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.
