With an actual company under his belt, Rocco began searching for capital by which to sustain his small venture. In response, Rocco dropped the SMA name and World Industries was born. At the same time, “SMA World Industries” had been screened on a few boards and shirts as a joke for how small the operation actually was. Very quickly, Santa Cruz, an established mainstay in the industry over the past few decades, demanded he stop using the SMA name for his company. SMA or Santa Monica Airlines was a subsidiary company owned by Santa Cruz that Natas rode for at the time. Accordingly, Rocco pushed all his chips into the middle of the table, and with a little hand from Natas and Skip, launched SMA Rocco Division. I thought my life, at least the part that had anything to do with skating, was over.” According to Rocco, it was Zephyr Surf Shop co-founder and one-time Z-Boys team manager Skip Engblom who first suggested buying 500 boards and starting a company. I was just a skater at the time that had been kicked off a team. ”It actually never occurred to me to start a company. That man would quickly become known throughout skateboarding simply as “Rocco”. He did so with little more than a keen sense of humor, an ear to the ground, fearless power moves, and an incredible knack for turning his weaknesses into advantages. What happened? A man living on Natas Kaupas’ kitchen floor maxed out his credit card to buy $6,000 worth of boards, screened them, and then proceeded to all but tear down the “Big Five” (Vision, Powell Peralta, Santa Cruz, Thrasher, and Transworld), usher in a new era of street skating, give a heavy shot in the arm to the skater-owned company, and permanently change the rules by which skateboarders do business. By 1991, that very same man was at the helm of the best-selling company in skateboarding: World Industries and rumors were churning about Vision’s imminent bankruptcy. He kicked 27-year-old freestyle professional Steve Rocco off of Sims Skateboards, one of Vision’s many lucrative subsidiaries. Two years prior, with business already blooming alongside the 80s skateboard explosion, Brad had to make what probably seemed like a rather mundane decision at the time. In 1989, Brad Dorfman reported a whopping 89-million dollars in company turnover for Vision Inc.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |