Stand Up Paddle Board Shop Starts US Production
San Diego, CA July 15th, 2013 - World-renowned shaper and 30 year surf industry
veteran Byron Olson joins Tower Paddle Boards, the
rapidly emerging SUP brand that was funded by billionaire
Mark Cuban on ABC's Shark Tank in 2012. In addition
to his waterman's experience as a competitive racer,
Byron has acquired encyclopedic knowledge on the
surf and SUP building industry over his 30 year
career and has worked for numerous mainstays within
the industry.
"Byron is one of, if not THE,
best stand up paddle board craftsman in the world.
He's been producing cutting-edge custom stand up
paddle boards for some of the biggest names in the
SUP industry since 2003, before there was a SUP
industry." remarked Tower founder & CEO
Stephan
Aarstol
.
Under Byron's direction as Tower's
new Director of Production and R&D, Tower Paddle
Boards is building out a state-of-the-art 5000 square
foot production facility in San Diego to produce
high-end stand up paddle boards. With an estimated
98% of stand up paddle board production being done
overseas in Asia, this return to US manufacturing
marks a counter-intuitive move in the overseas-dominated
SUP production industry.
Olson explains, "We're bringing
SUP production back to the US in a meaningful way.
By adding our own US production facility, we're
now going from buying raw material inputs such as
billets of foam, rolls of carbon fiber, and 50 gallon
drums of resin to building and directly selling
the highest quality, craftsman finished paddle boards
delivered to your door. We're an end to end solution,
which means we can sell US-quality boards at substantially
better pricing than comparable overseas made boards.
This is a game changer."
The initial line of US-made boards
will be dubbed Tower's "US Craftsman Series."
These new additions will complement Tower's existing
line of value-priced, clear coat EPS/Epoxy construction
boards which put Tower on the map in 2011. The first
three models of the Tower US Craftsman Series feature
carbon cross link construction and will retail direct
to consumer at retail price points of around $1000.
Comparable carbon cross-link boards from other US
brands retail in stores for between $1700-$2500
currently.
About Tower Paddle Boards
Tower Paddle Boards (on the web at TowerPaddleBoards.com)
is the manufacturer-direct stand up paddle boarding
company. Tower forgoes the traditional distribution
channel by cutting out retail entirely and only
selling direct to market, so customers save $500
on SUPs.
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