Walker to the rescue foam for all by 3/06

Industry Talk
1

I got this from the surfermag forum:

Stolen from the KneeBoard site KSUSA.com:

BELOW IS THE RAW STORY FROM WALKER/LINDEN

Well I’m here answering phone but I’m not sure if I am answering for Walker Foam or a Suicide Prevention Line. People just can’t get foam and they are really pankicing. Theire livelihoods are threatened and its like Hurricane Katrina.

The announcement by Clark Foam surprised Gary Linden but didn’t effect his surfboard shaping business in San Diego: “I haven’t depended on Clark Foam for a long time so it’s business as usual for me. I was put in a position where Clark took my orders and backordered then and blackballed me. He said I couldn’t buy any Walker Foam so I said I didn’t want any Clark Foam. I don’t like it and I don’t take it and I didn’t care at the time if it effected my business. That was not the right thing to do, to knuckle under to Clark.”

Linden began a long relationship with Harold Walker that is now about to reap benefits. Linden’s surfboard business uses about 25 blanks a week,which up until this week had been a quarter of Walker’s production. But that is all about to change, and Linden is at Ground Zero. Over the years, Harold became my best friend and a father figure and now that this has happened with Clark, I am happy to step into the chaos as a General Manager and help them meet the demand. I heard about the Clark decision from Rusty Preisendorfer and once I realized it was for real, I called Harold Walker in the hospital, where he is recovering from urinary tract problems. It took a while to persuade him it wasn’t a rumor or a joke, that Clark really was closed and were already destroying their equipment. From his hospital bed he said, ‘I’ll be in at 8:00 tomorrow morning.’ I didn’t want him to stress his health and at that point it was my chance to step in as a General Manager at Walker and return many favors that Walker had done for me."

Three days after Black Monday, Linden was working 13-hours a day, driving his Audi TT from Oceanside to Wilmington, taking control of a struggling foam blank manufacturer that was about to become the major foam blank manufacturer for the United States and maybe the world. “Right now I am answering the phone and fielding all these inquires. I have a stack of orders that looks like Bill Clinton’s autobiography. I haven’t made it past page 100 of Clinton’s biography and I can’t get past page two of all these orders,” Linden said on the phone as other phones rang behind him and workers constantly interrupted him. “Last week we were struggling to get a hundred blank orders a week, and all of a sudden Clark Foam is out of business and that thousand blanks a day they were producing disappears. All of a sudden no one can get foam so it was time to ramp up. We have a skeleton crew here now but as soon as the phone stops ringing I am going to hire a second crew and then a third shift and do a weekend run.”

Think of Jimmy Stewart as George in that holiday favorite, It’s A Wonderful Life. There is a panicked bank run on the family savings and loan, and Stewart is doing all he can to persuade people to take only what they need and not take all of it, and that is the situation Gary Linden is in: “I need to take care of existing customers and long-term relationship and then there is the humanitarian viewpoint. An existing customer will call and say '‘Send me everything you’ve got!’ and I ask them to take just what they need. Even with that philosophy I’m not going to be able to help everybody.”

As it is now, Walker Foam is capable of producing 400 blanks a week but Linden is hiring crews when he can get off the phone - including former employees at Clark - and he hopes to be up to 700 boards a day as soon as possible. And beyond that, Walker Foam, like Surftech and Santa Cruz Surfboards and others, is in the right place at the right time to fill the huge void left by Clark: “Six months ago, Harold started a joint venture to manufacture and ship quality foam blanks with with a Chinese company,” Linden said. “That was where he got sick and had to come back. His son Joe is there now. This was all in motion when the crisis hit and our Chinese partner immediately took the building next door and if need be he’ll take the building next to that. Currently they have a 32,000 square foot facility that is tooling up to produce polyurethane foam blanks and within two months we’ll be able to supply the whole world. We have unlimited funds and almost unlimited labor and space.”

Linden had to go and put out fires, but before hanging up he had words of wisdom: “My advice to the surfing world is to tighten their belts. If they were planning to take a Mentawais vacation, now is the time to do it. By the end of February or the first of March there will be foam for everyone.”

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Howzit LESider, Article in Fridays Honolul Advertiser said Walker will be up to 1000 blanks a day at his China factory in 2 months. Good for him.Aloha,Kokua

3

What exactly is Walker going to have done over seas and what exactly is Walker going to do domestically? I am curious. I happen to own a board shaped from a Walker blank and it is just fine.

pensacal

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of course its fine harold walker has been in the blank business longer than clark! what do you think takayamas are made out of dewey webers hap jacobs lindens cooperfish the list goes on they shape like butter you will all see.

5

walker is great for longboards, but i have never been a fan for shortboards, the plugs arent very good and you ending up just wasting alot of foam. I heard he has some new shortboard plugs though so this may change.

Walker will manufacture the blanks in china most blanks will come with stringers and there will be some shipped UNCUT they will do all the custom stringers in Wilmington.

6

Thanks that what I wanted to know.

pensacal

7

That is interesting. So, it seems like that, in a few months, everyone will be using Walker Foam instead of Clark Foam, and this whole thing will be forgotten about? Or is Walker Foam being overly optimistic? Only time will tell, I suppose.

I’ve been assigned to write several articles about this topic, so I’m just trying to get a grasp of “what’s next for the surfboard industry.” Epoxy or Walker? Or…?

8

is making foam that hard…? cant a few of you do it yourself guys make blanks too. maybe in a year you can have a nice business too. why cant you have 20 manufacturers making foam in the states?

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Dave ----------Like someone previously posted in another thread----‘It’s all up to the chemist’. Hell I’m no genius, but I could build a mold. The problem is that no one in their right mind would consider setting up a foam operation in Calif. They’re gonna shut down “Hamburger Joints” next. Toxic grease, Dontcha Know? McDing

10

it’s a good think Clark’s gone, more players better game

11

Good for the boys at Walker,…I think what we’ll find is the story with Clark is not really out yet.

Certainly a man as smart as Grubby, was not just waiting for the ax to fall from the EPA and Orange County (these guys weren’t the bad guys,…they were the enforcers),…I think that any business man would’ve seen the handwriting on the wall and would have moved his operation to a more friendly location.

Hell, the Mexican gov’t would have given Clark incentives to move the operation to the south. Shipping and tax structures would have been more than favorable…heck, even other Southwestern States with less restrictive operation components would have co-operated…there’s something else happening here that we’ve not heard.

GRUBBY NEEDS TO COME CLEAN,…he’s effected not only his employee’s but an industry in which his hard line tactics in the past have been a staple.

Aloha, Randy

12

Some quick math. Walker matches Clarks production in Feb. The Ausys and Euros double or triple production. April, we have 120+% of the supply we had December 2, 2005 with an unknown percentage of shapers moving to EPS. Looks like a lot of turns in this road.

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I couldn’t agree more. For being the entrepreneur that he was, Clark also sounded like he ran his business fast and loose over the years. The cost of doing business with chemicals and potential future costs, and OC putting the fire under him was too much to cope with. I don’t blame him frankly. However, the way he abruptly shut down was not appropriate. I sort of feel sorry for the folks who put all their eggs in Clarks basket like Foam EZ etc. Their pretty much out of business unless they can swing a deal with Clark or some other mfg. It’s just amazing that no one kept better tabs on their supplier.

14

What I think is really funny is how many people are making comments about Clark, his business sense or lack of it, whether it can be replaced, or if someone else will take his place. Many of those making the comments have not spent one day in the surf business and many are novice surfers with little knowledge outside of what they have heard or have read in a surfing magazine. Having spent the better part of 30 years around surfing and much of it in the surf business, one thing I have noticed is the one constant is change. Things come to an end and are usually replaced by something better. Sometimes, (like the current retro phase) things go backward, and positive change even comes from that.

I like swaylocks because there is a gathering of surfing knowledge here and a variety of ideas. Unless your married to Grubby or one of his really close friends, the best your going to be able to do about this episode is to guess.

From what I have seen of Clark, he was not fast and loose, but methodical. Then again, that too is a guess. Most of the shapers I know have had a love hate relationship with the old boy. I for one, admire anyone who came up with and pretty much created the surfboard industry that has allowed some including himself to become successfull and enjoy a life within a sport they love. The fact that he fought a losing battle with some things that eventually caused him to close his factory or be closed, would not make him unique in the world of business.

It does kind of burn me to see novice surfers and the like making bold statements of how Clark or the industry itself operates, but surfing is one of the few industries like that and that too is part of the fun. 120 days from now, I suspect things will be little different, but with more faces in the mix than before. Hand shaped epoxy makes it very easy for those that know how to do it right and have figured out some of the potetial pitfalls. I think it’s an exiting time for the industry and look forward to seeing the end result…as long as it’s not more popouts or chinese junk. You know how opinions are though…

Maybe, finally, shapers will get what they should moneywise for the hours of research and craftmanship they put into the sport. Those surfers who only care about getting a deal will hopefully buy china stuff or popouts, so we will all know who we are dealing with.

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Howzit solosurfer, Good call about Swaylocks, I don’t go to the surfermag website but thought I check it to see their take on the situation. They were just whining and talking crap about clark where on Swaylocks we were talking about alternatives and ways to deal with this. Just shows the difference between a surf web site and a surfboard discussion website. Sways is # 1.Aloha,Kokua

16

or have the choice for the first time in this country to purchase any blanks you want, without get blacklisted and experiment new systems, be more creative…

17

I agree with all eventually time will tell. Monopolies are EVIL. The Bush/Cheney business plan has to go. More choices will lead to better product. Maybe we will find the perfect product for all of our individual choices. I have used both Walker and Clark and found I liked Walker better for my needs as have done with computers where I use Macs instead of PCs. Surfers adapt as will the industry.

as others have said, this might be a blessing in disguise.

18

Thank you Solosurfer, I can’t even read half the posts and news reports because they are wacked.

19

Sluggo,

Haven’t seen you in a while … I guess you’ve just been lurking. For the record I think Solo’s post was well thought too. But to the point, you always show such depth of knowlege … Would like your take on this.

20

Aloha Kakou,

I too have been impressed with Swaylock’s and just switched over from the surfermag forum. Too many irrelevant topics and trash talking. I have become very interested in the EPS possibilities, not as a shaper, but as a surfer that wants to ride boards that are as least damaging to the environment as possible.