BCBusiness

BCBusinEss.Ca OCTOBER 2016 BCBusiness 67 while skating as a teenager helped pre- pare him for his nearly four-decade run in the business world. "I'm a Grade 11 dropout," he says. "Everything I've learned about business I've learned on the job. I didn't take any courses. It's the same in skateboarding. You can't just point and click. You have to pay some dues." Ducommun entered the business in 1976 when his older brother, Rick, who operated a T-shirt company, began bring- ing back skateboarding gear picked up on his California buying trips. The pair teamed up to form Great North Country Skateboards, run initially out of their parents' house in Nanaimo and, for a year, in Regina (after Rick moved brie—y to Saskatchewan). Ducommun, a com- pulsive tinkerer, added designer to his dossier, and they opened their ˆrst shop in 1979 near Stanley Park. (Four other Vancouver locations followed: Oak Street, West Pender Street, West Fourth Avenue and, for the last ˆve years, West 10th Avenue.) The company name soon changed when customers started sending letters addressed to "Skull Skates," after the skull logo on all in-house products. Long associated in the popular imagi- nation with scruffy, rebellious adoles- cents, skateboarding has evolved from its humble beginnings as an urban thrill sport for bored California surfers in the 1960s into a signiˆcant industry. Today, more than 11 million people ride world- wide, and in the U.S. alone the skateboard market generates $4.5 billion a year in revenue. There is an international circuit of competitions, and some pro skaters earn multimillion-dollar endorsement deals, such as 21-year-old Rastafarian Nyjah Huston, who signed a rumoured $20- million multi-year contract with Nike in 2015 to add to his annual prize money of more than a million dollars. And, this past August, the International Olympic Committee announced that skateboard- ing would become an o¤cial sport at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Even so, in this mainstream new world—where the punks of the 1980s are driving BMWs and diversifying their investment por tfolios—Ducommun still cuts an iconoclastic ˆgure despite his advancing years. He calls everyone "Dude," doesn't wear a watch and hasn't driven in a car in two decades—prefer- ring to ride his skateboard and play with his toys (he collects Japanese robots and old bikes). Unconventional also describes Ducommun's approach to business. In a store that serves a signiˆcant number of younger consumers, he doesn't allow the use of cellphones (he ˆnds them dis- tracting), doesn't accept credit cards and doesn't follow a business plan with pro- jected sales ˆgures. "The plus side of not having a busi- ness plan is that no matter what happens, you're always on schedule," he says with a grin. Although it may not be ideal for the bottom line, Ducommun is also known to walk away from lucrative deals because of ethical concerns. He cites a recent spon- sorship deal with a major motorcycle manufacturer that Skull Skates rejected: "We decided that we didn't want our brand to be associated with big, loud, fuel- guzzling combustible engines." To remain relevant in the world of ollies, nose grinds and bitchslaps, a brand must possess "street cred"—an elusive quality that is achieved by being cool without trying too hard. "Skull Skates has always had street cred, because PD understands skateboard culture," duCOmmun has managEd TO CREaTE ThE impREssiOn ThaT By Buying skull skaTEs' gEaR, CusTOmERs aRE jOining a sECRET sOCiETy. TO aChiEvE This, hE mainTains sTRiCT COnTROl OvER whiCh TypE Of sTOREs CaRRy his BRand

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