The Surfer: From Hobby To Lifestyle
Connor Heinzmann, a guy with a passion for surfing, took his joy and dedication for the sport and turned it into a lifestyle and a carer. Heinzmann is a 21-year-old self-taught surfboard creator.
Starting at the age of 8 years old, surfing has been Heinzmann’s deepest passion. From riding the boards, watching others surf, and just being at the beach, surfing was his first love. To him, it was more than just a hobby, and more so a lifestyle.
As the years went on, he realized that he could expand his passion to more than just simply surfing in the oceans. Heinzmann used all his knowledge he had aquired from his years of surfing and figured out how to be the one to start creating these boards. He uses his heart and all his creativity into every inch of his work. Now, Heinzmann sells his board and is making a life out of what he loves to do. Smoothie shops and clothing stores all over Central New Jersey have reached out to Heinzmann for surfboards for their restaurants and stores, expanding his demographic even bigger.
Connor Heinzmann works at his surfboard business in Freehold, NJ, laying paint down on top of a board covered in cloth, allowing the beige color of the paint to sink into the board. Heinzmann has to wear a mask over his face while working on the boards because of all of the chemicals and fumes involved.At first, Heinzmann did not know if people would even trust him to make their surfboard when they could just as easily go buy it from a professional, but he gained their trust by producing beautifully crafted boards that work just as well, if not better, than a board made by a professional.
For a while he was working out of his garage, but as his business and his love for the idea started growing rapidly, he knew he needed a bigger space. Heinzmann’s family member had an old beaten up GMC box truck that was no longer serving any purpose or use.
Heinzmann had the idea to turn it into his ideal surfboard laboratory. Since then, he spends almost every day working from sunrise until sundown making his passion into a dream.
The Ultimate Surfboard Laboratory
When Connor Heinzmann first started making surfboards, he was making them inside of his cluttered garage that did not have much space to work between his, his mother, andhis sister’s cars parking there. For a while, they took turns rotating and parking some cars on the driveway and in the street so that Heinzmann could have space to create his boards. But after a while, it was getting way too clustered, and as his business expanded there was just not enough room for him to continue working out of this space.
A relative of Heinzmann’s mentioned to him that they had an old beaten up GMC box truck that was being put to no use. Immediately, Heinzmann knew this was exactly what he needed. He transformed this run down truck into his ultimate surfboard laboratory. He cleaned up the inside, added decor of his own, added all of his equipment, set up heat and light, and from then on he has not looked back to his garage.
‘’It’s sort of like, my home away from home.’’ Heinzmann says. ‘’There’s nothing like driving back from Rutgers on any day of the week and just opening up the doors of that truck and seeing a board I’ve been working on all week be brought to life. It’s just magic to me still.’’
