Yep, you and KK have the nut of it right there. Bert always seemed frustrated that he couldn’t get people to take his new tech seriously, and now he’s most certainly done that, Firewire boards are all over surfshops here in CA anyway. Now he can go back to small scale production and start playing with new ideas on his own terms. I hate to drag Parmenter into this again, but he made the observation that every major new design concept in surfboards came from a guy working on a small scale- big factories/corporate structures have given us nothing.
i bet he just got sick of having to right on sandbottom waves all the time. hes headed back to WA for sure for some left hand reef breaks 
best of luck to him and i hope he can now spend more time with those he loves doing what he loves.
scot
Bert was obviously the guy who developed the whole process. It’s too bad that things didn’t work out for whatever reasons with Firewire.
Those of us who followed his posts here on Swaylocks know who has the goods. I think Bert deserves a ton of credit for those advances and for sharing his knowledge and techniques so freely around here.
There are a number of people who are turning out some great compsand boards based on info Bert shared.
Hopefully we’ll hear from him. He is something of a hero to many of us.
Maybe Mr. Berger’s departure from Firewire was planned from the start. He provided the technology and expertise to get his designs into production. It is healthy for the company to produce and perhaps further refine his ideas on it’s own. Most likely the fine people who are building these boards are motivated, full of ideas and highly capable of refining the products and processes and evolving new ones. Mr. Burger is free to return to his passions and welcome to stop by at Firewire on occasion.
I have no idea of the facts. I’d just like to believe that not every corporation formed to make production boards has done that by climbing over an innovative board designer. I’m sure some have but maybe this time things went for the better.
Hein
I’m sure the end-game will benefit Mr. Berger to some degree… I sure hope so anyway. Meanwhile, the early Bert post and the whole compsand crew have been VERY motivating to me. When all is said and done, being an inspiration to so many others carries a great deal of merit in my book. Good on ya Bert!.. and thank you.
7/10
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Maybe Mr. Berger’s departure from Firewire was planned from the start. He provided the technology and expertise to get his designs into production. It is healthy for the company to produce and perhaps further refine his ideas on it’s own. Most likely the fine people who are building these boards are motivated, full of ideas and highly capable of refining the products and processes and evolving new ones. Mr. Burger is free to return to his passions and welcome to stop by at Firewire on occasion.
I have no idea of the facts. I’d just like to believe that not every corporation formed to make production boards has done that by climbing over an innovative board designer. I’m sure some have but maybe this time things went for the better.
Hein
Maybe Mark Price will come on here and set the record straight for us all again.
Oh Solo, touché’
Bert will have no probs getting by, he would be getting quite a few calls from his old customers wanting him to open up his waiting lists again…
lets see if firewire can keep some cred intact…
lots of guys have been surfing in the same breaks as taij here and say he is on normal pu boards. the only firewires ive seen here on the coast have been ones coming in for repairs.
mind you thats only 3 or 4.
i have never seen anyone surfing one… i hope they can keep it together without the creator/inventor and get some of thier money back…
funny coincidence that the s-core tech came from west oz too…
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“Kind of terrible that most of us look at that press release and get the same ‘translation’ that Solo made- that’s a nice track record the corporate world has got going to make people think that way.”
Unfortunately, it’s almost unavoidable to make this judgment. For publicly and even some privately held companies, the only thing that matters is the bottom line for your investors/stockholders. For the most part, the investors/stockholders could give a damn less who the ‘consultant’ is that will give the company the ‘secrets’ it needs. The only thing that matters is how much this consultant is going to cost…period. Investors and stockholders (for the most part, in my opinion) usually don’t care what they are invested in, as long as it pays dividends, or grows quickly.
This lack of interpersonal contact is what generates the apathy. This is also why some family owned companies are so good. The investors give a damn about the business, not just about the quarterly earnings reports…
Again, all my opinion.
JSS
I would explain this a bit differently. Family-owned businesses also care a great deal about profits. Otherwise it ain’t a business it’s a hobby :-> The real difference is that “quarterly report” crap you cited. Public corporations are forced to manage results almost exclusively for the next reporting deadline. Giving executives of those companies scads of stock options just exacerbates the problem. Family-owned businesses have the luxury of managing for profitability over the very long term. It’s amazing how closely that can resemble what most of us would probably agree on as ethical and responsible behavior. I work for a company that has been owned by the same family and been in the same business for > 150 years. It makes what some people would consider to be excessive profits. It also treats its employees and the communities in which it does business way better than any of the several public corporations I have worked for. Sorry for the OT ramble. Bert - you are obviously one of the top innovators in this field of endeavor - keep at it, and good luck.
-Samiam
Talk the talk, but I ride a Firewire and they surf exceptionally well. It is also holding up extremely well. Regardless of whether Firewire the company succeeds, the technology, even in the watered down commercial form, is an advancement. It validates epoxy. It validates parabolic rails. It validates composite construction. It also validates that these types of boards can be built custom or in mass.
It’s seems that most of the “local shapers” we are all supposed to “support” are just slipping back into their old habits. And consumers are still buying into the new board every six month scam. They are only content because they are ignorant of other options. These people have two boards in there quiver. They are basically the same boards, one is just on it’s last leg. There is no surf spot in the world that is perfect year round for one board. Wave pools would be a clever retort, so stuff it.
Bert was right if your boards last longer and still maintain their performance characteristics you can buy other boards to round out your surfing experience. This was his revenue model. It had the consumers best interest at heart.
We need more Bert Burgers in our local board building communities. My money is going to the board builders who think like Bert. Give us better performing, longer lasting surfboards.
would like to take this oppertunity to
predict:
the moon rising the sun rising before that and incoming tide peaking about two o’clock
buses arriving on time and a little late and rarely a little early sombdy beating you out of a good parking space
then getting a good parking space out a nowhere .
corprut surfing
jimmy Z
spotways
amalgamated
surfing destinys inq.
let us pray that bert can use his real name
and not be knownst as the surfbort guy formerly knownst as bert berger
unless his real name all along was mike fitzpatricks,
a foine Irish name I moit add,
the thing we shall take as inalienable rights
to have a brush wit curperate entanglements and survoive widout a cratch
the real world welcomes all them what returns from murkwood forest
and the golems and trolls and seersuckur suits that reside there
check for ticks and chiggers and other bugs
wherst they might be monitoring brain waves
charge by the minute
for phone calls
demand plane tickets and stipend living spenses
for day trips
they can deduct them from their losses.
we have learnt nudder leskon from what happened here.
I Yam Whad I yam
an dats all whd I yam.
''Popeye the sailor."
…ambrose…
just a kid at the beach
…again
wwhy did I alway shave a problem
remembering that name
it always stuck as flatwire
amciii
Coming soon from West Oz… IceCable Surfboards by Burg Berter.
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The real difference is that “quarterly report” crap you cited Family-owned businesses have the luxury of managing for profitability over the very long term. It’s amazing how closely that can resemble what most of us would probably agree on as ethical and responsible behavior. I work for a company that has been owned by the same family and been in the same business for > 150 years. It makes what some people would consider to be excessive profits. It also treats its employees and the communities in which it does business way better than any of the several public corporations I have worked for. Sorry for the OT ramble.
Big corporations are just the epitome of evil and stupidity, with the absolute top (or bottom?) being publically traded companies. And no, this isn’t just a U.S. thing…most countries have stock markets…the concept is the same although certain cultures have more money to play and corrupt themselves with. Quiksilver just recently reported a terrible quarter, fueled mostly by poor sales in their winter sports divisions…due to terrible winter conditions in the developed countries which led to a bad snow season. An analyst for one of the top brokerages was quoted as saying Quiksilver is really going to have to work themselves back into good graces with the investment community…how screwed up on acid to you have to be for that to make any sense? (Trick question: you can’t take enough acid for that to make sense. It would be really funny to read though!) Quiksilver can’t “make winter snow” across the world…but that is the resonable expectation of the people behind corporate thinking…and believe me, those people make more money than anybody who has much to do with surfing.
This isn’t really OT…conversley read the article in Surfer’s Journal by/about Bev Morgan…didn’t “go public” and made more money because of it…
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And consumers are still buying into the new board every six month scam. They are only content because they are ignorant of other options. These people have two boards in there quiver. They are basically the same boards, one is just on it’s last leg. -monkeyshines
In the overloaded areas where surfing is forced into being more of a “lifestyle” than activity, other aspects get more credence. Shopping is a large part of the experience in major urban and suburban areas. The board may spend more time getting beat up in the car or garage than in the water, but people want “more” and “new”. Human nature, a desire for variety…pretty understandable. Humans are full of inconsistency. Put a Surfrider sticker on the SUV, wear Patagonia jackets made of recycled soda bottles, have a surfboard that falls apart in a year even when sitting in a board bag…nutty as hell, but that’s us.
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Bert was right if your boards last longer and still maintain their performance characteristics you can buy other boards to round out your surfing experience. This was his revenue model. It had the consumers best interest at heart.
Common sense…brilliant in simplicity…and there’s no place for that in the corporate world. Even a whiff of that kind of thinking attached to a product or business model might make the investment houses run away. If you aren’t constantly growing you are dead…just ask the 800 pound man…
Ambrose, I can just see t-shirts like this: “Surfboards by the man formerly known as Bert Burger”. Bert, you ought to do that anyway, just for laughs…not much laughter in corporate worlds unless some innocent is getting screwed to the wall…laughter is the sound of defiance and revolution in the New Millenium…
Nels
Monkeyshines, I absolutely agree. I have two Firewires right now. I got sick of buying a board that worked insane for six months then started to loose all of its magic. I’d have to get another board made, but didn’t exactely work the same. Firewires are pretty much the best of the PU world and the Surftech world. In that they act and feel like a PU board, but only better. And that they are as resilient and strong as a Surftech. After spending tons of money and the prices going up on PU boards after Clark closed, I figured that if I was going to spend close to $700 on a board I could get one that would be toast in six months or try out some new technology. I’ll never go back to PU boards, period. As long as Firewire or a similiar company is producing these boards that integrate all of the components that make these boards work so well, there is no reason. These boards work insane and last at least three or four times as long (all though Firewire states it could be 5-10 times, that will have to be seen).
Sad for bert - an inspirational figure for loads of us…
best of luck re-capturing your old lifestyle … look forward to hearing more of your anti common sense insights ( i mean that as a compliment) on this forum.
wow that sounded remarkably like an advertisement.
Now if only I could get Firewire to write me a check for the endorsement.
Good luck on your new venture Bert. All I can say is I would never own a vacuum pump (it’s actually going right now 
if not for your posts and watching Greg Loehr play around with a formula I didn’t think would change. Thanks for all you have done.
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Monkeyshines, I absolutely agree. I have two Firewires right now. I got sick of buying a board that worked insane for six months then started to loose all of its magic. So…you work for firewire? I have owned boards for years and years that ride just fine…they have not lost one bit of their magic as you call it. I still own them. I have had great surfers tell me they do not even get a board broken in under a year. Loose it’s magic…what an old fairy tale. If you prefer firewire tech…no problem. I don’t really have anything against the tech, but don’t try and push that stuff by saying the other loses it’s magic. Firewire like popouts, handshaped epoxy or good old poly simply has it’s own way of riding. Frankly…what I have heard about them as not been all that great, but I am glad you like them. Tell Mark …I said hello or Hi Mark. I’d have to get another board made, but didn’t exactely work the same. Firewires are pretty much the best of the PU world and the Surftech world. In your opinion. I know many others who simply think it’s something different with a different feel. In that they act and feel like a PU board, but only better. Got to call it like I see it…PU only better? So PU is the standard eh? I agree. And that they are as resilient and strong as a Surftech. There is nothing resilient about Surftech. They turn like rocks and as for strength…I have seen more than my share dinged, broken in half and ruined in a hot car. I have also seen them with water in them from not being taken right to the beach after being dinged. Water that does not come out very easily. Nice sales pitch for Firewire though. After spending tons of money and the prices going up on PU boards after Clark closed, I figured that if I was going to spend close to $700 on a board I could get one that would be toast in six months or try out some new technology. Here we go with sales pitch number three on new tech. I think the guys found Bert used him up and then pushed him out. Just like most of that corporate garbage in our industry does. I wouldn’t give the vampires a dime of my hard earned money. I’ll never go back to PU boards, period. What is this…sales pitch number four I think. As long as Firewire or a similiar company is producing these boards that integrate all of the components that make these boards work so well, there is no reason. These boards work insane and last at least three or four times as long (all though Firewire states it could be 5-10 times, that will have to be seen). I think this is sales pitch number five. Mark…is this you? Do they really last three or four times as long or even five or ten as Firewire says. CAn I find that on Firewire’s site? I don’t know you meangreen…so it’s not a personal attack, but you spoke your mind and I have done the same. I for one am not buying their corporate sales pitch and I don’t care if they look like the Andy Warhol designs of surfboards. Seeing Bert leaving so soon after joining doesn’t give me the warm fuzzies either. BTW meang. I push hard on things I believe also…so if you really like Firewire…it’s certainly your right to speak your mind about them. I enjoy hearing alternative views as well.