The axis of the Noll Ohana is the nearly half-century-long partnership of Greg and Laura. That’s the center of gravity of the Noll name and the Noll brand and it’s the force field that gives the Noll identity its attractive power. Sure, Greg is one of the most prodigious icons in the history of surf culture, but the growth, stability, and expression of the Noll name is a function and product of their work together.
They met at the Greg Noll Surfboards shop in Hermosa Beach in 1962. Greg was designing and shaping boards, surfing competitively, traveling, making movies, creating print media, building a surf team, and overseeing one of the largest surf businesses on the planet.
Laura was hired as a shop employee, but she was so intelligent, alert, and good natured that she soon learned the ins and outs of the surfboard manufacturing world – selling boards, answering phones, contacting customers, sweeping floors, cutting lams – whatever needed to be done to make the business a success at the highest possible level. Before too long Laura was an indispensible part of Greg’s business, and his life.
They were together when they expanded into a new 20,000-square-foot factory – the largest surfboard manufacturing facility in the world – and they were together when they shut it down, liquidated their former lives, and headed north, looking for a new dream.
That dream was a life on the rugged northern coast and among the giant redwoods of Del Norte County. There, in those Northern California borderlands, they reinvented their life and they reinvented the art of the surfboard by catalyzing a renaissance of appreciation for the historic roots of “the Sport of Hawaiian Kings.”
This is where the greater Noll Ohana came into being, drawing in the love and fellowship of great Hawaiian surfers like Buffalo Keaulana and Henry Preece, old North Shore pioneers like Ricky Grigg, California icons like Mike Dora, artists like Rick Rietveld and Glenn Martin, and an ever expanding family of creative individuals, who devoted their lives to the quest for challenge, expression, and a life inspired by the wild freedom of the beach.
Increasingly interpreted and upheld by the master’s apprentice – Laura’s and Greg’s son Jed, whose capacity to understand, appreciate, and translate the lessons of history sets him apart from the rest – the Noll brand is reborn for a new millennium. But, at the center remains a partnership: Greg and Laura.
