|
|
|
| About Me |
|
| Company Profile: |
World Industries is a skateboard, snowboard, sticker and shoe manufacturing company.
In 1987, professional freestyle skateboarder Steve Rocco was kicked off the Sims Skateboards company team. In a bid to make ends meet, Steve borrowed $6,000 from credit cards and then bought 500 skateboards from the advice of Skip Engblom of the skateboard company Santa Monica Airlines. His first skateboards, sold under the brand name "Santa Monica Airlines, Rocco Division" (aka SMA Rocco Division) were sold out quickly through distributors he knew. With the proceeds and profits from the sale of those boards, Steve turned around and bought roughly $12,000 of T-shirts under the same label. His reasoning was that since the profits in the making of and selling of T-shirts were markedly better, he would make that much more money. WRONG! When Steve called those same distributors to sell them the T-shirts, the answer was fairly uniform, "We dont want T-shirts from you, we want skateboards!" Steve was learning how business really worked - the hard way! Steve teamed up with John Lucero, now of Black Label, and together they made more boards (and profits), then later rented a warehouse. For some reason, when Steve bought used racks for the warehouse, John vehemently disagreed with that decision and left the company. Rodney Mullen, a 13 time champion in succession of freestyle skateboarding, decided to invest in the fledgeling company. Rodney, in effect, bought out Lucero with a cash investment of $12,000. This is when Rodney and Steve became partners.
Steve rode for the company, along with skaterboarders Jesse Martinez and Jeff Hartsel. The company started taking off by 1988 and getting some attention. Relations with the bigger traditional companies were strained at times, actually most of the time. For instance, their brand, originally called SMA Rocco Division, was not one they could use any longer. They were told they could not use the SMA brand name by its legal owner. Then when threatened with a lawsuit, and other unsavory consequences for the use of the SMA moniker, Steve realized he really had to change the name. So when he and others were trying to come up with a name (aka brainstorming), the name "World Industries" was suggested as a joke. They all laughed. It seemed so ludicrous - the big-souding name from a po-dunk, know-nothing, wanna-be company - that it had just had to be! Thus the birth of "World Industries, Inc."! Initially, they called it "SMA World Industries" to phase it in. Then they cut the first bit off of the name and it became just plain World Industries. This is the type of humor and marketing that resulted in Steve Rocco building a mini-empire. To Steve (and Rodney), the question was never, "Why?" but rather, "Why not?!" Steve later became fond of saying that, "For the most part, we did not do things to make money or because they made business sense; we just did things we liked. Kind of like Willy-Wonka-and-the-Chocolate-Factory!" (A favorite movie of his.) In the action-sports industry, it did become it's name - HUGE. More often now, it is just referred to as "World". World soon became a huge hit to skaters everywhere.
Rodney Mullen and Mike Vallely made the decision to leave Powell Peralta to skate for World Industries. Mike came aboard mainly so he could get what he wanted - a drawing of an elephant on his pro-model! As unbelievable as that may sound, it was the case. Rodney, given his neurotic nature, was both afraid to stay at Peralta and to go to World. But in the end, he was more afraid of being left somewhat alone at Peralta with Mike's departure and the potential loss of his earlier $12,000 investment in World if he did not jump ship to go to World. He felt damned if he did and damned if he didn't. So he might as well be really damned, so off to World he went as well. Both invested more money into the company.
Because the company was small and innovative, they were better able to respond to the changing skateboarding scene and the changing board shapes. Times were hard in the skateboarding industry, but by doing small board runs of wacky graphics and experimental shapes, they could develop new boards that fit the movement to street skating. The larger companies were not able to follow, because of their larger production runs and lack of innovation. Cartoon designs dominated World Industries boards, making them stand out in an otherwise uniform market of mostly gnarly graphics of pentagrams, blood, gore, skulls and crossbones. World Industries boards are usually considered to heavy.
In 1989 Mark Gonzales approached Steve Rocco with the desire to be involved in his own company. He liked the independence that having control of his own company offered. He was riding for Vision at the time and decided to name the company Blind, the exact opposite to Vision. He took Jason Lee, a World Industries team member, and formed the Blind team.
H-Street co-founder Mike Ternasky wanted a break from H-Street, so in 1991 he formed a partnership with World Industries, starting the company Plan B. In the deal, World Industries was the distributor and manufacturer and Mike marketed the brand from San Diego. Mike got Rodney Mullen to street skate and he became a member of the team.
In September 1993, Rick Howard defected with seven other riders and started Girl. In January 1994, Girl started up Chocolate and took another group of riders.
Mike Ternasky was killed in a car accident in 1994. Plan B broke away from World Industries and was run by Danny Way and Colin McKay, and closed in 1998. In March 2005, Plan B was relaunched by team member Danny Way.
In 1997 the A-Team was formed. Because Plan B had left the World Industries fold, Rodney Mullen found himself on the team along with Marc Johnson, Gershon Mosley, Dave Mayhew, and Chet Thomas. The A-Team never released its own video, there were only A-Team sections in the first two Rodney Mullen vs Daewon Song videos.
The company developed the additional brands Darkstar, Speed Demons and Almost Skateboards, and Tensor over the next years.
World Industries was sold in July 2002 to Globe International Limited. On June 25, 2007, Globe International Limited sold World Industries to i.e. Distribution.[1]
In 2007, Australian filmmaker Mike Hills released The Man Who Souled the World, a documentary about Steve Rocco and the creation of World Industries. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| My Friends |
|
| No records found |
|
|
|
| My Places |
|
|
No records found |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| My Favorites |
|
|
|
| Favorite Companies |
: |
No answer |
| Favorite TV Show |
: |
No answer |
| Favorite Magazine |
: |
No answer |
| Favorite Place |
: |
No answer |
| Favorite Event |
: |
No answer |
| Favorite Hobby |
: |
No answer |
|
|
|
|
|
| Personal Module |
|
| No records found |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| My Sports |
|
|
|
 |
Make Products :
Street Skate... |
|
|
Offer Services :
Street Skate... |
|
|
Sell /Distribute Products:
Street Skate.... |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
