Greenlight out of Philly? Brian: It's where I live and this is actually a cheap place for me to run my business. I've looked at being down at the beach and it's just far too expensive. But we ship around the world from here. Q: What's your background? I understand you have a mechanical engineering degree. Brian: Yep. Mechanical Engineer & Product designer. I started shaping my own boards about 8 years ago, when Clarke Foam was going. I started to play with new materials for myself--bamboo mainly--and when Clarke went out of business, I put more time into it and felt the bamboo stuff became more viable. I decided to put it out there to see if people would buy it. Now I'm here, still doing it (he looks around the shop, clearly stoked on where he’s at) Q: Why surfboards? Brian: It's better than a desk job (laughs hard). And it's something I feel like I can contribute. I can use my background and contribute to surfing, the sport I love. It's given me so much and I feel like I can progress surfing, surfboards and people's ability to surf too by teaching them how to shape. Q: So, it's purely a goodwill gesture? Brian: Well, yeah, because there's no money in it (laughs really hard). Everyday I wonder why I do it and then I hear about someone else who had a bad day at work and I think, 'yeah, I had a good day'. So that's what it's all about. And I get to surf more frequently than most people. Q: Where do you surf? How long? Brian: I've been surfing for 21 years now. As a kid, it was Ocean City, NJ. Now it's mostly N. Jersey area, which is just 45 minutes away from the shop. Q: Like Belmar? Brian: Yeah and Seaside. Sometimes, Ventnor, Margate, Atlantic City.
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