Al Merrick took surfing from a fringe activity to a legitimate, "eat your Wheaties" sport. In 1968, after watching Bob McTavish surfing a Greenough-inspired shortboard at Rincon, Al decided to exclusively shape shortboards. He focused on shaping for a younger generation of surfers, helping to mentor them into the world’s best. Among his team are Tom Curren, Kelly Slater, Kim Mearig and many more of the world’s top surfers.

“I didn't come intentionally to make a board shorter and intentionally to put a color on it. It's what the kids wanted to do, they wanted the colors and some of them got colorful wetsuits. We had enough guys call us butt wigglers and stuff at Rincon. We get some of the older crew and things change.” - Al Merrick, 2017