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Santa Cruz Skateboards, distributed by NHS, is the oldest continuous skateboard company in the world, founded by Richard Novak, Doug Haut, and Jay Shuirman. At the start, it started as a surfboard business but was struggling to stay afloat because the low profit margins. Soon, a friend from a Hawaiian company challenged NHS to make 500 skateboards. With the surplus of fiberglass lying around they decided to use the stocked materials to fulfill and make skateboards.
Their first-ever Santa Cruz skateboard was produced in 1973. The batch of 500 skateboards sold quickly, and from their a demand of many more boards would be created and sold. Now it’s one of the most iconic brand names in skateboarding and would become a staple in the sport.
The Beginning of Santa Cruz Skateboards and the birth of an industry
-As told by Richard Novak, co-founder of NHS/Santa Cruz Skateboards.
"In 1973, my partners Doug Haut, Jay Shuirman and I sold fiberglass raw materials to surfboard shops, boat makers and guys that made fairings for race cars and tomato carriers. We sold this guy a bold of pultruded fiberglass sheet material. He burned us, so we went back and picked it all up from him."
"At the same time, a friend of ours, Jimmy Hoffman, was living in Hawaii, and on a surf trip over there, the McCully Bike Shop people in Honolulu asked us if we could make and sell them some skateboards. We were already making surfboard fins, so it was easy for us to make some skateboard decks from all the leftover fiberglass material. We made 500 skateboards, with loose ball bearings, urethane roller skate wheels and roller skate trucks, and they sold out immediately. We built another 500 boards and they sold out, too. Overnight we were in business."
By Richard Novak