Another manufacturer closing it's doors

A sad story, but I have to wonder, why didn't he get the hell out of Kolyfonia years ago? But hey, we're the "Mommy may I?" nation now, where neurotic women and affected pols set the rules. The tipping point will be here soon enough...

Why not pack up and set up shop over the border?

No point in trying to move the business to Australia, we have the same sort of dick heads in our government agencies as you have. In fact half of them have been trained the US. Also, our parliament here is filled with bloody lawyers, so they pass all these laws to enhance their business when we finally get a bit wiser and throw them out. The only problem is, there are more of them getting elected every 3 years.

Another example of staying in an environment that people on the outside could see was toxic.

My original reference to staying where you know the people and problems was about the poor staying in their neighborhoods and social groups rather than getting out. The same thing is true of business. There are even examples of this in the military where air crews have died because they stayed with the plane when it went down rather than walking out.

At greater depth, the problem seems to be over-concentration of people/industry in an unsuitable area, i.e. the L.A. basin. Relocation of many of these businesses to one of thousands of the shrinking mid-western towns with adequate transportation would seem to be win-win for everyone.

Uncle George

My guess is that they stayed in So Cal because then they are close to the surf industry.

I found it disturbing that a city/county would use environmental regulations to "target" a business like that... but I'm probably fairly naive in this particular matter.

And it's a pleasant place to live if you have a couple of schekels. Better yet if you've got a big pile of them.

The guy was cited twice. Once by the FD and once by CalOSHA/SCAQMD and he fixed what needed to be fixed and that was it. He has also been sued a couple of times on workman's comp issues. The chemicals involved are pretty hazardous. I've worked with them and it is safe to say that over a 20 or 30 year period somebody will likely get hurt with this stuff. It's the risk you take and the reason a business owner carries insurance. Basically, this is a 78 year old crank making a big statement. He couldn't sell his business and get anything for it and he's pissed.

I don't think so. He had an 80% market share in a high end and growing market that is relatively safe from Chinese imports... I believe him.

I agree that he was remiss in not moving to Mexico years ago. My father was the engineer in charge of building a foam plant outside of Mexico City in

1968 for a subsidiary of Arco - those guys read the writing on the wall nearly 40 years ago.

Dad then became the EPA compliance officer for 9 chemical plants in Tulsa. Spending literally millions of dollars to chase changing requirements was no fun for him, and my father was just an employee, not the owner, so had neither liability nor a lifetime commitment...

Of course, this guy was already nicknamed 'Grumpy', so maybe he did have an inappropriate attitude for working with the army of stinging ants that regulatory agencies consist of...

His main competitor is in Santa Clara and they import their boards. In fact, most of the market he doesn't control, about 35 percent and not 20 BTW, is Taiwanese manufactured product.

Absent the Named partner, nobody would care much who made the boards, hence his bussiness was unable to be valued properly. Also, all of the locals, including me, are familiar with the gentleman and he is a PITA whiner. He could have gone to an environmentally friendly state years ago and it would not have cost him a thing. As it is, buying the place might also mean you own a Super Fund site. That is a risk only a fool would take. Like as not, somebody will buy the name and go offshore, leaving the environmental headache behind. That is what he is really peaved about.

Or Ohio, Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana ect....

Exactly. "Grumpy" is the friendliest of the ones I could imagine and I haven't heard anything that pleasant. He also has enough cabbage stored away to do whatever childish thing he chooses to do without suffering any debilitating consequences. He has chosen to address some very real problems in a highly visible way but he is being more than a little disingenuous. That's stupid, just ask your dad, as it will damage his credibility and lessen the impact of what he is trying to do.

According to the posted article, he is nicknamed "Grubby".

Abrasha

According to the Associated Press of yesterday, he controlled 90% of the custom made boards:

"Clark Foam supplied the unshaped blanks for about 90 percent of all custom-made boards purchased worldwide ? and those boards make up nearly three-quarters of the total international market, said Bjorn Deboer of Stewart Surfboards, a major custom-made retailer and designer in San Clemente. The rest of the $200 million U.S. market is comprised of machine-produced boards mostly churned out at factories in Asia and Eastern Europe."

Abrasha

I am finding this whole thing very interesting. Here is a copy of yesterday's Wall St Journal article on this event. Very notable to me is how small the surf industry is - he made 300,000 blanks a year with an 80% share... Hobie Alter has always been one of my heroes - I hadn't previously known of Mr Clark...

I used to work in the photo industry, back when the Hunt brothers attempted to corner the silver market. Hundreds of small businesses were impacted when this happened - now I am thinking about all the surfer dude board shapers out on the streets...

_________________________________________

Wipeout for Key Player in Surfboard Industry

By PETER SANDERS and STEPHANIE KANG Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL December 8, 2005; Page B1

Panic struck beaches from Malibu to Oahu's North Shore this week, but there wasn't a shark fin in sight. Instead, it was the real prospect of a sudden surfboard shortage that roiled the waters of the surf world.

The cause for concern was the sudden shuttering on Monday of the company that is the world's largest supplier of the polyurethane cores found inside most surfboards manufactured today. Clark Foam, of Laguna Niguel, Calif., had been in business since 1961. Until this week, it provided an estimated 80% or more of the cores used to make surfboards in the U.S. and was a major supplier world-wide.

But without warning to its surfboard-maker clients from California to Japan, Clark Foam abruptly padlocked its doors earlier this week. In a seven-page letter faxed to customers Monday, Clark Foam's 72-year-old founder and owner, Gordon "Grubby" Clark, said he was folding his tent because the company is under scrutiny from the Environmental Protection Agency and California state and local agencies for pollution and fire code violations. Those agencies, however, dispute his assertion and in fact say Mr. Clark's company was generally in compliance with laws and regulations. Mr. Clark didn't return calls seeking comment.

Either way, the move quickly sent the surf industry reeling, as manufacturers, retailers and surfers faced the sudden prospect of a severe near-term shortage of the base material, known as blanks, used in the crafting of surfboards. Manufacturers quickly mobilized to secure alternative materials from much smaller facilities as far away as Australia, South Africa, Spain and Brazil.

Clark Foam's wipeout was painful for surfers, as well. Some retail shops, anticipating a shortage, quickly increased the price of a new board by as much as $100. Retail prices of surfboards generally range from about $300 to $900.

"This is total chaos," says Dave Hollander, co-owner and president of Becker Surf, of Torrance, Calif., one of the larger surfboard manufacturers. "The supply [of blanks] we have now is going to be gone in a week, and nobody's getting any for the next six months in California."

The turn of events is testament to the degree to which Mr. Clark has loomed over the industry for more than 40 years. Reclusive and independent, Mr. Clark has a reputation as a pioneer of modern surfing. At a time when most surfboards were made of balsa wood, Mr. Clark, along with legendary surfboard shaper Hobie Alter, created a way to mass-produce foam cores that could then be shaped into a surfboard.

A former chemist and engineer, Mr. Clark and Mr. Alter in 1958 had co-founded a company manufacturing the foam. Three years later, Mr. Clark went off on his own and revolutionized the process of making surfboards. He invented his own machines and processes to make the industry's most desirable foam "blanks."

Industry observers estimate that before it closed, Clark Foam's 100 employees annually manufactured about 300,000 foam moldings. Prices of these blanks ranged from about $45 to $150 depending on the length of the board -- a small fraction of a surfboard's retail price.

Mr. Clark's dominance was such that he periodically sent unsolicited state-of-the-industry reports to his customers, long letters that ran many pages. He used the dispatches to riff on everything from surfing's place in pop culture to competitive threats from foreign manufacturers -- especially those in Asia, a pet concern. According to manufacturers, Mr. Clark was worried that mass-produced boards made by Chinese and Thai competitors would flood the market and make his customers, who hand-shape each board from Clark Foam cores, obsolete.

Now, the fear is that, with Clark Foam out of the picture, the storied handcrafting process will be caught in the undertow. The industry is already hard-pressed, by low profit margins and high labor costs, to maintain its manufacturing customs.

"I've got grown people in tears," said Brian Lindsey, founder of Pro Cam Inc., a surfboard maker in Huntington Beach, Calif. Because of the short supply, his six-person team is currently out of a gig. "We're all standing around," he said. "If the foam stops coming in, we stop working."

The story is much the same at Surf Source Inc., of Atlantic Beach, Fla., a distributor of Clark Foam blanks. Owner Dale Christenson says his

10-employee operation now will focus on selling surfboard-repair kits, given the prospect of hand-crafted boards going by the wayside.

"Gordon's had a diverse, excellent product line, his customer service was great and that's gonna be a very tough act to follow," says Rusty Preisendorfer, founder of Rusty Surfboards, a San Diego manufacturer. "Unfortunately there isn't a real graceful transition for all of us." Mr. Preisendorfer says the company used Clark Foam exclusively in its boards, and he has spent the past few days lining up alternative suppliers. "In general, the consumer public has taken for granted a steady and reliable source of good foam."

The trauma unfolded in an instant this week after Mr. Clark sent a detailed letter to his clients explaining his abrupt exit. Mr. Clark has long used a toxic chemical called Toluene diisocynate, or TDI, which manufacturers say made Clark's foam core light yet sturdy. In the last 20 years, the use of TDI has declined significantly as federal and state agencies have placed increasingly stringent restrictions on its use.

In his letter, Mr. Clark admits his company "emits TDI fumes into the air" and adds that he purchased a $50 million insurance policy to protect himself against liability in the event of a spill. Further, his letter added, "our official safety record as an employer is not very good" and went on to detail workers' compensation claims against the company and a separate claim "made by the widow of an employee who died from cancer."

"For owning and operating Clark Foam I may be looking at very large fines, civil lawsuits, and even time in prison," Mr. Clark said in the letter. He decided to suddenly shutter his business, the letter says, because "the State of California and especially Orange County where Clark Foam is located have made it very clear they no longer want manufacturers like Clark Foam in their area." He added that "there is a very good chance that I will spend a lot of time in courtrooms over the next few years and could go to prison."

But both the Orange County Fire Authority and the EPA disputed Mr. Clark's assertions that they have been targeting him as a violator or for criminal or civil prosecution. Representatives from both agencies said the company has never been fined and has been generally compliant. The EPA says Mr. Clark came into compliance after the agency issued a 2003 notice of violation for several infractions.

People who work with Clark Foam say Mr. Clark in recent years has been more detached from the business. People in the industry guess the closely held company may have booked annual revenue in the $20 million-to-$30 million range and was profitable.

It is clear Mr. Clark got rich on the business. Though long a surfer with homes in Hawaii and Southern California, Mr. Clark in 1993 purchased a

50,000-plus-acre ranch in Oregon, where he now spends much of his time. According to several people who know him well, Mr. Clark operates a working ranch complete with Black Angus cattle and about 3,000 sheep tended by Peruvian shepherds.

With his dispassionate shutdown on Monday, Mr. Clark likely ushered in a new era of surfboard manufacturing. "The only apology I will make to customers and employees is that I should have seen this coming many years sooner and closed years ago in a slower, more predictable manner," he wrote. "I waited far too long, being optimistic rather than realistic."

yes, I read it wrong. There is a famous driver, owner, engine builder in drag racing, Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins - I must have been thinking of him...

The board makers won't be impacted for long. I'll bet you in less time than it takes to shake a stick somebody will step in to fill the gap. What the guy was providing wasn't exactly rocket science after all. The amazing thing about all of this is that the guy had so little regard for his customers. This is an industrial hero? I don't think so, and he was certainly not hounded out of bussiness. He sure managed to cream the people that supported his bussiness over the years though.

I live in San Diego where surfing is kinda a big deal. On any given day there are maybe 200 people surfing on this vey long coast. I live way inland and stopped at a board shop. He musta had 500 boards in there, some used some new. Now my real question is...what wears out on a surfboard? I know the scegs break off and they get dinged up but they seem easy to repair. The surf industry makes way more money off of apparel and sunglasses wetsuits etc. most youger surfers are into skateboards and snowboards. Somebody will be cranking the blanks out in Mexico before the end of the year.

I'll bet it will be Morey. They already have a plant right across the border and Mattel ( they own Morey) has the money to make it happen. I'm not suicidal... er I mean a surfer, so I don't know how they wear out. I've seen a lot of broken boards though.

If you can remember Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins (Grumpy's Toy), you must be as old as me! Now where are those old Hot Rod magazines...

On Fri, 9 Dec 2005 17:00:35 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net (daniel peterman) quickly quoth:

Right, but skegs are replaceable. UV light yellows the glass resins, dings crack it so water seeps in and causes separation, boards are cracked in half when they're taken through the whompers, other surfers break them in half when you surf their territory (just like the movies), sand wears holes in the glass, etc.

My first board (1966, age 13) was an 8'10" Gordon & Smith. My last board was a 30" skimboard. The G&S was somewhat yellowed when I got it.

A $30,000,000+ industry? No doubt. I'm surprised there aren't several down there already.

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They don't wear out, they break. A "good strong" wave, taken the wrong way, can break a board in two just like it were a match stick.

Or a shark can take a bite out of it. :(

(a third of the way down)

'66/67' Nova?