If Steve Langford’s list of life accomplishments reads suspiciously like two or three really good bucket lists strung together, it is, he assures, simply the natural consequence of living life on his own terms and embracing the personal responsibilities that come with it.
Ah, but what a list it is — flying airplanes as a teenager; sailing the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans; finishing an Ironman triathlon; running from sea level to the top of Haleakala (four times!); riding a motorcycle through the Southwest and Mexico.
Langford grew up in Southern California and Texas. His father, a regional manager who used his own airplane to travel from state to state, died when Langford was just 14, but not before he instilled in his two boys a strong sense of self-determination and an unflappable belief in doing things "the right way."
"That may sound trite or cute to some people, but it’s just the way I do things," Langford says.
Langford spent his adolescence riding motorcycles and learning to fly. After high school he spent four years in the Navy, the last on a World War II-era destroyer, then attended Cal State Long Beach, where he earned a degree in business.
While in school he sold lumber for Weyerhaeuser. The connections he made through that job eventually led to an opportunity to move to Hawaii, which he did nearly 33 years ago.
But Langford was never one to take orders from someone else, and it wasn’t long before he went into business for himself, working with a German company to import and sell laminate and wood flooring.
For more than 30 years, Langford ran his business the same way he handled everything else in his life. He built his clientele on word of mouth, staking his reputation on bend-over-backward customer service and an insistence of high-quality products. He eventually stepped away from the fray when the market shifted to cheaply made materials sold at unconscionable markups.
"I just didn’t want to do that," he says.
Indeed, Langford’s life is defined not just by what his remarkable mental and physical discipline have wrought, but by his understanding of when to stop.
Years ago Langford found his bliss sailing the open ocean. By his own estimation he probably sailed every major waterway outside the Arctic and Antarctic. Then came a day, on the way from Molokai back to Oahu, when he looked out from the cockpit of his sailboat at one of the most beautiful clear skies he can remember.
"It was one of those days that sailors die for," Langford recalls. "And at that moment the thought came to me that this isn’t fun anymore."
Langford sold the boat a couple of weeks later and never sailed again.
"Sometimes you reach a point and you say, ‘OK, what’s next?’"
