Gee Force surfboards was established in 1978 during the era of *Rip,Tear and Slash*. At that time I was a director at Shaun Tomson surfboards, and I set my sights in spending a winter in Hawaii. During my stay I met up with Craig Sugihara of T&C. I secured the rights to the franchise, and introduced the brand to the shores of South Africa. I owe a lot to Craig, as in the 15 years of franchise, I was able to learn and pass on my skills to surfers such as Dane Keoloha, Marvin Faster, Martin" Pottz", Vince Klyne and many more surfers across the globe..

In the mid 80's we saw two of the hottest kids emerge out of Hawaii, and that was Sunny Garcia and John "Shmoo" Shimooka. They were destroying events as T&C dominated the surf scene, both in, and out of the water, until Gotcha emerged on the scene and stole the hearts of thousands with their brash, hip and well coordinated mod gear. Micheal Tomson, the founder of Gotcha, was able to reach areas where no other surf brand had dreamed of, which gave Gotcha the leading edge in all the surf related global surf arena...

At that time Jordy was born, on the 11 February sharing the same birthday as Kelly Slater. Jordy went right into skate boarding at the age of 18 months. After I returned from LA I brought him back a *Jim Thiabold* model, Santa Cruz skateboard. This was the beginning of where i saw his talents emerging. We were really fortunate that all the kids around our streets took Jordy under their wing, and helped to teach him to do tricks. I was also always building ramps and half pipes for the kids to use. He took to skating and excelled in tricks with passion.

This brought Jordy to wanting to go surfing, and he was also spending time with me at my surf factory playing with the foam dust, so from a young age, of about 3 years old i started to take him down to South beach every afternoon with his arm bands on, come rain or sunshine and this is where his love and passion for surfing was launched.....He couldn't get enough!!!

The thing with kids of this age, is that you have to be there to act as their security. Ironically the surfboard became Jordy's lifeguard as he knew once he was holding on, and attached to it, he was safe. This is where he lost his fear for the waves at such a young age and the fear factor was no more an issue...

Jordy went on, through the Junior Pro ranks as I religiously took him up and down our coastline surfing and competing in all the events that were thrown at him. He loved to win. This gave him great satisfaction, which urged him to set his sights on going abroad...

I first took Jordy to Australia in 1999 at the age of 11, where he completed in the U 12 Grommets division and won his first international event. This was the start of a whole new era for him, and we went on for the next 5 years traveling up and down the Australian coastline competing in all the Pro- Jr events for a duration of 3 months at a time each year.

The beauty about these trips, was that his prize money was paid in AUD dollars and as a result we were able to buy a round ticket. This enabled us to stop off in Hawaii before Australia and spend 3 weeks at a time figuring out the breaks which paid off handsomely. Jordy and TJ Barron teamed up for years, and TJ showed Jords the ropes on all the breaks. The Hawaiian sprit is something you do not take for granted! You have to earn it. In and out of the water. Jordy quickly learned that respect and humbleness in and out of the water stood him in good stead for his years ahead! Which is still evident today.....

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