During the march dumps of 1991, Richard Woolcott and Tucker
Hall set off on a snowboard trip that would forever change
their lives.
Tucker had just been laid off of work and jumped in the car
on a routine Tahoe trip to visit Nathan Fletcher and Mark Gabriel.
After riding four days of fresh,
Richard called work with the excuse that they were snowed in
and extended his stay.
For more than a week,
they awoke every morning with two new feet of snow.
It was their first real experience riding powder and the new
obsession wouldn't stop.
Two weeks later Richard quit his job to take some time off and
snowboard.
He and Tucker had also talked of starting a clothing company
during the Tahoe trip but nothing was really final.
Later that spring,
the two came up with the idea of starting a riding company based
around the three sports they enjoyed.
With an initial $5000 from Richard's dad,
they started the process.
First the name and then the stone .
Volcom was born.
The Volcom idea would incorporate a major philosophy of the times,
"youth against establishment".
This energy was an enlightened state to support young creative
thinking.
Volcom was a family of people not willing to accept the
suppression of the established ways .
This was a time when snowboarding and skateboarding was looked
down on.
The U.S. was in a recession,
there were riots in LA and the Gulf War.
Change was in the air. Nirvana and Pearl Jam expressed it the best.
For the first two years, Richard and Tucker traveled around the
world on wild journeys with friends riding whatever they could.
The business side of things was minimal.
The headquarters were set up in Newport in Richard's bedroom and
all sales were run out of tucker's bedroom in Huntington.
The two knew nothing about how to make clothes but that didn't
matter.
It was all about spirit and creativity.
Clothing sales for the first year were $2600.
Since those wild beginnings, the Volcom Stone has spread slowly
across the world.
The Company has matured internally but continues to run off the
same philosophy it started with.
The Volcom thinking now flows through its art, music, films,
athletes and clothing….
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