Board Builder Story: Ken Marvel, Marvel Boards and Boats 

Here’s a bit of Ken’s story in Ken’s words:

“I began working with wood again in Sarasota first as a hobby to free my spirit of the stresses of a busy career in 2015.  Though I enjoyed immensely the process of restoring our 1957 Fleetform runabout, it was not the same as starting with raw materials and creating something original.  As I had not had the ability to focus enough time on my creative outlets, the need to create again was growing…but this time I wanted to focus on creations that allowed the user to interact with our beautiful natural world on something natural and hand-crafted.  Due to space limitations, starting right off back building wooden boats was not the easiest option (my wife was not ready to permanently give up her parking space), and I wanted to focus on products that would help the younger generations appreciate the rewarding feeling of hand-made craftsmanship. Hardwood skateboards – longboards and cruisers – were a natural first item to produce as I grew up skateboarding, skiing, and snowboarding in Park City and SLC.  As we live in an area of Florida where paddle boarding and kayaking are very popular activities on our miles and miles of beautiful bays full of flat, warm, gulf waters that are perfect for these activities – expanding from skateboards to getting back to strip-building kayaks, paddleboards and surfboards was all too expected.  This has now become more of the focus of what I like to produce.   I still build the skateboards for sale, and also like to provide these as donation items to non-profit organizations I support for their auction events.  (I can help them generate far more for their programs than if I just provided cash.)”

https://www.marvelboardsandboats.com