2023 SWOF Inductee – Mangiagli was low profile, top producing board builder
Becker Surf partners Steve Mangiagli, Phil Becker, and Dave Hollander made more hand-shaped surfboards boards than any other board builder in the sport’s history by Mike Purpus “In 1969, I asked Phil Becker, who was shaping for Rick Stoner, to shape me a blank,” Hermosa Surfer Walk of Fame 2023 inductee Steve Mangiagli said in recalling how he became a professional surfboard glasser. ‘I glassed the board Phil shaped for me at home, but I didn’t want to sand it. So I asked if it was alright if the Rick factory sanded it. Mike Bright, the factory manager, asked Phil, ‘Who laminated this board?’ Phil told him I did. Bright asked if I wanted a job. It was my first time in a glassing factory, and my first time meeting Mike Bright. I was elated,’ Mangiagli said. Steve Mangiagli and Dave Hollander in 2010 at their Hermosa Surf shop, shortly before they sold Becker Surf to Billabong. Photo by Mike McIntire When Bright quit a year later to open a dive shop in Malibu, Stoner asked Mangiagli to manage his factory, The factory was located on what is known as Shapers Alley, at 640 Cypress in Hermosa Beach. Mangiagli came late to surfing. He was 15, and living in Torrance, when he started…
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