Tucker Hall and me getting ready to head north on our first sales trip in December 1991. We didn’t open many accounts that time, but the trip itself provided plenty of memories from the road. Photo: Woolcott Collection CREATIVE SPIRIT All the projects I did at Pepperdine were about Quiksilver—they were public, so I could get all this information about the company. After working at Quiksilver for two years, I had gained so much exposure to the business side of the surf industry. From marketing, to building a brand, problem solving and sales meetings, I soaked it up and loved it. But I wanted to be more creative. Quiksilver was so big by then that a lot of my ideas might not have made a difference, but I wanted to do more stuff for the core customers and team riders. One time I was in Quiksilver cofounder Bob McKnight’s office and a sales manager was there talking about an issue with a retailer. I was sitting in the corner, listening to Bob come up with solutions, and thinking, “I want to make those kinds of decisions.” At that moment I thought I might like to do something on my own, at least in my subconscious. The other thing that was really the springboard to Volcom came from Kelly Slater. Quiksilver had just signed him—he was this young, relatively unknown kid that had all this talent. At Pepperdine, I’d made friends with Jon Freeman, who was making little surf movies— he went on to make the Creatures of Habit snowboard movies, then the Crusty Demons of Dirt motocross movies. I’d already worked on a couple movies with Quiksilver— Gen X and the Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational —and film grabbed me. I figured I could do a Kelly movie super-cheap with Jon, who was in Malibu. I pitched it to my boss Danny Kwock and he gave me the green light. We made Kelly Slater in Black and White with a tiny budget and it ended up being a big success. That was our breakout—it was the first step for all of us in taking our careers to the next level. MEETING TUCKER HALL One day this invoice came across my desk and it was using my Quiksil-ver marketing budget to cover somebody who had grabbed a bunch of product out of the back of the warehouse. I was like, “Wait a minute. I didn’t OK this.” The guy’s name on the invoice was Tucker Hall. Danny said, “He’s a sub-rep in L.A. He works for Willie Morris—we’ll put it on Willie’s budget.” I was like, “That guy’s trying to pinch my deal—I’ve never even met him!” Then at a trade show there was this big Quiksilver dinner—it was pretty loose. The next thing I know this guy jumps up on the table, he’s got his shirt off, yelling something. I looked over at Danny and asked, “Who is that guy?” He said, “I think that’s Tucker Hall.” And I’m like, “That’s the guy that’s been stealing from my budget!” We met, it was minor. “Yeah, yeah, it’s all good, man.” And I’m thinking, “That guy’s cool.” TAHOE VISIONS I was just learning to snowboard, and Jon was in Tahoe filming with Andy Hetzel and his crew. Quiksilver surfers Nathan Fletcher and Mark Gabriel were with him too, so they invited me. Just before I left, I was at a party—it was 1991, and we were in a recession. For the surf and skate industry it was a bad one. I ran into Tucker. He was sitting there by himself. He goes, “I just lost my job. Sales are down—Willie can’t afford me.” RICHARD WOOLCOTT 071
The Snowboarder's Journal frequency 17.4: Page 73
