In 2002, two old friends from the Midwest, found themselves living in Portland Oregon, looking for something to believe in. After brainstorming, Steve Grover and Randy Kilwag initially wanted to start a skateshop. They both thought competing with Cal Skate was a bad idea, so they scoped out locations in the town with the closest (good) skatepark – Newberg, Oregon, some 40 minutes outside of Portland. After meeting with realtors and looking at several spaces for rent, they found one they liked near the skatepark. After some soul-searching they eventually decided to pull the trigger. Fortunately for them, the space had already been rented out to gun shop while they were hemming and hawing. Ironically, a skateshop would one day open in the same spot, and would eventually go out of business. They scratched their heads until they realized there was a slightly less risky way to fail in the skateboard industry, starting a skateboard company. Still, they hemmed and hawed. Then in December of 2002, despair set in after the death of Joe Strummer, prompting them to throw caution to the wind and go for it. With an additional ill-advised cash injection from our friend Neil McDougall, Cold War Skateboards was born.
The takeaway here is anyone can do it. It won’t be easy and probably not profitable, but it’s definitely not impossible.
That’s Mark Conahan in the picture at the top, circa 2012. Who took that photo? Maybe Rich Burton at Earth Patrol Media, I’m not sure. As soon as I remember I’ll update. Update: I found an old micro-zine where it is credited to Steve Grover!
Stay tuned for more bulletins from the past.
