Johnny Rice grew up in Santa Cruz, California and shaped his own balsa wood surfboard early on in his garage. That board didn’t end up working so well but it was the beginning of his shaping career. Rice, who is part Plains Indian, would find himself working for Dale Velzy in Venice, California. One day Velzy asked Rice if he wanted to learn how to shape and through the teachings of Velzy, he learned the art of surfboard shaping.

Johnny Rice has worked for a few of the industry’s biggest names including, Velzy, Jacobs, Kim Kidd, Con, Rick, South Bay, Oceanside, and Dick Catri to name a few. Over the eyars, he’s made surfboards with interesting names such as Malibu Competition, the Black Widow, the Scorpion, V 360, Instrument and Renegade. Recently, he teamed up with Surftech to produce epoxy versions of his high performance and cruiser models. Rice shapes his boards a little thinner than normal with more V in the tail leading to faster turns.