POST January/February 2015

makers
Trevor Cranmer fell in love with Rochester back in
1997 when the New Jersey native started school at RIT. Enamored by
the change of pace from the uber-condensed metropolitan scene, he
eventually decided to make this his new home.
“It’s a very easy place to live, very easygoing,” Cranmer says. “The
things that I grew up being used to in New Jersey don’t exist here, and I
love it. No waiting for food, no lines to go to restaurants, no 45-minute
drives to go five miles. I just fell in love with Rochester.”
Cranmer couldn’t leave everything from his hometown behind.
One of his first love’s—surfing—came with him. He’s a lake surfer now,
taking joy in the Lake Ontario waves that come with some less-thandesirable
weather. The next step was to combine his passions of surfing
and engineering as he began building his own surfboards in 2010.
Working as a trade show exhibit engineer, Cranmer saw perfectly good
wood go to waste, and saw an opportunity to do something with it.
“All of the wood that’s under that bench is all cut-offs from things
that we make in the trade show industry, panels and things like that. So,
there’s all this scrap that ends up getting thrown away. My surfboard
making, I figured out how to use that to make surfboards. … Some of
it [surfboard building] comes from my schooling,” he says, “but pretty
much everything that I do here is just stuff that I’ve figured out a process
for and kinda made up on my own.”
Secondary to his ability to build is his desire to help the environment.
He hates waste. More than that, he hates what the surfing industry has
become.
“Most of the industry doesn’t give a shit about the environment.
The surfing industry is financed by a whole bunch of people that don’t
surf. Surfboards don’t make money. Wetsuits don’t make money. It’s the
boardshorts, and the T-shirts, and the glasses, and all this stuff that at
the end of the day is just more pollution.
“Things that boards are normally made of are extremely toxic for
the environment. ... It’s sad to see that so many surfers use the ocean as
the environment that allows them to do what they want to do, yet so
much of what they use is destroying the environment.”
From scrap wood to plant-based epoxy, Cranmer’s focus on the
environment is clear. He even uses the scraps from his boards to make
side projects, like his cigar box guitar.
“It’s pretty easy to get lost and, all of a sudden be like, ‘Holy crap,
where’d the time go?’ That’s one of those things, ya know. It’s almost like
you’re sculpting. You’re an artist and you’re sculpting the board instead
of a mechanic trying to make some perfect shape. I used to take all the
measurements and everything, now I just go by feel and they turn out
really close to perfection.”
Living with his wife, Rebekka, their 5-year-old daughter, Delaney,
and his 10-year-old beard (seriously, he hasn’t shaved in a decade),
Cranmer is more than happy to do his part in helping the environment.
His scrap-wood surfboards are just part of a movement that he hopes
will bring the soul back to the surf.
—Paul Gangarossa
52 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
John Myers