World Industries
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World Industries is a skateboard company.
In 1987, frestyler Steve Rocco was kicked off Sims. In a bid to make ends meet, Steve bought 500 skateboards off Skip Engblom of the skateboard company Santa Monica Airlines. Steve teamed up with John Lucero of Black Label and they got a warehouse together. Rodney Mullen bought out Lucero, so Rodney and Steve became partners.
Steve rode for the company, along with skaters Jesse Martinez and Jeff Hartsel. The company started taking off by 1988 and getting some attention. Relations with the bigger traditional companies were strained at times. Originally called SMA Rocco Division and then as a joke, SMA World Industries, they were eventually told they could not use the SMA name. They cut the first bit off of the name and became just plain World Industries.
Rodney Mullen and Mike Vallely made the decision to leave Powell Peralta to skate for World Industries. Both invested more money into the company.
Because the company was small and innovative, they were better able to respond to the changing skateboarding scene and the changing board shapes. Times were hard in the skateboarding industry, but by doing small board runs of wacky graphics and experimental shapes, they could develop new boards that fit the movement to street skating. The larger companies were not able to follow, because of their larger production runs and lack of innovation. Cartoon designs dominated World Industries boards, making them stand out in an otherwise uniform market.
In 1989, Mark Gonzales approached Steve Rocco with the desire to be involved in his own company. He liked the independence that having control of his own company offered. He was riding for Vision at the time and decided to name the company Blind, the exact opposite to Vision. He took Jason Lee, a World Industries team member, and formed the Blind team.
H-Street co-founder Mike Ternasky wanted a break from H-Street, so in 1991 he formed a partnership with World Industries, starting the company Plan B. In the deal, World Industries was the distributor and manufacturer and Mike marketed the brand from San Diego. Mike got Rodney Mullen to street skate and he became a member of the team.
In September 1993, Rick Howard defected with seven other riders and started Girl. In January 1994, Girl started up Chocolate and took another group of riders.
Mike Ternasky was killed in a car accident in 1994. Plan B broke away from World Industries and was run by Danny Way and Colin McKay, and closed in 1998. In March 2005, Plan B was relaunched by team member Danny Way.
In 1997 the A-Team was formed. Because Plan B had left the World Industries fold, Rodney Mullen found himself on the team along with Marc Johnson, Gershon Mosley, Dave Mayhew, and Chet Thomas. The A-Team never released its own video, there were only A-Team sections in the first two Rodney Mullen vs Daewon Song videos.
The company developed the additional brands Darkstar, Speed Demons, and Tensor over the next years.
World Industries was sold in July 2002 to Globe International Limited. Some of the deck graphics are controversial among conservatives. One even shows Devil Man(the mascot) giving the finger.
