Kent Senatore shaped his
first board in 1980, and after completing only
20 boards he was lucky enough to land a job working
for Natural Progression in Santa Monica, California.
Being employed in the shaping industry at such
an early point is rare, but it allowed Kent the
chance to learn important lessons at an earlier
stage than most aspiring shapers. During his stay
at Natural Progression, he was mentored by master
shaper Dean Edwards, and took advantage of every
opportunity to learn about all aspects of the
production process.
By 1987, Kent moved to
the north shore of Oahu and was working for Bill
Barnfield. Kent acknowledges that "coming to the
north shore and working for Bill was hard but
the knowledge gained was worth every bit of effort."
The pivotal point in Kent's
shaping development came in the winter of 1995,
when he was hired by John Carper (JC Hawaii) to
glass team boards for the upcoming Triple Crown
season. That's when things really started happening,
and by the spring of 1996 he was finishing hand
shapes for Carper. Kent worked closely with JC
for the next three years and says, "it was like
going to shaping college." When the smoke cleared,
Kent had shaped over 3000 boards for JC Hawaii.
After parting ways with JC in 1998, Kent worked
another year as a ghost shaper for some of the
shaping industry's biggest names including,
Wade Tokoro, Kerry Tokoro, Jeff Johnston, Cino,
Dennis Pang, Carl Schaper, Eric Arakawa, and
Jeff Bushman.
Around the same time, by
taking all the lessons he'd learned in the past
and adding his personal flair, Kent started his
own label called Tore Surfboards Hawaii. Having
spent most of his career working in the mass production
world, Kent was convinced that he should take
a different approach. Today he prefers to build
each board from start to finish by putting all
his effort into every board as if it were for
himself. This allows Kent to control the quality
of work through every step of the process, and
insures that each Tore surfboard is truly a custom
one off product.
Kent was a pro skater in
the late 70's with an impressive resume which
included three cover shots, a starring role in
the Hal Jepson movie "Skateboard Madness". Read
more about Kent's pro skate career.
