story

"When I was a young boy my father had a sports shop—a ski and tennis store—in San Francisco called FTC".

"When I started high school, I asked my father if I could contact the skateboard company to try to buy my own equipment through his store to save money".

"Soon my friends at school started asking me if they could buy skateboards from me. So I started to accommodate them with that and basically started selling skateboards out of the boot of the car".

"I went to Japan for the first time in '92. I was very impressed. Anything that was going on in American skateboarding was going on in Japan at the same time. And then when you add in the Japanese work ethic and the special culture … "

" ... I basically became convinced that I wanted to try to bring FTC to Japan. Not just as a distribution, but really make FTC, in a sense, a part of the Japanese street scene".

"We've done a few projects with Nike before, the 'Finally' Dunk was the first one ... "

"The 'Finally' Dunk was based on our first FTC video. It was 1993 when we came out with our video 'Finally'".

"So the Lunar FC was based on this skate spot called 'Blacklock'. The Blazer High was based on the 'Vaillancourt Fountain' … "

"Which was like a skateboarding hub in the '90s".

"Just to share and spread FTC globally, to do it with like-minded people that appreciate it, that's one of the biggest rewards that I get ... "

" ... as well as the other reward of seeing the success of skaters that we helped along the way at some point. It makes me really happy when I see all of that".

"At some point we supported them, and maybe that support made a little difference in terms of them getting to the next level and then the next level after that".

Talking Shop

FTC