World Industries has the most interesting story in skateboarding by far. World was started by freestyle skater Steve Rocco. I think he got fired as Team Manager of Vision some time in the late 1980s. He got together with Rodney Mullen to start a board company called World Industries. They focused on making twin tail decks and used a simple marketing plan which was to do the opposite of what the big three skateboard companies at the time were doing. Instead of printing decks with skulls and snakes on the bottom, World would print cartoons, 40oz bottles, naked chicks – whatever was taboo at the time. Their magazine advertisements would be blank, while the big three would print the same ads over and over again. Eventually, World re-invented skateboarding (into street skateboard mainly) and the rest of the major skate companies fell to the wayside.
Then the weirdest thing happened. All the cartoony graphics and silly marketing started to attract young children. By the millions! Over night World became a kiddie brand and the core skateboarders had moved on to more mature brands like Girl, Chocolate and Element. Steve Rocco sold the brand for something like $20 million in the late 1990s and has recently made a movie about this adventure called
Growing up in El Segundo there was a little known secret. You see World Industries set up shop down in the brick industries back alley section of town. And from what I can tell they tried to keep it a secret from the neighborhood kids for as long as possible. Eventually the word got out and every kid in town knew where they World Industry Warehouse was located. First kids would mob the place asking for stickers and free boards. But then the big secret came out: Look in the dumpster. World use to throw away test decks, clothes, magazines, wheels and all kinds of junk in their dumpster. After a while, World got wise and started to lock the dumpster and only throw away things of absolutely no value.
The final holy grail of the World Industries complex was their trampoline. Some of the World Industries pros would take new test design skateboard decks and practice flip tricks on the trampoline. When they were done doing their test tricks they would leave the skateboard decks on the trampoline. The trampoline was behind a chain link fence adjacent to the street. If you had enough balls, you could climb the fence real quick, grab a couple of decks, throw them over the fence and climb back out before anyone noticed. Legend has it that some local kids actually got a few free skateboard decks this way.
Finding secret skateboard company skate parks is an exciting thing for a young skater. Not only do you witness the celebrity appearance of a pro skateboarder, you get to see an inside look of how the hone their skills. Plus you may even get the chance to skate the park with the pros (which can be both a curse and a blessing depending on your personality and skate-self-esteem).
We ran across a secret World Industries skate park back in 1997. It was located in a brick warehouse in El Segundo. The only reason why we found it was there was some asphalt tranny there that made a good wall ride spot. I decided to show my friend this little secret spot. I knew it was a business in the day time so I usually rolled over to the place at night. So one night we go over there to check out the spot and the warehouse doors are open. And sure enough there is a full on skate park with three pro skaters skating around: Daewon Song, Willy Santos and I can’t remember who the last guy was.
My friend actually knew Daewon because he would see skating local South Bay spots. He went in and skated and I totally chickened out. I totally had a “I Suck” complex back then and I didn’t want to expose my lame skills to the pros. Now a-days I could care less what people think of my skating abilities and would of definitely rolled around in the park. The funny thing is, really – everyone sucks compared to Daewon. Nobody can skate like him – he is his own skating god.