Plastic fantastic – a surfer’s shattered dream

By Phil Jarratt

One balmy night in July 2017, in front of a packed house in the penthouse conference room of Lavan Legal in downtown Perth, overlooking the beautiful Swan River, I was stoked to share guest speaking duties with surfboard builder turned philanthropist Nev Hyman at a cocktail event called The Business of Surfing. And indeed, I’ve never seen so many suits turn out for a fairly salty evening.

One of the West’s leading legal firms, Lavan is also a great supporter of West Australian surfing and a number of philanthropic causes, which they managed to tie together neatly that night, with me giving a potted history of the surf industry and Nev explaining how he morphed from boardbuilder to a leader in the…