Quiksilver snow team.

After we first spoke on Wednesday about these persisting rumours around Quiksilver and the denials published by certain athletes on the team, communication finally came yesterday from the men in charge, long time CEO and Executive Chairman Bob McKnight, and new CEO Andy Mooney:

Focus is a recurring theme that Bob and I see for the company for the foreseeable future. Focus on our key brands, focus on our key athletes, focus on key categories.

In a long and detailed article, Shop-Eat-Surf website clarifies the matter: in fact, the rumours have been so persistent and spread so wide that the two bosses had to speak out and maybe let some of their strategy go along the way. Nevertheless it’s a good news for Quiksilver, their athletes and probably the whole suffering industry, that many of those cuts were, apparently, just rumours, or misinterpretations. “While the company is narrowing its athlete rosters in hopes of significantly elevating the profiles of the athletes it is retaining, it is not abandoning the strategy of athlete sponsorship,” says the duo. Actually the cuts effectively concerns more the surf team, but with a total of 180 paid surfers, Quiksilver is still one of the big sponsors out there. In snow, it has 93 athletes paid on Quiksilver, Roxy and DC, and this is not including the riders sponsored solely by Mervin (Lib Tech and Gnu). And Mooney adds: “What we are doing is narrowing our focus. We have tremendous athletes and they should be household names beyond the core universe and they aren’t because nobody in the industry has the money to activate them. It’s not that I am trying to save money and put it in my back pocket. I plan to reallocate the money and to spend more money on the athletes we have.”

“Narrowing the focus” is always a clever way to put things out in a time of crisis that the whole industry has been suffering from for a few years, especially in the US. But let’s face it: most of the companies out there had to take these kind of measures, and it happens to be not only strategic most of the time, maybe unfortunately! The other argument toward reducing a pro team of riders is to be able to be more reactive when a newcomer pops up with the potential to be a future star, and more generally sign more up-and-coming athletes. Basically, Mooney points out strategic decisions that have been taken by most major brands of the industry in the last couple of years – one of the most shocking being Burton’s decision to simply shut down Forum and its sister brands. But in this time of crisis, what could be unacceptable becomes acceptable in the eye of our (reduced) core public opinion.

But when you announce cuts – although not as dramatic as spread all over the web for the last couple of days – you have to dig up a bit of your global strategy to give your interlocutor a bit of long term vision. That’s how Bob and Andy go deeper talking about the future of those teams and brands. Refocus being the main word here, it seems the two men don’t believe much in a Quiksilver and Roxy skate team, as well as a DC surf team, which in both cases “are not core competencies”. So in between the lines, we can assume that the snow teams of Quiksilver, Roxy and DC should stay pretty much as they are, minus the adjustments that could be made here and there, but without a strategy to cut those teams out.

Further to these clarifications, Andy Mooney also speak about the future of DC women: “It was also wrongly reported this week that DC is exiting women all together. DC will retain its key items business in both footwear and apparel for females”. It also clarifies what is happening with  Quiksilver Women and Quiksilver Girls: shut down. “After analyzing the situation, the feeling was that the QSW and Quiksilver Girls product was cannibalizing sales from both Roxy and Quiksilver Men” said Andy. Finally, Kelly Slater’s project VSTR is also being shut down, and Summer Teeth goes back to its originator, Dane Reynolds, who owns it.

All in all, a certain amount of restructuring are in the forecast, just like most companies in this world today, but there appears to be no messing with the snow team for the moment – and another good reason not to follow all the rumors on the web in search of sensational headlines…

Quiksilver Europe office in Saint Jean de Luz.

To be complete on the matter, here’s the memo that Andy Mooney sent to all the employees:

“I thought it would be helpful to share a few details about recent decisions made, the rationale behind them and the process involved.

I spent my first two weeks on the job with Bob, Charlie and Carol meeting Pierre and his team in Europe, Greg in Japan and Australia as well as Craig and the QAS team in Hong Kong.

Those two weeks were an invaluable learning experience, listening to the challenges and opportunities in each region.

After that I spent a a number of weeks with Rob and the US team.

After 10 weeks of meetings, capped off with a week long executive team meeting in Huntington Beach, Bob, I and the entire management team reached consensus on some key decisions we can communicate today.

Focus is a recurring theme you’ll hear going forward. We must focus on our key brands, key athletes and key categories in order to compete and grow.

Our key brands are Quiksilver, Roxy and DC. Within these brands we must further focus.
To that end, we have made the decision that Quiksilver and Roxy should exit the skate category and that DC should exit the surf category.

Those decisions were relatively easy to make and require little explanation.

A more difficult decision was for Quiksilver to exit women’s. We felt this was vital in order to focus our resources on making Quiksilver in men’s and Roxy in women’s as strong as they can possibly be.

The VSTR line inspired by Kelly Slater is shutting down
The Quiksilver’s women’s and girl’s teams have done an outstanding job generating top line growth.

Some of this growth however has come at the expense of existing business, particularly within our own retail stores.

In order to generate significant future growth, it seemed inevitable that we’d cannibalize Roxy’s business in key categories.

This was a particularly difficult decision as many people have given their all to make Quiksilver women’s a success.

We believe this decision however will allow us to compete more aggressively in men’s with Quiksilver and in women’s with Roxy.

A few web articles over the last few days stated DC was exiting women’s. This is absolutely untrue.

DC will remain in women’s in footwear and apparel. We have always been strong in key items in women’s footwear and apparel at DC and expect to be even more so going forward.

We have made the decision to discontinue VSTR and to pass the management of the Summer Teeth brand back to Dane Reynolds, again, in order to focus on our key brands.

Athletes are vital to the success of Quiksilver, Roxy and DC. We have an amazing roster of talent at the top of their respective sports in surf, snow and skate and an equally amazing depth of talent. We’re committed to maintaining our leadership position in athlete endorsement in action sports.

Our key athletes should be household names, known well beyond the universe of core fans.

Over the last few weeks, we reduced the number of athletes under contract. This was done to free up resources to tell the world about the many great athletes we work with.

Quiksilver for example will continue to have 130 pro surf riders on its team, Going forward, we have the opportunity to tell people how great those athletes really are.

All of these actions are in support of our three strategic goals of strengthening our brands, growing sales and driving operational efficiency.

I hope this puts these recent decisions in some context. We have a great many details to work out and will have more news to share with you in the coming weeks.

I will do my utmost to keep you informed every step of the way.”

Andy

Saari does geometry.

 [All portraits: Tim Zimmerman.]

Snowboarding often remembers and praises its action heroes – the riders – but it’s altogether rarer that the guys behind the great machine that is the snowboard industry get a look in. Pete Saari is one of these ‘Deus Ex Machina’, cofounder of one of the most prominent and innovative snowboard factories in history: Mervin Manufacturing. Mervin have been producing boards for over two decades: starting with Lib Tech, Gnu, and Bent Metal bindings, they’ve expanded to also make Roxy’s boards, some outerwear as well as a skateboards and even a their own surfboards – or as they call them , ‘waterboards’ – now. For this latest Tech Heads, we sat down with Pete to get into the brain and veins of the iconic snowboard factory from Washington State.

You are currently VP of marketing at Mervin if I’m right, but I guess it’s a lot more than this considering you’re one of the founders, together with Mike Olson, so what exactly are you involved with in the company today?

My current title is VP of Creativity. I end up doing a lot of different things and work with Ryan Hollis, Dan McNamara and the management team to help with general direction. One of my primary responsibilities is to work with Steven Cobb our CAD master on our snowboard lines and geometries. We work with riders and experiment with new shapes, bottom contours, etc. Steven and I ride every new shape or tweak we make to see how they go and fit into our program. Mike Olson gets involved with this too but, these days he is pretty wrapped up in surf. I also work with our graphic design/marketing department to sort out the board graphics, print material, ads, etc. for everything we do; surf, skate, snow.

What do you deal with on a daily basis?

Day to day I answer e-mails, try to do as much cool stuff as possible, write some words, look at pretty pictures and art and attend the Endless Meeting.

Can you tell us about the origins of Mervin, and the genesis of the brands that compose it?

The Mervin phase of our deal started in the late 80′s. Mike Olson started with “Delbert Pumpernickle Gravity Harness No Guarantee” snowboards, then it morphed into Gnu snowboards around 1984, about the time I started building boards in the horse barn with him. Mervin Winston Leslie III was our surfer friend (at that time there were almost no surfers where we live in Washington State). He was the first of us to fall for a girl and get married. Everyone else called him Win but we liked the sound of Mervin, so when we needed a company name for our factory we named it after him.

We needed a new name because our distributor decided not to pay what they owed us and start the brand Nitro instead… but that is another story. We were bummed, owed the bank a lot of money, so we decided to start Liberace Technologies (Lib Tech) and make and sell every board ourselves again. We put hesh skeleton graphics on every board at a time when hesh graphics were completely dead in skateboarding. We sold to one shop per town and sponsored Matt Cummins and Jamie Lynn.

A year later we got Gnu back from the lawyers and money grubbers when they realized Gnu wasn’t worth much if you didn’t want to work hard, so we ended up with two brands. We tried to make Gnu the price point brand, but nobody wanted cheap boards from us so we have been having an internal technology race between the brands ever since.

Quik bought us in the late 90’s, and at some point we thought it might be cool to build some Roxy snowboards so that got started, and we have been working on those boards for over a decade as well…It has been good… Kjersti [Buaas] and Erin Comstock challenged us to build them exactly what they wanted in a board, and Torah [Bright] is an incredible rider who always has great input and a big smile.

Some Lib Tech oldies but goodies.

You guys introduced a lot of industry premieres when it comes to technology: metal edges, metal heel cups, Magne-Traction, Banana, and much more. Do you remember them all? And how they came to reality?

I remember metal edges because it was more than adding metal edges, it was the removal of fins… Actually we were probably not the first to do metal edges or finless (snowboarding evolved in a bunch of places around the world at the same time). But we were on the forefront of finless as snowboarding transitioned from being powder only backcountry to resort chair lift acceptance. When we left the backcountry suddenly we had to deal with ice, moguls, hardpack, etc., so there was some work to be done getting the geometries right. We borrowed technology/geometries from skiing and blended it with curves from surfing. We really were the first company to push deeper carving sidecuts which allowed the boards to have “fin-like hold” when you put them on edge. Our sidecuts were much deeper than what was being used on skis at the time. Eventually skiing sorted it out and also went to the deeper sidecuts in their Parabolic shape ski revolution.

Let’s take MagneTraction for example: could you go in details and tell us how, with who, why it all started?

Magne-Traction the story can be told multiple ways, I am going to tell it this way this time… Mike Olson is a surfboard shaper so wings, bumps and reverse curves on the rail of a board are nothing new in the surf world. Mike Olson always used to ride a 200cm Dough Boy Shredder snowboard. The board worked great with the length, it really bent into a carving arc well, and floated in powder, so much tip and tail that even a wide stance on that board is relatively narrow. Mike’s frustration with the board was that with the sidecut he wanted it had to be too narrow at the waist to for his size 12.5 boots. He always talked about doing a board with three sidecuts; one that went to the front foot, one that was between the feet and one from the back foot to the back contact. We all kind of laughed at the idea and didn’t ever have time to build it.

At the same time Mervin is a freestyle company, but once a year for about two or three months we become a race board company because of the Mt. Baker Banked Slalom… (it’s a good exercise that usually results in some sort of design progress). At the time Temple Cummins had never won the event and was pretty hell bent on sorting it out… he was loving his board’s toe side but felt there was something we could do to improve heelside turns. We all felt like snowboards worked pretty well, but surfboard and skateboards seemed to work better in their worlds. We always felt like the “dead un-pressurable area” between the feet was a snowboard design flaw acquired when ski cambers intended for one pressure point were applied to snowboardings sideways stance with two pressure (feet) points inputing control into the board.

I don’t remember the year right (95ish?) now but, all this was stacking up and we were working on boards for the next year and Mike put the challenge to Steven Cobb (who was then our new CAD guy) to draw up a reverse curve design that would have two extra wide points at the toes to experiment with accommodate bigger feet. Mike thought the high points at the toes would work like little hockey blades (he likes hockey). Steven sat on the idea for a few weeks thinking it would be difficult to make it actually work and then in some late night french fry induced epiphany drew up a serrated edge that ran from tip to tail and presented it to me as a concept he wanted to try. The serrations were all equal sized and it looked a bit strange but I okayed the project thinking it was a bit wack but maybe something might come of it. I gave it some thought and realized that if we toned down the bumps in front of the font foot and had the bigger teeth between the feet we would be solving one of the design problems and bring focus and control to the formerly dead zone between your feet. Steven tested the original stick and loved it and agreed that we need to tone down the outside teeth. We then built about five boards with the new 7 bump Magne-Traction featuring three bumps between the feet that were larger and more aggressive and smaller bumps outside the feet to the contact and got our in house crew together for a weekend test at Mt. Baker… the rest is history.

Well almost… it took a few years to convince people that it really worked. We loved it and knew it made significant difference and was a design improvement but it looked weird and it was change. We started to get competitive results with it with Danny Kass and then a couple years later when Travis Rice got on it he loved it that really pushed it forward as an accepted design. Basically it happened because we are an oversized prototype shop and if we get ideas we are set up to just build them no matter how strange they might look. That ability to actually build your dream boards gets everyone in the shop and all our team riders fired up and thinking so we always have way more board design ideas than we actually have time to build.

Gnu range 2013/14.

In general, would you say that innovation comes first from R&D ideas, or from the input/demands of the riders?

We do a lot of our initial R&D internally (Steven, Mike, Hendo, Pos and myself) so we have a solid base line on what we are making and the feels/performances each board has. Our internal crew thinks about board design 24 / 7 so we come up with some things. At the same time we also have riders who live in the NW (near the factory) like, Jamie Lynn, Matt Cummins, Blair Habenicht, Temple, Barrett that work very closely with the design crew and always seem to have some sort of tweak or new board in the works. Travis always has something cooking and we are starting to work more with Forest Bailey. Most pros are highly skilled, technical, fit and are looking for a board that is very specific to their size or riding needs or something they want to accomplish. Our internal crew is a bit less skilled, and fit (ha) but, equally technical and we are looking for boards that make snowboarding easier or more fun as well as pushing the high end performance limits. A combination of pro or rider input and our own internal team working together is what gets it done. Banana Tech (rocker between the feet) was one that our internal team worked on initially and then once I rode it and knew it was a go we immediately had Jesse Burtner (freestyle jib monster) and Temple Cummins one of the worlds best carvers on it to get their input…both loved it and we knew we were onto something.

If you’d have to highlight one moment of working for Mervin, what would it be? And what would you say you’re the most proud of so far?

There are a lot of highlights, I feel really lucky to have been a part of some good stuff. I think Mike would agree we are proudest of Banana Tech and Magne-Traction because both were significant improvements in snowboard design and made snowboarding easier and more fun for everyone from first timers to pros. There are a lot of other things that made or make me happy along the way…mostly relationships with incredible people that worked with us or still work with us. The riders are always inspiring some obvious ones are: Jamie Lynn, Travis, Danny Kass, Amy Howat, Barrett Christy, Temp and Matt Cummins… it could go on. Forest Bailey, Jesse Burtner, Zach Leach etc. Math Crepel, Jacob Wilhelmson, Hampus, Jasper Sanders, Martin Cernic, Markku, etc. Tommy Brunner, Jamie Pierre, Scott Stamnes, David Bowers were all greats at what they did and have now passed on but, it was a gift to get some time with them. It really feels like the highlights are the little moments with a stupid board of some sort out in nature with friends and family trying to have fun and working out design things or ideas at the same time. I really have been enjoying snowboarding lately… love riding with my 13 yr old son Paavo and his friends or any inspiring riders, feeling their stoke or challenges and absorbing what they are doing with their boards and bodies.

Pete at work.

Jamie Lynn has been a long time rider and graphics contributor. How did it all start with him as a rider, and as an artist?

Jamie was a hesh skater kid from Auburn, Washington. He was introduced to us by Paul Ferrel who rode and worked with us in the 80’s and now runs our binding program these days. Jamie started out riding with a pack of 3 friends in what they called the FGHC Ford Grenada Hardcore as kind of a joke… Craig, Ranquet and the MBHC were not adding any new members and these guys had to fight for respect with the established Baker crew. They had a Grenada and I don’t think they had drivers licenses, or money for lift tickets but, they were on it. All of them ended up working or riding for us at one time – Apostolos Karabotsos “Pos” is still here and he builds all the custom tooling and boards for team and general prototypes or new tooling. The FGHC crew all ripped and in ridiculously close formation at wide open speeds and Jamie started to stand out by going bigger than the rest and landing almost everything. All of them have insane methods to this day. Jamie had a raw fast powerful skate style and was an artist from the beginning. We still have his high school art project painting hanging in our shop, it is a giant painting of a surfer on a purple wave. He started out riding the Litigator and Matt Cummins model and then when he blew up, it was time to build him his own model. He always did his own art or collaborated with artists he liked. Over the years he has continued to develop as an artist, person and rider and is still going stronger than ever. The year after this one will be the 20th year he has had a pro model with us. Jamie has his own style and look which is what really defines an artist. Where ever his art is always looks better because of it. I get a method and front three clinic from him and Pos every year but, I still need work.

The Roxy boards range 2013/14, as seen on ISPO 13.

Mervin always have had, and still today, a strong image of core, tech, snowboard company. Probably the most identifiable to all the snowboarders out there. What is the secret? And how do you manage to always keep in touch with the needs and aspirations of today’s snowboarding?

I don’t think there is any secret we just try and do what feels right. We have always been surfers, skateboarders and snowboarders and built our own equipment. These days we have a big shop that is like a candy store, we have the tools and materials to do whatever we want, so it feels like we need to take advantage of that as much as possible. I think Mike and I never felt like we got enough surfing, skating or snowboarding time so we are as hungry as ever to get out and ride and play with equipment. Over the years we have been lucky enough to attract some really great people to Mervin and that helps keep it fun and keep us on point. Quiksilver has been incredibly good to us, they keep us accountable of course but, in many ways they also let us be completely independent and free to do what we think will work. The best way to keep in touch with where snowboarding is to going is to participate in it as much as possible, ride with good riders, wear tight pants, and if all else fails work harder than anyone else is willing too.

Can you give us a few hints on what the R&D department is working on at the moment? 

We always seem to have more ideas than we have time to build. We have been working on fine tuning a new C2 variation that is called XC2 and the C3 camber dominant Banana tech…both those have been keeping the aggressive full tip to tail railing freeride/freestyle crew stoked. Mike is really wrapped up in the Lib Tech Waterboards surf project and there are a bunch of interesting materials and processes that will also apply to snowboarding spinning out of that world. The snow has been pretty good for the past month here so our R&D department is really into riding pow… we have been building a bunch of different twin pow shapes. Travis has one called the Speedodeeps that’s really fun.

Olson and Saari on the cover of SBC Business Winter 2013 issue.

 Find out all the latest innovations info from Mervin with some very explanatory videos right here.

To read the previous Tech Heads articles: Burton’s Greg Dacyshyn and CAPiTA’s Ephraim Chui.

Although Mervin always kept it original ‘human size’, the different brands under the Mervin umbrella have been making a lot of noise through the years with its two innovative snowboard brands sharing the same technology – Gnu and Lib Tech – and its binding brand, Bent Metal. This original snowboard company based in the North West of the US have seen many world class riders help them develop their products, from Jamie Lynn to Travis Rice. Jamie Lynn is and always been ‘Lib Tech’. This is why we decided to take the example of Jamie’s 12/13 model to go through the latest technology that Mervin has been busy with lately. And at the same time you’ll know everthing about Jamie’s board, you will also find out what exactly means ‘Magne-Traction, Banana or C Power…

Lib Tech Jamie Lynn Phoenix Classic Series C3 BTX

LIB TECH – Jamie Lynn Phoenix Classic Series C3 BTX

Ok so here’s the beast. Not only one of the best looking boards that Jamie has drown himself, this is a concentrate of what kind of tech Lib is capable of. As it says on the paper, “Jamie ripped on old ski camber, Jamie rips on banana and C2, and for this season he’s been shredding the latest what-Lib-calls ‘experiMENTAL division project’ known as C3 Banana Camber Jamie “Classic”. What is this mish-mash? “It’s a dominant camber with a submissive banana”, and can’t really be explained in a better way… This board features a trapezoidal camber and rocker between your feet. Trapezoidal camber straightens the camber curve out as it approaches the contact points spreading tip pressure creating a broader tip hook area up and turn initiation you can count on. The Banana rocker between your feet gives killer edge grip at and between your feet in hardpack and ice carving situations, provides float in the pow and catch-free jibbing. The combination of these two concepts results in a really even pressure map, tons of pop, rock solid stability, power carving and one of the best camber board we’ve been lucky enough to ride.

Check all the details and Jamie’s explanative video here.

A little more info about the different technologies squeezed into that bad boy:

C3 CAMBER DOMINANT BANANA (C3 BTX)
As we said, it’s a Camber enhanced with Banana Tech made for “aggressive new traditionalists and 90’s camber studs”, in case you recognize yourself in those categories… Focuses a mild amount of pressure between your feet for carving, edge grip on ice, float in powder and our maximum amount of pressure out to the tip and tails for super power, end-to-end stability, pop and control in critical situations.

MAGNE-TRACTION
Magne-Traction serrated edges is design to cut into the snow like a knife (imagine a bread knife for example) giving you more edge hold and control. Magne-Traction features 7 strategically located and sized bumps along each side of your sidecut. The biggest bumps are at and between your feet where your balance is centered adding maximum control and power where you need it most. The bumps outside your feet are smaller and less aggressive providing tip and tail control but maintaining freestyle freedom.

H-POP CORE
Wood Alloy Core. Experimental new dead tree with the highest compression response ever used in a snowboard. It has half the glue weight and absorbs less resin weight. Another industry first for Lib Tech.

DIRECTIONAL TWIN
Effortless freestyle and freeride geometry. Twin chassis (from contact to contact) but with an ever so slightly longer nose than tail. Floats on powder and blasts thru crud, a Twin with an advantage.

BIO BEANS TOPSHEET
As many others – that we salute here – Lib Tech has grown an eco conscience and try its best to minimize its impact on environment (check this funny shit). One of the solutions brought by Mervin is this new generation topsheet made out of beans, water based inks or wood core made out of fast growing renewable trees.

TNT BASE MATERIAL
Fast and low maintenance dual layered fluoro base material. Wax it or maybe skip a day, no biggie.

TECH RECAP:

• C3 Power Banana / Camber Combo Tech
• Magne-Traction
• Basalt / fiberglass combo
• Bio Beans Topsheet
• H-Pop Core
• Directional Twin Geometries
• TNT Base
• Flex: 5.5 – 6.5 (depending on size)
• Art by Jamie Lynn

Check also the whole shabang on:

Mervin webiste
Lib Tech website
Gnu website
Bent Metal website