Steve Walden, who used to come to Doheny State Beach to surf on the weekends when he was in high school, recently returned to Dana Point 50 years later as an inductee, one of seven, to the International Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame.
Founded in 2000, the Hall of Fame was founded by Mike “Mickey Rat” Ester and Bob “The Greek” Bolen to give credit to the unsung heroes of surfing – the ‘shapers’. While there are a number of awards presented to surfers, surfboard builders, or shapers as they are commonly called, have only this one award worldwide.
During the 1980s and ‘90s, Walden developed a reputation for his “Magic Model” while sparking a resurgence in longboard surfing, and earned the moniker “father of the modern longboard”. He was joined at the ceremony by Jeff Ho, a fellow honoree who opened Jeff Ho Surfboards more than 40 years ago in Venice Beach, along with Zephyr Productions.
Ho, who refers to the boards he creates as “performance-based works of art”, elicited cheers when he accepted his trophy. With the help of a catalog printing service, Ho’s work can catch the imagination of surfers and art lovers alike.
In contrast to Ho’s aesthetic approach to shaping, Walden’s focus has always been on function, and not just for professional surfers. Walden creates surfboards to enhance the performance of surfers at every skill level.
