Craig: Hey guys, Craig from Crank and Surf, back for a Crank and Surf podcast. We’ve also got a YouTube video on this one, so something different this time. I’d like to welcome Marc from Victory wetsuits USA, not Japan.

Marc: That’s right. Thanks for having me.

Craig: Absolute pleasure. I reached out because there’s always been this misconception that Victory wetsuits was a Japanese company. Yamamoto Rubber, or something similar to that.

Marc: Well, Yamamoto Rubber was Japan, but it was originally a Japanese company. A Japanese company started it in Japan and they made dive wetsuits which were all glued and blind stitch and then they decided to make surf wetsuits. They made them the same way, glued them and blind stitched and they made them out of Yamamoto rubber, which is real stretchy and really good rubber. And then they started sending those like thinner versions over here. And Greg Wade, my old partner, was their first rep over here. And so he's first started selling them at Robert August Surf Shop. And then they kind of got going from there. But yes, they were glued and blind stitched and they were from Japan.

The Japanese owned it for the first from like 1970, 1980 when they started actual manufacturing up until when Greg and I got involved.

Yeah, I think you remember you telling me that you guys were kind of more like an agent or at first, but you ended up taking it over.

Well, we bought the company when I took it over because they were tired of sending money over to fund accounts receivable. You know, people surf shops don't always pay the bills right away. Sure, I'm sure it's the same in Australia. And especially back then when you have a lot of smaller, younger shops, shops That still exist now are all pretty darn solid. They've been around forever. They've been through it. But yeah, the company was blowing up because the technology, the wetsuits really good and Greg built, you know, probably one of the strongest surf teams of the time with Mark Richards, Michael and Derek Ho, Hans Hedemann, and a whole lot of other guys who were like top guys at Billabong and Quiksilver often rode for us as well because they got a really good wetsuit and we weren't a competitor in terms of apparel.

I remember telling me because we have done a pre-intro so let's just we'll call it that they were supposed to pay the team and you.

Were to pay royalties right so we started paying the team because we didn't want MR and the crew to not get paid it wasn't like we were so rich we could pay them and also pay royalties to Japan and just hope someday they'd pay us back because we knew they weren't. Yeah. They were struggling at that point in Japan. So we actually negotiated with them to take over the brand the victory brand here so that we would not change it to something else which is actually that's why I created our vortex wets suit line which is just a line of glued and blind stitched wetsuits but that was a way to give us an Alternative because if they were going to say no we were like and we kind of made we didn't tell that outright. But we made sure they knew that was an option. So, we had options. And it just made sense honestly because we're driving all the team and the market and

everything. And that's what made them popular back in Japan was we were so strong here and internationally. We had Pierre Gascione over in Victory France and we worked with him and he kind of helped pay guys too. But Japan needed us to do all that. So, we took over the name probably in 85 I mean we took over the company in ' 83. We probably took over the brand name like 85 something like that.

You mind the trademarks and the all the Yes. How big did it get?

Not that big. I trying to think. We were like a million and a half in sales, you know, mostly wetsuits, which is a lot of wetsuits especially back then. And I mean O'Neill, Rip Curl were doing like 4 million, 8 million, 10 million in that range. So they were a fair bit bigger than us. And of course the apparel guys were, you know, even bigger than that. Although back then it was still like 10, 15, 20 million dollar companies. That was right around the time everybody started growing rapidly. Our brand image was right there with O'Neill and Rip Curl. We had some of the best wetsuits and a surf team nearly as strong as theirs, even though we weren't running nearly as many ads. Because those brands had such strong recognition relative to their sales, O'Neill and Rip Curl moved into apparel, and we followed. We licensed the Victory name to two guys who had originally been with OP, and they developed an apparel line for a couple of years. The problem was that when O'Neill and Rip Curl moved into clothing, the apparel brands began moving into wetsuits.

Quiksilver and Billabong started making wetsuits, and then Hurley came along. Suddenly we had seven or eight companies competing for a fairly defined market. Only people who actually surf need wetsuits. That's different from surf apparel, which people were buying everywhere, including Oklahoma.

People in those markets were buying the hoodies and T-shirts, not the wetsuits. That made competition especially difficult from a marketing standpoint. MR and other team riders were told by their clothing sponsors, 'You're riding for us 100% now. You can't ride for Victory anymore.' We lost those riders, along with much of our strong secondary team, including surfers like Peter Mel, because many also rode for Quiksilver or Billabong. It became very tough. And yeah, I told you last time we ran like six months a year in Surfing magazine, one page, which is expensive, three, four grand an issue. All those other companies, like all of them were running double trucks every issue in Surfing and Surfer and Transworld. Yeah, because all that stuff's gone today. But like the magazines was their heyday at that point. You know, they're getting Fat and thick and it got really tough for us to compete. And so we were scrambling, just struggling to stay afloat. And that's when Greg had his fifth kid and decided you need to get a real job. And he went to work for Ed D'Ascoli, who's founded Xcel. And that's because, well, Greg knew Ed really well because Ed worked for Victory Japan for a couple years working running the factory. And Ed was good at operations. He was good at like technical stuff. He understood wetsuits and he was he was so he was good at that. He made good wetsuits at Xcel. He knew what he was doing. We did too. Cuz we were manufacturing. Part of it is just if You're manufacturing something, you're up to your ears in it all the time. And so when Tommy Yamamoto comes over and he shows you new stuff, you're like, "Cool. That we can do titanium line stuff and we can use those for new cool knee pads and we can do this and we can do that and so we were always on the bleeding if not cutting sometimes bleeding edge of technology we're usually driving things and as Greg said two or three months after we come out with something new then we see it in the Surfing magazine another “original” from O’Neill. They were right on our heels, but that's how the industry worked: everybody learned from everybody else. But because we were manufacturing, we were able to really be a leader in technology and innovation.

Craig: Yeah. And I said, as we said before, that a lot of people back then didn't don't realize that companies like say Quiksilver didn't make wetsuits until the 1990s. They were mainly clothing and then wets suit. So it was not unusual to have say Mark Occhilupo riding for Pete but he was also sponsored by Billabong cuz the two were very separate companies that didn't didn't kind of infringe on each other's territory. But in the 1990s that all changed that all changed and now you know the O'Neill and Rip Curl became you know now they and they made the jump to apparel and became a really big deal. So they went from like $10 million on companies to 50 hundred million dollar plus overall sales companies and quick.

Marc: Billabong you know went to I mean some of those guys like half a billion in sales or more Quiksilver taking over Rossignol and getting into the scheme and doing this doing that and did too. Yeah everything got nuts. I think they bought it for 500 million and sold it for like 50 or something for Yeah. But it didn't it was not Bob and I know Bob the Mcnite who founded Quiksilver and yeah those it's tough to make good decisions on everything and you're starting to get into scale and it's like man one little trip and now all of a sudden you're it's tough. Yeah. I was sort of and we scrambled along. We made our missteps too, but we were just at a smaller scale, so it. Didn't bite us to the same tune as if we were, you know, a huge company.

Craig: Yeah. I think you also mentioned before that your technology and the things you put into the wetsuits was copied by the others and you just mentioned that again. But you actually made the wetsuits in the US.

Marc: We did. Yeah. Manufactured here and they were glued and blind stitched for you know until and ours were always glued and blind stitched.

Marc: Well we started flatlocking them when we learned how to do that for OP. They Junior Jensen wanted us to make neoprene rashguardy things and flatlock them. So they're a big account. We said okay well we work on that. So we learned how to flatlock which is the right way to make a rashguard. It's also not a bad way to make a lightweight wetsuit, you know, a short sleeve spring or a even a short sleeve full. Actually, the short sleeve fulls we usually glued and blind stitched, but that was really labor intensive, but it was far better than the way they used to do. It wasn't even flatlock it was overlock, which is how your t-shirts done.

That means you've got two layers of fabric folded over and then a big round of thread, which in your t-shirt's not uncomfortable. It's loose, it's small. But when you've got three or four mil rubber doing that,. It's tearing your body up. Plus, it leaks like a sip. It's not watertight at all. So, water just comes gushing in. So, yeah, we didn't just have slightly better wetsuits than O'Neill rip curl body glove. We had way better wetsuits. So, we were kind of we were that's why we were exploding sales. I mean, everyone was like, "Oh my god, these things are way better." Plus, Yamamoto rubber versus Rubatex. But, yeah, they went offshore.

They found, you know, they taught Sho how to make good rubber and got stuff from Sho and probably seen some Yamamoto. But more importantly, they were able to do glued and blind stitched, added taping, put screen prints all over the place, do whatever. And you know, labor wasn't didn't even matter. And that made it tough for us. We could have kept going. It wasn't like the wetsuits weren't going down in price because they were going offshore. But the amount of money that they were all spending on marketing just wasn't sustainable for us at our

Craig: Yeah, I think you mentioned that in the pre-in that the marketing budgets were just yours was tiny in comparison to some of the girl.

Marc: Yeah, it just seemed pointless to hammer ahead but against the wall. But that being said, Xcel was in the same position we were honestly and they kept making really good wetsuits and they're, you know, even though they're now owned by I don't know who owns now it was Billabong for a while and now it's who knows but yeah I'm not sure probably they're still they're still making wetsuits are still a successful company and. And I think actually less because we did start making flatlock we did we did other kinds of wetsuits that were okay but maybe not the very best and The original tagline for victory was accept nothing less as in like these the best and they were.

I think we lost some of that and we lost some of the public perception of that especially when everybody else could do what we were doing. Yeah. And so it's hard to be way better than everybody else. That being said, I think we probably could have survived if we had stopped spending money on marketing and just made really good wetsuits, which is mostly what Xcel did. And you know, it's worked for them. Yeah, focus grass focus.

Craig: I think he's got money on marketing, but you look at look back at some of the iconic photos and I said, you've got your shot of MR, especially when he's about 11:00 on the surfboard and you've got Victory, big MR logo, the Victory V, and then you've got Mango. Like those shots from the late 80s are iconic. Yeah.

Marc: No, no, and those the big V was great. The manga logo was cool, too. And actually, MR was the one I believe who introduced us to Dom Monroe because he was struggling. And we actually did end up being the lency over here. And I actually went back to Australia and spent a month at Dom's house trying to figure out some way to put financials together that I could convince people back here that like this is worth investing in. And ultimately, we did.

M but again it went for you know just like victory clothing went for a couple years and you get up to scale but if you don't make that leap to the next level you're just spending money because once you're there you got to go to the trade shows you better have a lines you better have a designer you better be putting inventory in and you know selling managers and it's just all a sudden you got this massive machine that sucks up money and it's like No.

Craig: Yeah, it is a machine, isn't it?

Marc: It is. It is. And we're always we were manufacturers, so we also were busy doing, you know, running manufacturing. So, it was hard to put 100% into marketing because we were running manufacturing. So, there's pluses and minuses to making your own stuff. Yeah.

Craig: And I think you said earlier that Greg was the guy that was dealing with the teams. He was kind of out there. Yeah.

Marc: He had put together the team. You were ideas and factory based and like I've I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that and the ideas man. That's how I kind of look Greg was a was very personable.

Marc: He knew the team guys. He you know grown up surfing and I did too in Laguna Beach, but Greg was more competitive surfer in Laguna. We just kind of chilled. But Greg had built that team. Yeah. Including Kim Mearig we talked about. Came and he put that together and then he continued to run the team. I was more involved in operations and production. But in terms of design, it was definitely a joint thing because we kind of, you know, hey, I met up with Tommy and we've got this new rubbers and new stuff, you know, how could we fold that into our wetsuits and make them better technically? And so Greg and I worked together on that and we would both test them.

We'd both put them out there and you test them on surfers as well, but guys you sponsor don't always tell you. They tell you what you want to hear sometimes. Yeah. Not what you So there's nothing like getting out on the water with it yourself and really feeling it like is this working or is this not working. Yeah. So we both did that and that was pretty important and one of the reasons why we were able to Yeah. Come up with a lot of innovations. Yeah. So when you sort of exited the wetsuit market, you went into rashguards and you brought in some new technology.

Craig: Can you tell me about that?, 1 second

Marc: Yes. So we started doing well we were one us and some Alita another small local company the guys who manufacturers we originally were the guys that kind of invented rashguards. They were just you know shirts tight fitting shirts made out of women's swimwear fabric.

It was primarily to protect from rashes against O'Neill Rip Curl body glove overlock wetsuits remember that on brutal so anyhow but by then everybody got into rashguards and everybody learned how to flatlock them and do them right and stuff but we went into private label rashguards and then we continued to do that and that became a bigger and bigger part of our business and then a US mill contacted me with a water resistant fabric and asked if that'd be good for a rashguard and it was loose fitting. It was it was just it was it stretched but not a lot. But I went surfing in it and in the summer and yeah, it was actually warmer because.

It was insulating just enough that you're not getting that full-on windchill from the wind because it's not just the insulation is important and a regular rashguard gives you no insulation. Is actually colder than wearing nothing is anybody who surfs knows you go to Hawaii the trades are blowing you're cold you're not wearing anything you're fine but if you're wearing one of our shirts you're not getting sunburned and you're fine anyhow so that was that became our main thing was KoreDry we called it because of the fibers core stays dry and we went with that and we still are we still make KoreDry and that's actually one of the few rashguards we sell retail on our own site but we've gotten.

Heavily into not only very rashguards but full sublimation which means that you're printing with an ink that turns into a do into a gas and attaches to the substrate underneath. So it's it's 100% digital. You can print anything you want and we because we're making it here we cut the pieces and then we print them and then we sew them together. Right. So you've got the whole shirt. It's all like the WSL, you know, rashguards are made where you've got logos and prints all over the place. That's how you do they pay off after six months. Yeah. And that actually put us into the Brazilian jiu-jitsu market which has become our probably biggest single market now is rashguards and shorts for BJJ.

We also do a lot of dive because they do a lot of dive trips and they want these crazy shirts to have for their dive expedition to So, we do fun trip for them and we still do a lot summer camp, surf camps, some surf shops, and some resorts and actually took over lacrosse company a couple years ago. So, we're even in into team sports. It's all that takes to sublimation technology. So, we've evolved over the years. I have two grown kids in their. 30s that work here, one in operations and one in sales and marketing. Oh, that's cool. That is really cool. So I don't know if I answered the question, but hopefully.

Craig: Now, you also made a another pivot with wetsuits into triathlon.

Marc: We did actually. That's right. We said so was 30 years ago now. Dan Empfield came to us and he I didn't know him from anybody but he said I'm a triathlete and I want to make triathlon wetsuits. I'm like we've done like vests. Is that kind you're looking for like a lightweight? He's like no we don't care about being warm. This isn't about that. This is about how do we go faster and if you're floating higher there's less drag so you go faster. Said, "All right, well, we can make you a thicker wetsuit and we can make it actually two thicknesses." Cuz that's kind of what the Japanese technology originally was is a 32 43., 1 secondBefore that, it was all one thickness from the other guys. Oh, that's right.

So, we made them like five mil bodies and 2 mil arms. And actually I said, "Hey, let's use this Rubatex smooth skins because that will go faster through the water because it's smooth. You know, there's no water retention on the outside. And I made a glued and blind stitched so there's less drag and came up with a quick neck thing that was also didn't. Flush. So we came up with a flap going across and that was new. Like before that people just had a zipper that ended and was just open. So we put a flap over it. Yeah, that was a big deal. Anyhow, he put on a friend of his who's a major triathlete and he came out of the water three, four minutes faster than he ever had before and just the water segment and that just revolutionized triathletes.

Like his phone rang off the hook. We made a bunch of them for him. He actually ended up going to Mexico ultimately after a year or two to get the production done at scale down there. But that was fun because it totally changed that in that sport. So, we've been involved in a few things like that over the years. Yeah.

Craig: Well, when you manufacture, people come to you, there's not that many people who make things out of neoprene and the US. Yeah. Almost anywhere. Yeah. But definitely not in the US where you could actually walk into our factory and sit down with me, hey, if I want to do and I don't do as many as I used to those projects as my son has taught me that no focus. Let's do what we're doing and stop with the project. So we probably I'd probably tell Dan to take a hike if he came in with a project like that in. The same situation not knowing like no we're busy.

Craig: Yeah. Technology and leaders has changed actually got the old front zip and things like that.

Marc: Right. And that was I think I think Ed first came up with that but about the same time you know we saw it or something and yeah we both kind of came with you know like that's a good idea and we kind of came up with our own versions of it. Yeah. Became ubiquitous through the industry. Except then if you're old like us and you can't get your shoulder out of a damn thing. Got to dislocate it. Well, if you're learning, I mean, you know, there it's definitely it's it's not for tourists.

Craig: Oh god, I had to watch a YouTube video of how to get out of one.

Marc: Yeah, actually that's funny. I think it was either Greg or MR with the vest because there's no zipper on the vest. We used to do you just you put your hand stuff it down here and they just flip it over your head. And without that you going like this. You get it halfway over your head and it won't go and you're stuck. Now the right way to do it is down through the armpit. It just pops right off. Yeah.

Craig: And it sort of just I'm starting to think about the zippets like what I used to be in there the sort of a bit of a fashion industry and YKK zippers were a big thing was you know the Yeah.

Marc: YKK always made really good zippers, but they're really expensive. But yeah, if you're deal with a wetsuit, you really, you know, it's it's a big piece of equipment. You don't want that choke point to go bad. Yeah. Where were they from memory? YK is a Japanese company also. All right. Okay. I mean, we get them locally sourced, but they were a Japanese company, and I think they made some here and some there. I'm not sure. Yeah.

Craig: And you did do a trip to Australia back in the day on your world tour.

Marc: I did before I was even close didn't even before I even heard about Victory. I my brother and I went around the world. I was gone 14 months. We both were we worked for my parents newspaper and we all right saved up three four grand and was like okay we'll do this. Bought a economy ticket to Australia with stopovers in Hawaii and Fiji and New Zealand and with an economy ticket back then at least you could change your flight times and you just go yeah okay I'm here for a month time to go actually we spent month in Hawaii month in Fiji and five months in New Zealand and then went to Australia for three or four months and landed in the Gold Coast went all the way to Mai went out to the Barrier Reef.

Actually us, my brother and I, we had a Californian who was running who was living there and he ran the local boat that took people out to the reef and so he took us his crew. So the three of us Californians took about 20 Australian fishermen out to the reef and it's funny. He had us cook the meal and it was like I think a leg of lamb or something. Says, you know, just put it in till bring out when it's like perfect and put it in for another half an hour. Like, that's great. Like, all right. But another word of advice is if you're out spear fishing and the sharks come, they always will, just keep your back to the reef and you'll be fine. And we did that.

And we were like quarter mile from the boat and we heard them yelling because there's like a 10 foot hammerhead pulling all their fish off the lines. We're like, "All right, we got a little dy." We jumped back in the dinghy and paddled back. You spent some time enjoyed that trip. We Excuse me.

Craig: You spent some time with Shaun Tomson on that trip as well.

Marc: We did. So, we bought a combi van like the day after we got there. And then we drove it all the way up to Mai and then all the way back down to Sydney with a few a month or so in the Gold Coast each time because just. The surf was great, the water's warm, it was really good. But got down to Sydney and someone had told us to talk to the gal who ran the surfing the surf shop in Manly and so guy was really nice. She put my brother and I up.

I don't know if she charged us anything, but anyhow, so we were staying there and then about a week after you guys have to, 1 secondmove down to the other lower thing because I got Shaun Tomson coming here and he stays with us and every time he comes for the Coke and that would end up being really cool cuz Shaun actually took us down to the where he was warming up and I think I told you it was like two or three foot surf. I could barely stand it and he's just shredding it. I was like, "Oh my god, I suck.. I had no idea the pros could be this good." And he ended up finishing second there to Simon Anderson. That was when Simon had his first win on a Thruster, which was when a Thruster was really introduced into mainstream surfing.

Craig: Yeah, it would have been an interesting time. Yeah, it was. It was the and then later I did meet Shaun like a year or two later at a trade show with Victory and he's like oh yeah that was cool. Yeah. And then Shaun obviously went on to start Instinct and then his cousin Michael was a big player in the industry with Gotcha. Yes. The US. And I the Gotcha was the was owned or run by or when we were involved with rashguards a company that did Gotcha, MCD, Lost a couple other things. These guys just, you know, took in brands and they did a good job. I can't remember the name of the guys who did that or even the main company, but we made rashguards for most of them. Yeah. So, I did bounce into you know, Michael a few times. Don't hardly remember.

The and Joel and a bunch of the other sort of South African mafia guys. We had two or three of those guys. Pierre Tusty and a couple other guys wrote for us. Back then, like I said,. We made wets over the years almost like everybody. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Sounds like it. Yeah, we even made stuff once for Garrett McNamara. He made him wetsuits, but he wanted to do also like all this, 1 secondlike heavy foam and this and that. So that you know it's when he started doing the towing surfing and stuff and Oh, right. Yeah, that was a project. Eric Gerick's a character. He's a good guy. Yeah, big balls.

Craig: Yeah, I think a lot of people give like a lot of Australian companies credit for innovation, but it seems like that Californian hub was really innovator in its own.

Marc: And I think because we were manu again, we were manufacturing and we had everything going on here, you could just do you can do more stuff, you know, if there was, you know, 15 20 minutes away is two or three different places that sold foam. So I could go, okay, let's all right, G, let's go down and look at this one inch foam and one and a half inch foam and thicker dent, you know, how Yeah, you wanted to flex, but you also wanted to Yeah. Protect you from the reef. So you got to figure out what's what's the right combination. So that kind of stuff, it's hard to do anywhere else. Yeah. I mean, it's so just right here within LA and Orange County, there's just a ton of resources if you want to develop something. At least it was back then.

This probably still is today, but it's less. There's definitely less manufacturing. Oh, yeah. We're in a manufacturing here in California.

Marc: Yeah, the tariffs come into play these days, too. The tariffs were kind of painful, although they ended up being actually good for us because a lot of the small jiu-jitsu gyms and brands were getting stuff from Pakistan, China, and now they're looking around and they found us. So yeah, we've done a lot of their stuff. I mean, and every gym wants its own branding and its own stuff, and we like that. It's it's fun dealing with small brands, which is a surf shop, a dive shop, a jiu-jitsu gym, you know, they're they're people passionate about what they're doing. They're loving what they're doing, and their customers are., 1 secondloving what they're doing and passionate about it and it's it's fun stuff and it's exciting stuff usually.

So, it's kind of fun being involved with those kinds of things. So, I'm enjoying what we're doing in terms of custom private label for those kinds of companies. Yeah,

Craig: the projects that you do sound like fun, and it looks like you really enjoy them. Yeah, it's it's good. And we developed a good team here. The yeah, we actually including now I've outsourced I have two graphic artists in the Philippines and a couple of admin assistants over there. So, that helps. But the basic manufacturing is all done right here. But we, like you said, we got a good team that works all the way around to make things go through.

Craig: Amazing to have to still have that manufacturing side there. I think it's awesome.

Marc: It is. I've learned we got to do things that are low labor. So, when people want to add zippers, I'm like, you sure? I don't I push back a lot. Yeah. Adds labor. Velcro and buttons. I'm like, no. Like, we make shorts, but Yeah. There's no fly with Velcro. Lose. Yeah. They're simple. They work really well, but they're simple. Yeah. I know.

Craig: When I was researching, first out of research, I was going through the Instagram, I'm like, "Okay." Yeah. Like all your new products and then I finally found the MR and I'm like, "Oh, yes, that is the company.

Marc: I need to put more of that on our website." Honestly, it's just it's one of those other little projects that is I got to do. But at least we're able to add it on Instagram pretty easily. Just adding in some of the photos that we could find on the internet. Yeah. Like for me being that kind of surf nerd really and historian, I liked seeing a lot of the old photos, but

Craig: I'd also like to see some of the manufacturing side and the, you know, the mill cutting and stuff like that. The

Marc: we actually do have a factory tour video, but Oh, really? Okay. I don't want to play that for you. It's a couple minutes long.

Craig: Oh, I could probably find that if it's online., 1 secondThe

Marc: it is. It is the victory factory tour video. I'll send you a link to it. Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Craig: But yeah, it's like so you the main message is that Victory is still around even though it doesn't make that core product anymore. Victory still around. Like it hasn't gone away. It's not owned by LLC. Cool stuff. Yeah. So many of these companies now the family have sold them and you know LLC's own them or investment companies and things like that own brands. It's so refreshing to see that you still have victory.

Marc: Yeah. No. And it's still it's just me and my kids. My father and sort of three generations. My father passed away about five, six, seven years ago, but he was involved. I mean he was helping finance things but also he had run manufacturing compan. So that was one of the reasons why he and I were looking together to something I could get into that would be something that he was also passionate about. So the he used to come up when we do our we'd have a monthly marketing meeting with PT surfing but then he became our sales consultant for five six seven years. And yeah he so my mom and dad would come up and we'd you know PT would like this is what we're planning for this month. Yeah, we do it. It was good.

And he kind of got involved with surfing in China as well. PT That's right. We talked about that. The he was managing the or coaching the Chinese surf team. Through that he was putting on the silver dragon contest which is when they surf down like five, six, seven miles of some huge river with a big tidle wave like literally tide creates this big wave and we made the rashguards for that for three, four years. And those are cool. It's gone to an events and we've done event rashguards for all kinds of stuff over the years. Did a bunch for the. The stand-up paddling tour like the like wave surfing and stuff. We did all that and we actually did event shirts for like Battle of the Paddle. Then we actually created our own event surf race to victory.

And that was actually the very first SUP-cross race. Before that they would just go out and they like the battle of the paddle. It's exciting but realistically they're going around like a two or three mile course and they go around it like five times and then they come back in. With our SUP-cross that started the surf horn goes off seven or eight guys blast off through the surf, go out around a buoy just offshore, come back in around a little stick in the sand or flag in the sand. Go back out around a different buoy then come in. Takes like. 10 minutes and they're they're on these big 14 foot SUP race boards and they're trying to bring them in out of the surf which they're not designed for.

So it' just be just gasard steroids just guys going everywhere to paddle totally as well. It was cool. Say that again. Oh, you'd be totally gassed. Like you'd be your lungs would be coming. Oh, it's it's a sprint, you know. It's not like a cruise. It's like 10 minutes of sprinting and gliding and going around things and doing stuff and then as soon as the last guy comes in, a horn goes off and the other eight guys do the next thing. You just It's heat driven. Yeah. The same as motocross. The guy who's running the race for me, he came up with the idea like, you know, ever seen motocross? Like, yeah. Well, let's do it like that. Yeah. Where heats and then you, you know, the top two guys go through and the other guys go to reparrage and then Yeah.

You know, over two, three hours, you put the, you know, the whole thing's done. But it's super exciting start to finish. Yeah. Now you got, you got snowboarders doing it in the in the Olympics. Yeah. I'm

Craig: I'm involved in ice hockey. So, you see some of the Red Bull racing where they actually race a course on ice skates on hockey skates.

Marc: I have not seen that. So they're doing it like a c like a like a motocross, but it's more has to be more downhill. Yeah. But it but it's heat driven as opposed to time. You're not going out and spinning around for two hours and coming back. It's like No, it's a it's a short course and it's it's fun. Yeah. No, so it's just I'm sure there's lots of collisions, lots of jock. Yeah. Absolutely fun to watch. Yeah. I re

Craig: I reached out to Mark Richards yesterday and I'll I'll read you what he wrote just to get your thoughts, but I asked him, he just said it's it's victory is one of those classic surf industry success stories. Two guys with an idea to make a better product and they did make really good suits. Quite a few exclamation marks. As far as I know, Mark is still making them or making products from neoprene. I may be wrong, but he and Greg were both super nice people. Very easy to very easy to be involved with. Great memories from me. So that's a from a humble very humble man like that. That's quite a wrap for you. Angry. Yeah.

Marc: No, Mark chooses his words carefully. He doesn't suck a lot. So that is that is really He does not. Yeah. Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate the words. Yeah. Yes. It's coming from He doesn't say a lot. And I've I've had a little sort of interviews with him before and yeah, he's like, "Oh, we have. To talk about surfboard design. It's not that interesting." And I'm like, "Yeah, but for me it's fascinating cuz I make surfboards." So I like design. So for him to actually say those words was but I think really impressive and says a lot about you and you and Greg. Thank you. Yeah. No, and I appreciate you reaching out to him and sharing that. That's cool. Yeah.

So, do you keep up with the you know the developments the in wets suit technology or do you just sort of like watch from the sidelines?

Marc: I watch from the sidelines. I don't play I'm always surprised when I do go into the surf shop and I look and I'm like nothing's really changed that much since like 20 years ago or 25 years ago when I was doing probably 30 years ago now. Like I mean it's still this that technology the knee pads that we developed back then you know the stretchy rubbers glued and blind stitched like it's all the same. There has been some developments and some stuff but and that happens in any market where you know things develop and at some point it the curve flattens. But definitely the curve was going like this when we were there and then it kind of plateaued off just you know a lot of things.

Craig: Is it probably more materials like you know they say oh this word says Yulex and this one's got graphene and this one's got and there is some of that although Tommy Yamamoto is great at coming up with new ways to describe what he was already doing sound cooler. He's a good marketer. I like it. He was always really good to us. But yes, there are there are some new things and it becomes, you know, maybe not always as visible changes, but like the some of the rubber changes. It's hard to see, but it's there. And yeah, better for the environment, sometimes better for the people working on it. And also I. Think they probably do perform better now than they used to. I mean, the rubber was getting stretchier, but it's gotten even more stretchy, for sure.

Oh, definitely. I know the I use I get mine from a company called Neat Essentials, and they're they're only a small company. They don't sell through shops, but their gear is it's very you don't get rashes. It's very soft linings and Right. But they're incredibly warm. Yeah. No, the technology's been good. Yeah.

Craig: And lastly, I think it's just like I think I asked you this before and it's like what do you believe like your legacy is in the surf industry?

Marc: I think for us our legacy is what I was just talk we were just talking about. Yeah. It was just the all the innovations that we brought to the industry originally because of Japanese company with their technology and then continuing to develop that because we're manufacturing here. We could develop technologies and we could be a lot more nimble. I mean, we could try something and make a batch of 20 or 30 of them and if it was a failure, it was 20 or 30. It wasn't like I just got 300 and like what the hell I do with them now. Yeah. Like a lot of the like the bright wetsuits, that whole Newport Beach scene with all the guys with bright fluets, that was all us.

We made all that stuff cuz we could make a few and you know the general public is oh that's really cool. Look how that fluorescent yellow and pink and stuff and I'll take the black one. Yeah. Is that like the beach? But we can make those small amounts of really wild things for the team guys and for you know the shops would take you know they get a 100 wetsuits and they get 15 or 20 of them in colors and the rest black but it still put us at the edge of not only function but also fashion. Yeah.

Craig: Well, the 80s was a very bright period, especially that late.

Marc: Exactly. Exactly. So, it kind of just went over the whole thing, but yeah, we were part of all that. It was neat. That was just a fun time to be involved in. This industry. Was definitely the 80s were that was the day. I know the kids think it was the day, but the 80s were the day. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Like now you can have any color wets you want as long as it's black. The Henry Ford because and nobody's making them here. Yeah. And to get a bunch of bright colors and develop that offshore is just doesn't make sense. But it made sense for us because we manufacture them here and it wasn't that hard. I think there's one company Jenga or something that's doing custommade colored wetsuits, but they're very bright.

We made a bunch of rashguards for them. Oh, really? Six months ago, yeah. In fact, I talked to I said, "Hey, we can probably" and we heard from him, but I said, "Yeah, we can make so long as they're like not glued and blind-stitched suits, if they're lightweight wetsuits, we can make your bright colors and do all that stuff because we can fully sublimation-print on the neoprene pieces and then sew them together." That's what we're doing for the women's like neoprene swimsuit, long sleeve swimsuit things. They were cool people. They were fun to work with. Yeah, they did like a wakeboard contest or something. So, yeah. Made a bunch of rashguards for them and they were all fully sublimated with lots of colors going on.

So yeah, it's it's fun being involved with guys doing new cool stuff.

Craig: Yeah, I can see that you love talking about it and you can see the smile on your face when you're talking about it and that's that's really cool. Yeah.

Marc: Well, that is what I always enjoyed was sort of the innovation and the developing and taking something from here and taking it from there and putting it together and hopefully magic happens. Well, it sounds like you've done But usually it was good stuff. You've done well at it, I should say, because I said you're still around. Yeah. No, the company's doing well. Yeah, better than ever, honestly.

Craig: And you survived your ski trip to Mammoth.

Marc: I did actually went up with my daughter, who's a good skier. The two of us are pretty evenly matched. I'm still a pretty good. And so we were, it had just gotten over a foot of fresh powder and we spent two days chasing the powder around the mountain. And I guarantee you we got more fra shacks than anybody up there. And it wasn't because we got up early. It's because we don't mind hiking up a few minutes to go ski down the ashoots or going out of bounds where the sign says area boundary and you shouldn't go and it might be let us start running and yeah, that means you go. If you go there, there's there's no you get fresh tracks. Oh, yeah. Yeah, fresh tracks are good. I like I like blazing a trail.

I don't I don't don't like going down regular runs at all. So, you spent the whole time wandering around exploring. I love it and finding it. Yeah, it sounds good. But I said I love that when you talk about victory and the stuff you're doing that you're smiling while you're doing it. So, that's No, life's good. Yeah, doing a lot of good stuff. Sounds like you are too. You're having fun talking to people that are involved in the history of school.

Craig: Yeah, I find that it's Yeah, being a sort of surface historian, I love, you know, as I said, nostalgia is a massive thing as you get older, you look back fondly on the things that you had, the brands that you loved. And then I got to thinking like, what happened to that brand? And then I thought I think it's time I started looking into these brands and trying to track down people. And it's it's been fun for me, too. I'll bet. I'll bet. So, that's good. Yeah. All right. It's been great talking to you again.

Marc: Good talking to you, Craig. And we'll have to stay in touch. I'm looking forward to see the video. Yeah. You know, I'll

Craig: I'll have the video up on YouTube probably on the weekend and then I'll add the audio into the Crank and Surf podcast. Cool. And I'll send Marc a link as well so he can have a listen. Thanks again for your time. Marc: Thanks for having me. Bye.