Jason Kashiwai
Often, you can tell if your shaper truly understands surfboards precisely by the way they ride one. Shaper’s ripping? That’s a good sign. I first met Jason Kashiwai, owner/shaper of j.kashiwai Surfboards when I was 18 — me, racing down the line of a bowly Ala Moana Beachpark grower at Big Rights, towards a goofyfoot local guy doing wrap-around combos on the Concessions left, two waves that inevitably connect.
A couple hours later and we became fast friends while walking back down the sand trail. Close to two decades later and I’ve ridden dozens of his boards, from 5’5” grovelers to 9’8” Waimea Bay guns — and every size between. Over those two decades, Jason’s become one of Hawaii’s premiere, if not iconic, modern shapers, a devoted husband and father, and over the years of knowing him — is still the same old, true-blue human I met out at Beachpark. Who… of course, is still ripping those lefthanders.
Born and raised around the South Shore of Oahu, Jason got his start at Blue Hawaii Surf Shop as a teen. There, he met fellow Island greats like Wes Oshiro and Wade Tokoro, earning his first shaping job at Town and Country surfboards through the 90s.
“Back then as a young shaper it was really helpful that you could hang out and watch other shaper work,” recalls Jason. “A lot of them were always willing to show me different techniques. It was there that I really got the chance to get into the craft of making custom surfboards and working with clients and team riders.”
“But what always interested me with shaping was just the constant evolution of surfboard design,” says Jason. “The ongoing performance of surfers and their need to expand on what they’re trying to do on the waves. That, and connecting with people through my passion in the craft of surfboard building.”
By 1998, his own label, j.kashiwai, was born, and that independence opened up doors, like working with Dropout Surfboards Japan. Dropout’s owner and visionary, Edo Ogawa connected Jason with incredible pro surfers, now transferring into Inspire Surfboards Japan. In between that time and into the present, Jason became Hawaii’s licensee shaper for Channel Islands Surfboard USA. A pretty incredible accomplishment…but then again, Jason’s work and craft speaks for itself.
Beyond supplying local Hawaii and international surfers with upper echelon custom shapes — at any size — Jason maintains a team of respected pros like: Numajiri, Mike Dodd, Kaito Kino, Kento Takahashi, Alex Pendleton, Mikey O’Shaunessy, Lahiki Minamishin, Charlie Akeo, Ted Mucciarone and Nancy Ann Odegaard. If you asked him about his success, though, in classic Jason fashion, he remains humble… “I really enjoy the ongoing interaction with my customers, many who have been riding my boards for years. Hearing their stories about trips they took, magic boards they had, and just their everyday stoke when they are ordering boards or seeing them in the lineup.”
The thing is, if you asked anyone that’s ordered a board from Jason, they’re just as stoked, if not more, to interact or talk story with him. –Beau Flemister, Editor at Surfline/Regular Contributor at The Surfer’s Journal
