Our Team

Tim Sanford - Lead Instructor

Tim Sup Surfing like a Champ

Tim has been a professional stand up paddleboard (SUP) instructor since 2011 and holds numerous instructor certifications from both national and international accredited agencies, including:

  • The Academy of Surf and SUP Institute (ASI, Australia) Level 1, 2 and 3
  • Professional Stand UP Paddleboard Association (PSUPA, USA)
  • Paddlefit (USA)
  • World Paddle Association (USA)

Paddle Method is LA’s first accredited SUP school (ASI) since 2014
Tim Sanford is also a certified Instructor Trainer and Southern California designated expert via the Professional Stand Up Paddleboard Association (PSUPA).

In addition, Tim, a member of United States Coast Guard Auxiliary 12-4, is working to include a SUP safety course via the USCGA.

Tim is an active SUP enthusiast who races and SUP surfs and was the team leader of the winning team for the 1st 100- mile paddle race from Redondo to San Diego (2014), has numerous podium finishes including 1st place in his class at the Santa Monica Pier paddle race 2014.

From 2011 to 2013 Tim Sanford sat on the board of Directors of the Santa Monica Pier Ocean festival and paddleboard race as well as the LA Waterkeeper SUP for clean water races.
A lifelong watersport enthusiast, Tim completed the ARC Rally Europe, a trans-Atlantic sailing race, as part of a two-man crew aboard the 34 foot sailing vessel, Blue Jacket.
An avid traveler Tim has spent time in El Salvador working with Puro surf to evaluate and help create a community SUP program.
In 2014 Tim launched his own line of high-performance inflatable stand up paddleboards in order to provide Paddle Method students with the best gear for SUP surfing and SUP tours. The 360 Go Anywhere iSUP has at multiple locations around the world and is used across the United States.
In addition, Tim has relevant experience in team building and business development (sales Manager at an LA based point of sale company, PPS USA); Tim has worked in professional development at Los Angeles unified School District in the Programs Evaluation and Research Branch and has over 10 years experience in the hospitality industry as a beverage manager at some of LA’s top 10 restaurants.
Tim carries a current CPR/First Aid and American Red Cross Water Rescue certifications.

Tim 100 Mile Paddle

Doug Dearth

My love for nature started on the beautiful lakes of Ohio and has since led me to a lifetime of adventures on the water. From sailing boats up and down the pacific coast; Mexico to Canada and everywhere in between, to serving as a 100 Ton US Coast Guard Licensed Captain and operating a 100 foot oil spill support vessel out of the Los Angeles harbor.

Most recently, when I am not paddle surfing, I am traveling around the world filming documentaries and capturing inspiring stories of ordinary people who are doing extra ordinary things, including a recent trip which documented the first stand-up paddler to paddle the three day canoe race through the trade canals of Belize.

As a member of the Paddle Method team, I like to utilize my background as an US Army Medic, an accomplished athlete and water man, and experience as a personal trainer and hero coach to share my passion for a healthy, exciting and safe paddling or surfing adventure.

Mike describes waves

Mike Leneman

Michael Leneman has been racing, building, and voyaging on multihulls of all types and sizes since he was in his teens. He has gone through the entire evolution of catamarans and trimarans over the past 35 years. He was Director of Sailing at the University of California at Los Angeles in the 1970’s, and is the organizer and founder of the largest offshore multihull event on the West Coast, the Indian Summer Splash. Mike is also championship racer; a four time winner of the Newport to Ensenada Race and holder of the best multihull racing record of any sailor in Southern California.

In the early seventies Mike raced Hobie Cats and worked for Hobie Cat of France for a summer (winning the French National Championships), but soon gravitated to offshore cruising/racing and has seen his share of offshore mishaps. In the 1980’s, on the Transpac race to Hawaii, for example, he was on a custom catamaran that broke apart at night. He was saved in a dramatic nighttime rescue.

Like the other pioneers of multihull construction, Mike learned his lessons along the way. In the early 80’s, while working with multihull designer and legend Craig Ashby, he built a 40 foot offshore racing cat, Minette. For many years Minette held the Santa Barbara to King Harbor race record and has won the Ensenada Race four times. He has also designed and built: two 32’ trailerable powercats, a 23’ trailerable powercat, a 20’ sailing/peddling catamaran, the L-7 trimarans (23 ft.), and various other small boats.

Always a go fast freak, he got involved with Corsair trimarans in 1990 at the request of the owner, John Walton, and became a dealer. In the mid-90’s he remodeled the F-31 to make it the fastest F-31 on the west coast. This proto-type then became the basis for the Corsair F-31R. He even designed the aluminum mast and rig for the production Corsair 31, as well as kayaks for local companies.

Presently, he is working on an 18 ft., 65 lb., car-toppable, fin drive, sailing trimaran with sliding akas.

Claire

Claire Brueckner

Claire Brueckner is a fine art photographer based in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from The University of California at Santa Cruz with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.

The serene, natural beauty of Santa Cruz was the perfect backdrop to help encourage her willing subjects to pose. With the bold, burgeoning sexuality of her subjects coupled with the expansive beauty of northern California , Claire developed a specific style.

Her fine art focus has always been raw energy. All her photographs, staged or not, maintain primal emotions and sexuality. Images ranging from campy, unsettling vignettes to compelling voyeuristic portraiture comprise her various series and define an aesthetic rooted in both the existing and deep-buried desires that both inspire and empty us. It is this false dichotomy that she pursues with every subject, in every shoot.

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