Grain’s people work in a cooperative workplace where the line between work and fun is often hard to distinguish. This may be the main reason that we have found so many great friends to join us, with impressively varied skills. They are all such an important part of what Grain is growing into, that we can do no less than to express our gratitude across the board for their ongoing enthusiasm for what we do. One and all, they care about Grain’s environmental ethic and contribute ideas every day to making things work better, and work greener. Here is some background on them:
Mike LaVecchia
Mike is the founder and principle owner of Grain Surfboards. As the chief thinker and tinkerer, he daily pulls the whole crew together in a spirit of experimentation and cooperative decision making that - at bottom - is probably the main reason we look forward to coming to work every day.
Mike grew up building and skateboarding on quarter pipes made from scrap wood cobbled together with his friends. Soon he got heavily into snowboarding and began riding wooden snowboards before the sport became an “extreme” phenomenon.
Mike eventually moved to Vermont to work for industry-leader Burton Snowboards. After 12 years working in the industry, doing everything from building boards to managing a team of the most respected professional riders in the industry, Mike shifted gears and began to follow his other passion. He sat for his U.S. Coast Guard Captains License, and began operating a commercial sailing vessel on Lake Champlain. This new lifestyle allowed Mike the time to explore much of the East Coast by water from the Caribbean to Maine.
In 2001, with his knowledge of vessel operations, and experience working on many wooden boats over the years, Mike jumped at the opportunity to manage the construction of an 88’ wooden schooner being built by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. While most of his time was spent overseeing the staff of builders and educators, purchasing materials etc, Mike did have the opportunity to work side by side with some of the best craftspeople in the country on this historic project.
Recently, Mike again followed his instincts and moved to York, Maine, where the surf is just across the street. With the ability to surf nearly everyday, Mike has combined his knowledge of the board sports industry with traditional boatbuilding techniques and a passion for surfing to produce beautiful, functional wooden surfboards under the Grain Surfboards name.
Brad Anderson
Brad’s contribution in making Grain go reaches across most aspects of what we do; besides one of the owners and managers, he’s also a seasoned builder, a designer of methods, boards, and systems, and the most violent board-tester we could ever hope to have.
Few who know Brad Anderson would be surprised at an obsession with surfing and surfboard design that blossomed after a lifetime spent working on – and with – watercraft and wood. Brad has been drawn to the sea since the age of sixteen when he started his working life building fiberglass boats in a New Jersey industrial park. Since his escape from the suburbs as a teen, Brad has lived and worked in New England as a gas-dock jockey, boat builder, cabinet maker, staircase builder and ship’s officer for over twenty years. He’s also made several side-trips into business and non-profit sectors where he worked as a teacher, computer consultant, process analyst and founder/manager of land conservation and community development non-profits. In his spare time, he’s a winter caretaker on a deserted island, a motorcycle tinkerer, and teller of stories about his weird years at sea, and of all the weird and wonderful people he’s met.
The Grain dedication to quality and an environmental ethic is a closely shared value for Brad. He says, “Insisting on quality in the things we make and use is the consumer’s most direct avenue to environmental activism, ‘cause those things that last longest end up in the planet’s waste-stream less often – if at all. Besides their durability, Grain Surfboards are too beautiful to ever discard, so they’re an environmentally responsible alternative to more toxic, less durable, foam-and-plastic boards. I like that a lot”.
John Hamblett
John joined us as a board builder in 2007. Though his host of skills help in the ongoing improvement of the shop, his greatest contributions are his generosity to everyone around him and his dedication to making every board he builds better and more interesting than the last.
Originally from the northeast, John followed his passion for the mountains and the outdoors to Crested Butte, CO, in 1990. Taking advantage of every snow device from telemark skiing to snowboarding as well as endurance racing, John spent 12 years playing in the mountains. John also found time to work as a carpenter while building houses and doing interior finish work.
After the birth of his first son Willy, John and his wife Barb made the decision to leave the mountains to return to family and roots in Maine. Since moving back east John has been fine-tuning his woodworking skills. Whether he builds a custom wine cellar for a client, a custom lemonade stand for his two boys or a jewelry box for a loved one, John strives on detail and perfection.
Making the move east also ignited a deep love of the sport of surfing. “I love being humbled by a good nor’easter storm, but my favorite time is being in the water at first light and watching the sunrise break over the horizon and through the crest a good wave.”
Working at Grain Surfboards is a dream come true for John. For him, living close to the surf is a natural surrogate for the mountain lifestyle.
Josh Baker
Josh has become our Czar of Logistics. He keeps the shop full of what we need and keeps the kits rolling out the door as he transforms the kit department into a finely tuned machine - though his focus on finding greener ways to pack and ship seems to be costing more money every day. Whatever, dude - just keep doing what you’re doing.
Rocker, sound maker, songwriter, bicycle rider and fixer, adventurer, sourdough baker, Atheist Minister, Josh Baker. Josh was born in Schenectady, NY, in the early summer of 1970 to Quakers. A lot of time was spent riding a bicycle around town, exploring the perimeters. Fascinated by music on the radio and born to a musician father, the electric guitar became a part of his life at the age of 13. At the age of 19, Josh moved to California to pursue music and a West Coast lifestyle. He arrived in Oakland just 2 months before the Battle of the Bay Baseball World Series, and the great San Andreas earthquake. “Josh seems to find work that nobody else wants” his Grandfather wrote of him in 1994. Warehouse worker, barista, dishwasher, paper shuffler, bike factory machinist, screen printer, convenient store clerk, were all professions he found in the Golden West before becoming a seasoned bike mechanic at a reputable bike shop in Portland, Oregon. His connection to Southern Maine goes back to 1975, when his Grandparents moved into a house overlooking the mouth of the Ogunquit River. On summer vacations he played amongst the waves on Ogunquit’s Little Beach. He had walked the length of the ocean front path, the Marginal Way, over 100 times by the time he was 18. Defying his own predictions, Josh moved to Kittery Point, Maine in October ’07 after twelve years residing in Portland. He left behind friends, a band, a seven-year stint as a bike mechanic, and the West Coast, on a quest for experience, change, and love, of which he has found all three.
Sarah Stevens
Sarah helps keep the business side of things ticking along. Without her energy and organizational skills, we
would be digging around in dusty boxes for everything.
We call her “The System”.
After a happy childhood in the Maryland countryside, an Outward Bound mountaineering course inspired Sarah to move to Colorado. For years, she lived for the snow, surfing the San Juans and the mountains of Crested Butte.
In 1996 she was stationed as a Peace Corps volunteer high in the mountains of southwest Haiti. Though she was the first volunteer ever placed at Camp Perrin, she grafted trees, taught women business skills, received funding for a new tree nusery, built wood efficient stoves out of tires, made spicy peanut butter and mango jelly, and most importantly, learned how to crack a joke in Kreyol.
She later returned to Colorado to design Outward Bound courses for populations with specific needs. Feeling her autonomy, she decided to venture out on her own with a business that tied everything together - service, transformation, and making people feel good. So Sarah supplemented a year of massage therapy study at the Boulder College of Massage with certification in Orthopedic Massage, and studies in Reiki, Cranial Sacral, and Thai Massage so that she could start a massage therapy practice in Vermont. Sarah’s occasional travel to developing countries combined with yoga, hikes with her dog, and the joy she gets from helping people with injuries, kinks, or just the need for relaxation have provided her an excellent life.
In 2007 Sarah fell in love with the Seacoast area so she moved her massage business, The Integrative Studio, to Kittery Maine. Also wanting to be part of a grassroots organization full of brilliant ideas and wonderful people, she joined Grain to help out in the office - and to surf! Sarah believes that life is an adventure and the journey is what it’s all about.