Spyder Wright's connection to the ocean and timepieces goes way back. Both his mother and father were avid ocean people. Sailing, swimming and wave riding were strong passions of theirs. When Spyder was only three, his dad was pushing him into the waves of the Atlantic Ocean in New York and Florida where they lived. When Spyder was nine, they moved to Washington, DC where their continued ocean experiences were transferred to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware.

Spyder's father, E. Townsend Wright, was a mechanical engineer, and had a very technical mind. When his son, Spyder, was fifteen and a healthy, normal teenager, his interests were sports, cars and girls. His dad can up with the idea to keep his son at home and expand his bright young mind. He gave his son one of his military watches from World War II, and had him do the following: take the mechanical watch completely apart, inventory each piece, diagram if possible, then put it all back together again and make it work! No more socializing or going out until the project was completed. It took him four months! Frustrating at first, yet once completed, he was fascinated with the workings of a mechanical watch.

Soon after he was off to college in Southern California. Every time he had an extra ten or twenty dollars, he would purchase a broken watch and proceed to make it work again. Meanwhile, Spyder's passion for surfing and the ocean inspired him to start building surfboards. In 1963, Spyder, Inc. began. The following summer, he returned to the east coast and opened a shop in Ocean City, Maryland, selling surfboards and vintage watches.
Spyder continued to follow his two passions of surfing and making boards and began designing timepieces. After a succession of opening several shops, along with surfing in competitions professionally, he started making his own line of watches in 1976, the same year his first son, E. Townsend Wright III was born. Today, Spyder, along with his son, designs the watch line which is made in Geneva, Switzerland. Some of the designs reflect his strong passion for surfing and the ocean, as they are 100% waterproof and extremely durable.

Spyder now divides his time between Hawaii and Nantucket, Massachusetts. Spyder's son Ed oversees the retail businesses in both Palm Beach in the winter and Nantucket in the summer.
The Spyder legacy continues across the globe with grandson Townsend IV, who ventured into the waves of Hawaii at the age of three!