ART OF BOARD
Here’s a little Spotlight on a small company making an impact on skateboarding that you may not have heard of yet. I put together a small questionnaire and sent it to Rich Moorhead for answers about his company and goals. Read on…
Here’s a little Spotlight on a small company making an impact on skateboarding that you may not have heard of yet. I put together a small questionnaire and sent it to Rich Moorhead for answers about his company and goals. Read on…
Q) When was your company established?
A) Art of Board incorporated in 2007, however I started this insanity in 2004 with a few hat racks, picture frames and mirrors.
Q) Who is the owner of your company?
I am the owner/founder of Art of Board.
Q) How come you started this company?
8 years ago I wanted to open a skate shop to change the corporate path I was on. I grew up skating and saw a need in my area for a local shop….. most kids were buying on line. Surprisingly I met resistance finding a space to rent because of the perceived reputation of “skater kids”. The shop never happened but I reconnected with skateboarding and in the process saw the waste that occurs everyday with broken decks. I hate waste….of any kind, going back to my days in construction where I would reuse scraps on the job site slated for the dumpster.
Q) Where is your company based out of?
Art of Board is based out of Hanover, PA. This may sound strange but actually works well with proximity to a core group of shops in PA, MD and NY. We also have support locations in Pittsburgh PA, Albuquerque NM and Carlsbad CA.
Q) How has your company changed since it was started?
My company had humble beginnings, working regionally with a handful of shops, like PitCrew in Frederick MD, Nocturnal in Philly and Charmcity in Baltimore MD. Now, with the industry’s first ever, nationwide, recycling movement for broken skateboard decks called “i Ride i Recycle”, skaters have a vested interest in supporting the movement. iRiR in return for donated broken decks supports skateboarding through various skateboarding causes like Tony Hawk Foundation, Grind for Life, Johnny Romano/TX Skate Jam, Reid Menzer Memorial Skatepark and others. This movement now recycles for Skatepark of Tampa, City of Lake Forest/Etnies Skatepark and shops like McGill’s- Encinitas CA, Ground Zero- Sacramento CA, West Side- Cleveland OH, Reciprocal NYC, Homebase- Bethlehem PA, OneUp- Pittsburgh PA and tons more.
Q) What products (services) are you offering?
Art of Board creates wall tile and furniture out of broken skateboards for residential and commercial use. AOB obtains the broken decks through “i Ride i Recycle”. iRiR works with shops and parks across the country, retrieving broken decks with no cost or disruption to the shop owner or skater. We do this by mailing prepaid shipping labels to the shop. Using boxes from new skateboard decks, the broken ones are loaded in and handed to UPS when they arrive for deliveries. Off they go to me for an unexpected new life. iRiR also encourages skaters to support their local shops by dropping off broken decks for recycling. The program brings awareness to the local shop presence and away from internet purchasing.
Q) Roughly how many decks do you use for one table?
My coffee table known as the “Vert Table”(because of it’s vert- like magazine tray at the base) eats up about 5 or 6 broken decks….. and countless hours in the process.
Q) How big is the largest project you have made?
The wall tile created from piles of broken decks have the most visual & environmental impact, with an average project eating up 30 broken decks or more. My largest project to date used close to 100 recycled skateboards. That’s pretty cool if you were to picture 100 broken skateboards that would have gone to a landfill, now have a lasting and creative new future.
Q) How tough is it to get recognition for your company?
Being the first at anything is difficult because you’re trying to get people to understand and visualize something they’ve never seen. On the other hand, we’re doing something so unique that when they see what Art of Board does, they’re amazed.
Q) What are your company’s hopes for the future?
We’re very confident that Art of Board/i Ride i Recycle will change the industry of skateboarding and how waste is managed. It’s no easy task to change the mind set of an entire industry but we’re doing it shop by shop, skater by skater….. grass roots style.
Q) Is there any kind of motto your company is based off of?
Our motto is basically that AOB is a collaborative effort. You support our movement “i Ride i Recycle” and we’ll continue to support skateboarding, as I have over the past 5 years. By turning trash into high-design, AOB has created a new avenue to funnel financial support back to the very skaters that support our movement. This didn’t exist before us and I’m proud to say that!
Q) What’s the best part of the experience been?
Meeting the people in the industry that quietly but actively volunteer their time to advance skateboarding and it’s various causes. From the folks at Tony Hawk Foundation, Johnny Romano Skate Jam for Make-a-Wish, to the Reid Menzer Memorial Skatepark and many, many others. They’re all special people that want to give and truly ask nothing in return.
Q) What’s the worst experience been? What’s the funniest experience been?
I try to forget the bad stuff but I guess the worst experience was having a mini-van full of broken decks stacked to the roof in downtown Philly and I realized the door wasn’t shut completely. I thought I could just open the hatch a little(while at a light) and slam it shut so the annoying bell wouldn’t chime for a 2 hour ride home…. I was wrong. I popped the hatch and broken decks pour out with cars behind me laying on the horn. Come to think of it, that was probably the funniest too!
More Info:
artofboard.com
iRideiRecycle.com