Surftech, the maker of surf and stand-up paddleboards based in Santa Cruz, appointed Sammy Nigh as its new director of North American Sales. Before joining Surftech, Nigh previously served as head of sales at Sessions Outerwear and Fox Sportswear.

Nigh has most recently worked as the director of sales at Truth Soul Armor. With his new role as Surftech’s director of sales, Nigh will be working with his sales team to provide top notch service and support to Surftech dealers while working with Surftech marketing on the development of high quality POP and sales programs.

“His career at some of the top action sports clothing brands speaks for itself, and his combination of sales management experience, surf industry knowledge and personality will help us achieve our objective of becoming the world’s most complete board manufacturer,” said Surftech CEO Huntley Dornan on the hiring of Nigh.   
 
Nigh comes to Surftech with an extensive surfing background. As a top performer in the NSSA during his high school years, Nigh was a member of the 1990 NSSA National Team alongside many of the biggest names in surf in the last 20 years. Throughout college, Nigh competed in the NSSA and the WQS (then known as the Bud Pro Tour) while studying Private and Commercial Recreation at San Jose State University. 
 
“Sammy is a highly respected member of the surf community,” stated long time friend and former WCT surfer, Adam Replogle. “He’s been in the game for more than two decades and has seen board building go from the small cottage industry that it was back in the 80’s to the multimillion dollar business that is is today.” 
 
“Sammy Nigh has roots so deep in the surf world its incredible,” said Peter Mel, Marketing Director for Quiksilver Waterman Collection. “>From surf shop grom and highly competitive surfer, to National Sales manager. The path to success for Sammy was written years ago.” 
 
“I feel that this is a great time to be returning to my surfing roots,” explained Nigh. “I am impressed with the sheer breadth of work being undertaken by Surftech and its vision of developing the highest performance surf and SUP product in the market. The company has been doing some truly groundbreaking work in composite board building recently, and I look forward to building on that success.”
 
In 1989, Randy French, a leading surf and windsurf board shaper, founded Surftech to bring Tuflite, a dynamic, durable and lightweight board construction material, from the windsurf industry to surf. Today, in partnership with many of the world’s leading board designers, Surftech offers a wide variety of high performance to customers worldwide.