Todd Quigley, Beer Barron.
Quick recap for our readers, what has been happening in the world of Todd Quigley?
Hi mate, I’ve been a busy man, juggling the two kids, running QCD, designing the new range along with a couple of special boards and I also have been working for a sick craft beer company. Yew! Free beers!
You’ve recently started a new job, can you tell us a little more about that?
Yeh for sure, I’m working for Gweilo, a Hong Kong based craft beer company that started 7 years ago and they are killing it world wide with some epic award winning beers, I was living in Hong Kong 7 years ago when I met the owner and was lucky enough to try their very first beer that he tapped at his house, we got along so well he and his wife actually came to our wedding in Bali.
They have been brewing down south in Western Australia the past couple of years and needed someone to help out on the East coast, that’s when I got the call a few months ago, I’m the NSW brand / sales manager, it’s a rad gig and fills in the time I would have spent shaping customs.
What is happening with QCD? Any exciting future plans?
QCD is still kicking along, I’m actually celebrating 25 years shaping this year and have a very special limited anniversary edition of just 25 boards dropping later this year. I’ve also introduced a rad Mason Rose versatile board, I first shaped boards for Mason over 20 years ago so I’m stoked to be working on a sick board for him.
How has the Covid period affected your ability to get in the shaping bay?
COVID fully shut it down. Unable to fly up to Indo to shape I couldn’t do a thing. It’s been nearly 3 years now! Crazy! I hope to get back to it one day soon, I’m still stoked to be designing and doing my stock range which should see the new boards dropping late September.
15 years ago there were multiple custom shaping options available in Australia, in your opinion why has this changed?
Yeh there was at least 4 of us, it is crazy to think now. What changed, at the time well for me was the cost of bringing in the materials and the drop of the AUD against the USD as everything was purchased in USD so when that started to happen raw materials shot up and cash flow gets super tight. I could see the writing on the wall around 8 or 9 years ago. It’s a shame but I was lucky enough to be able to keep shaping up in Indo well until covid hit.
Other factors at the time was less people buying boards and way better quality boards from Asia. But as a positive from COVID there seems to be a heap more boards being sold and more people out in the water.
