BJ'S SURF SHOP

Williamson & Co. Surfboards/ BJ’s Surf Shop

"HAVE A NICE WAVE"

by BJ Williamson                       

       I have been interested in surfing all of my adult life. In the early 1960’s we started renting surfboards at Galveston and Surfside beaches on the upper Texas coast. The sport was gaining popularity in Texas and there were surf movies at the theaters (that had very little to do with the real sport) and several independent movies that were just about surfing at local school auditoriums. 

      At school one day in 1963 a friend loaned me three Peterson Surfing magazines and that was the beginning for BJ’s Surf Shop. Advertisements requesting dealer inquires were on every page. I contacted Gregg Noll surfboards and ordered some decals, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. They sold as fast as I could unpack them. Early in 1964 a friend asked if I could get a Dewey Weber surfboard for him, I called and talked to Dewey and was established as his dealer in the Houston area.

      Later that year we added Gordie and Wardy surfboards to our line and we were able to sell several. By the following spring we were selling surfboards as fast as we could get them and were awarded Dewey Weber’s number one dealer for the next two years.                                                                            We began building surfboards around the end of 1968, for the local crowd of surf enthusiasts. It was a group effort so we called it Coalition Surfboards, which changed to WILLIAMSON & CO. SURFBOARDS(Co for Coalition) in late 1969.  I closed my last retail surf shop in 1977 and went into construction and oilfield pursuits until 1991. In 1992 I joined friends in making SUPERIOR SURFBOARDS doing mostly glassing and in 1997 joined HENRY FRY making boards until 2001. 

      I then opened a new facility in Houston on Barker Cypress Rd., moving in 2006 to a warehouse location on Rutland Rd. where, in 2015, all was lost in a devastating fire.  With the help of so many friends and a benefit in my honor am now building a new board building facility in Santa Fe, Texas which I will open as soon as I can so that I can return to what I love, building surfboards.

"HAVE A NICE WAVE"