Skate and Create: Teen skate company picks up speed Skate and Create: Teen skate company picks up speed (August 27, 2003)

By Camille Ricketts
Special to the Almanac

When you first meet Ryan Roberts and Parker Weiss, they seem like your everyday teenage guys. With the words "dude" and "bro" peppering their speech, the recent Menlo-Atherton graduates lounge around Ryan's Menlo Park home garbed in baggy jeans reminiscing about high school. Like other guys their age, their interests include skateboarding -- yet unlike most, their focus is on expanding their already profitable longboard company.

Longboards are lengthened skateboards with larger wheels and thicker wood. Ryan, 18, draws this important distinction, adding that longboards are more convenient for cruising around town and taking on steep hills, while skateboards can be used for elaborate jumps and tricks.

The company, Ladera Longboards, was born out of woodshop class during the boys' sophomore year. Inspired by teacher Mark Leeper, also a skate and surf enthusiast, Ryan initially built four or five boards for his friends as a class project. When other students began to ask where they could get similar boards, he realized there was a real demand for his product.

Bringing in his good friend Parker, also 18, Ryan volunteered his garage as a workshop, and together they turned what was once just a hobby into a full-scale business, filling custom orders for $100 to $120 a board.

The name Ladera Longboards seemed an especially appropriate name, as "ladera" means slopes in Spanish, and the partners hoped to manufacture boards well-suited to the local area's large hills.

"It used to take us three hours to make one board," Parker says. "Now it takes us 15 minutes. We've got it so it's almost like mass production. Usually when people use an assembly line, they sacrifice quality, but I think our boards have actually gotten better."

As the operation grew, so did the need for space, labor and capital. Fortunately Ryan's father, decided to annex a more professional workshop to the house, and the boys moved in before the addition was completed. Shortly after Ladera officially opened, many of their friends and classmates wanted in on the action; Ryan and Parker embraced the opportunity for free labor.

"A lot of people we know just come over and volunteer their time because it's a neat thing to be a part of," Ryan says. "We get a lot of support from our friends, but also older people, our parents and teachers."

Parker's friend Vincent Tam joined the team last year to aid in assembly, but soon discovered a use for his artistic talent when a customer asked for a Bob Marley design on the bottom of his board. Vincent gave it a shot, using acrylic paint to create Marley's silhouette over a multicolored background. The image has since become one of Ladera's most requested designs, and Vincent continues to provide custom artwork for each board.

The company has since developed several different board models. The first board Ryan built in woodshop was the La Mesa, 42-inches long and fairly thin to add extra flexibility, making it perfect for lighter riders. The 40-Crack is 40-inches long and designed for everyday transportation.

Ladera's flagship model, fondly named Floyd 43, is not only longer but pintail shaped toward the end for increased stability and speed.

"Usually people who call us up for a board don't know what they want, and we always recommend the Floyd 43," Parker says. "Not only can they take it around town but they can go down the biggest hills around here."

With efficient space and manpower, the company still needed dependable funding for wood and other materials as more orders poured in.

"Having T-shirts with a logo is pretty typical for a skateboard company," Parker says. "Ryan and I wore our shirts to school and when people started asking if they could have one, we thought, hey, why not?"

Currently Ladera sells more from its clothing line than from boards, charging $12 for T-shirts and $30 for sweatshirts. The enterprise, which quickly expanded to hats, long-sleeved shirts and sweat pants, became a unique trend at M-A. Ryan even had the famous Ladera logo silk-screened on the back of his tuxedo jacket for prom.

"At least one person from every group at school had a Ladera shirt," Parker says. "Teachers even bought them, and our parents sell them to family and friends. It got to the point where even people who hate skateboarding were wearing our stuff."

The boys' goal remains to make double the amount they spend on materials, and so far they have been successful. Admittedly, they don't pull any huge personal profit out of the company, but rather set aside any money made to purchase more supplies from bulk skateboard distributors.

"You really can't think about all the money you're going to get out of this," Vincent says. "It's really more exciting to put the money back in just to keep it going for as long as possible."

Ryan says the clothing line is also used to promote the company's name, recounting how one of his friends saw a girl they had never met before wearing Ladera sweatpants in Chico, a sure sign that business had expanded beyond the reaches of a typical high school startup.

Their boards have made it into two local shops, Skateworks in Redwood City and Black Diamond in Palo Alto, and are sold on consignment for $150 to $160. The company has also gotten its Web site up and running, allowing for online orders. These new developments have placed them in competition with some of the leading longboard brands on the market.

"Most of the larger professional companies use lasers to cut the wood and manufacture the boards," Parker said. "We do it by hand so we pay a lot of attention to every board we make. You can tell they're custom because they have -- not flaws -- but what we'd like to think of as beauty marks."

Ryan says he's gotten to be somewhat of a perfectionist, determined never to sell a board he himself wouldn't want to ride. In fact, every time Ladera receives a new shipment of wheels, he likes to try them out on his own board first to ensure a smooth ride for his customers.

Although the company's staff will scatter to various college campuses this fall, Ryan, Parker and Vincent vow to keep their enterprise growing. Ryan will be attending California Polytechnic in San Luis Obispo and plans to tackle the three-hour drive almost every other weekend to make boards. Parker will be at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and also hopes to make it home as frequently.

"We're doing so well right now, we have to find a way to keep it going," says Vincent, who will be starting at the University of California, Riverside. "As far as we know, there's no end in sight."

The boys say they see college as another opportunity to spread the company's name and see if they can jump-start the Ladera fad at their respective schools. In the future, Ryan hopes to promote the business through sponsoring a downhill skate team, which could potentially make Ladera a staple at professional skate competitions all over the state.

"What I really like is knowing that I'm expanding the sport," Ryan says. "It's a big thrill to ride down a hill on a longboard you've built for yourself, but seeing other people riding our boards is an even greater feeling."

For more information on Ladera, go to www.laderalongboards.com or call 325-0708.