Company History
Northwest Riders was officially started in February of 2004 in Bellingham, WA by Greg Young. The first batch of Northwest Riders Clothing was actually made before that by famed wakeboard cinematographer Sean Kilgus. Sean made 20 t-shirts to bring to a Northwest Sessions wakeboard competition, intending to give most of them away to friends and sell the rest to make his money back. The shirts were more popular than expected and when Sean realized the potential to start an actual brand, he generously gave Greg the go-ahead to take the brand and run with it.
When Greg officially licensed the company, his plan was simply to produce and sell enough clothing to pay for gas and food while he was traveling around the Northwest wakeboarding. He never intended to keep the company going after he graduated from Western Washington University the following year. As the first summer in business drifted by, clothing was selling reasonably well and people really seemed to be behind a company that was supportive and involved in the local action sports community. Greg decided to reinvest all of the revenue from clothing sales back into the company to see if it might grow into something a bit bigger.
Upon graduation in the winter of 2005, the time he had originally planned on shutting down operations to get a career started, he came to the realization that he didn’t want a real job. Northwest Riders took the step into a second year in business. Soon afterwards, Greg and friends Sean Kilgus, Danny Bergman, and Brent Starr were approached by Malibu Boats to start a traveling wakeboard Clinic Tour for their Just Ride series. Everyone gladly agreed and the Northwest Riders Summer Tour was born. Our company currently has three summers of traveling throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana under our belt, and we’re looking forward to another great year working with Malibu and our other sponsors. The Tour gave us an opportunity to sell more clothes, and the idea of turning the company into a year-round business dug its roots further into Greg’s mind.
By the following spring, it was clear to Greg that he couldn’t handle the clothing company, the Tour, and his other part time jobs without some help. He approached Zack Clark who created WakeboardNorthwest.com about the possibility of teaming up on Northwest Riders. The two had known each other for about a year, although Zack still claims that they had met two years prior at a wakeboard event in Spokane and talked for almost an hour. Greg still doesn’t remember that ever happening and thinks Zack made it up for sympathy points. Anyhow, after giving the idea of a partnership about 5 minutes of thought, the two decided to become 50/50 partners. No contracts were signed, just a handshake and a “welcome to the company” were exchanged, and we haven’t looked back since.
Since Zack became a partner at the company, things have slowly started taking shape. Young and Clark worked with some great designers starting with Ashley Hell, and currently with Trevor Kaiser and Nomi Stirm. The clothing line is steadily growing, and the Summer Tour will be added to with the recent purchase of a veggie-powered Tour Bus and the new Winter Tour.
Although the company has strong roots in wakeboarding and started in that industry, Northwest Riders is not simply a wakeboarding company. Our staff and owners also surf, snowboard, and skate on a regular basis. Everyone involved in our company is in this business because they love what they do and enjoy the people that they meet along the way. Northwest Riders doesn’t care what you ride, just as long as you’re passionate about it and proud to call the Northwest your home.
Where We’re Headed…
As a company, we dream of staying small while doing big things. We are the first to admit that our clothing line has a lot of room for growth and improvement. We would love to be able to offer a much broader product selection including boardshorts, hoodies, jackets, beanies, and other Northwest appropriate apparel. We know that we need to work harder to make our products available in more shop locations. We try to support as many local events as possible, but know that there are many more that we can help with. Believe us when we say that we are working hard to meet all of these goals as quickly as we possibly can. Currently nobody at our company makes a dime from revenues. Both of our owners work 2 or 3 other part of full-time jobs to see our dreams with Northwest Riders come to fruition. Our goal to become a responsible, environmentally friendly, involved, laid back, and truly Northwest company relies not only on us as a company, but you as a consumer. If you share similar values and are proud to represent such an incredible region to ride in, buy our products and tell your friends about us. Our promise to you is to spend our revenues wisely and put them back into supporting our community, environment, and the riders that choose to call the Northwest their home.
Going Green…
The Northwest is one of the most beautiful and unique places on the globe. Where else can you find mountains, deserts, rainforests, and the ocean all within a few hours drive? We live in a region where environmental factors play a critical role in the activities that our company is based on. Some people will look at the efforts of a company like ours and say that it’s just a marketing ploy or that we’re simply jumping on the “Green” bandwagon. To be honest, we’re just stoked that a bandwagon is finally showing signs of existence. Sure we’re following in the footsteps of companies like Patagonia, who do everything in their power to manufacture their products with as little environmental impact as possible. Call it copying or what you will, but our company shares the philosophy that it is our corporate responsibility to do whatever we can to protect the environment and in doing so, the activities that depend on it. If we want to surf in a clean ocean, snowboard down a pristine mountain, or swim in lakes that we don’t have to worry about getting sick in, then it’s everybody’s shared responsibility to do anything in our power to clean up our acts.
Our vegetable-oil powered bus is our first major step at going Green. The bus has two tanks, one for diesel and one for vegetable oil. The diesel is used to start the bus while the vegetable oil (which we filter ourselves from waste vegetable oil (WVO) from local restaurants) heats up. The majority of our trips (roughly 95%) are run on vegetable oil, while our longer trips that exceed our WVO range are partially fueled with actual diesel. This not only saves us money on fuel, but it produces much lower emissions, and uses a renewable resource instead of petroleum.
We are also the first to admit that we have a long way to go before we can officially consider ourselves to be a Green company. While all of our men’s T’s except one are made from 100% organic cotton, we haven’t found a quality girls T made from the same material. Traditional cotton clothing accounts for “25 percent of the annual worldwide insecticide use and 10 percent of the annual worldwide pesticide use even though cotton fields occupy less than 3 percent of the world’s farmland.” (excerpt from “Let My People Go Surfing”) We are constantly looking for new ways to affordably change production of all of our products to be more environmentally friendly, while not sacrificing the high quality goals that we strive to meet. Rest assured, as our company grows, so will our ability to move in the right direction.
Although the “Green Revolution” that is slowly starting to take shape can oftentimes be linked to a fair share of political debates, we want anyone reading this to know that our intention is not to stir up a political beehive. Our belief as a company is that everyone on the planet whether Democrat or Republican, hippie or yuppie should take the necessary steps to minimize our individual impact on the planet. After all, we have to call this place home so why not keep it clean?
