Clark Foam has Quit Business

[markgnome]

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[Beeline2.0]

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[W.G. Facenda]

The prices and the technology have been rediculously low for yrs .Surfers are ultra conservative consumers , so they went for status quo for a little too long. Everyone riding the latest fahion, yr after yr, in Beach Blanket Billabong, acting like they are on the cutting edge of what? 50 yr old technology?Would there be progress without pain??I hate seeing friends of mine going through bad times though......

[T Hall]

Yea Bud,
Let's put on our surgical gear and rip into some old delapidated surfboards/sailboards/ longboards. It's alot of fun taking apart old boards and making something old new again. And you might come across a cool design or technique in the process, who knows. At any rate theese kind of recycling projects keep us busy thinking of new shapes and designs that we may not have thought of othorwise. A chance to be creative outside the norm. Got to love it. See ya, T Hall.

[ScottMac]

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[Coconut]

This was sent to me today. I apologize if this was already posted...

THE GREAT SURFBOARD FAMINE (2601 words, first draft, 12-8-2005)
THE BLANK NAZI
GRUBBY AND THE SURFBOARD FACTORY
Surfboard Shapers, Retailers and Riders Deal with the Clark Foam Closure
By Ben Marcus

For owning and operating Clark Foam I may be looking at very large
fines, civil lawsuits, and even time in prison. I will not be saying
more than is in this letter so I hope you read it carefully. I do not
want to be answering questions about my decisions for the next few
years.

Effective immediately Clark Foam is ceasing production and sales of
surfboard blanks.


A phone call to Zuma Jay's Surf Shop on Wednesday, December 7 got a terse response: "Can't talk right now. There's a news crew here. All hell is breaking loose." A few hours later, Jefferson "Zuma Jay" Wagner had the time to take the phone and explain how the Great Surfboard Famine was effecting his business: "NEED A QUOTE RIGHT HERE FROM JAY ON WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY THAT WAS OUT OF THE ORDINARY, ALSO HIS EXPERIENCE WITH CLARK FOAM."

What was happening at Zuma Jay's was happening at surf shops and shaping rooms around California, around the country and around the surfing world. Up north at O'Neill Surf Shop, one guy walked in and paid top dollar for 10 Al Merrick/Channel Islands surfboards, slapping $6000 cash on the counter and skulking out with the boards. This guy wasn't going to Hawaii. He was speculating. He was hoarding. He was acting fast in the face of the surfing world version of the Great Potato Famine.

At surf shops around Los Angeles, California and across the USA, surfboard retailers were taking their entire surfboard stock off the racks, or jacking the prices as much as $200, or just continuing with business as usual, not sure what the future of surfboard retailing would bring.

9' 8" S $50,000

RARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CLARK FOAM IS OUT OF BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NO MORE BLANKS ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL YOU DUMBFOUNDED FOOLS WHO THINK THE INDUSTRY IS AT THE END OF DAYS, PLEASE BUY THESE BLANKS........ I MEAN COLLECTOR ITEMS.
A gag posting on EBay, Dec-07-05 16:38:09 PST

By December 7, just about everyone in the surfing world had heard the shocking news that Clark Foam had closed its doors on December 5, abruptly cutting off the supply of polyurethane foam "blanks" that are at the core of most of the surfboards made in the last 60 years. Clark Foam is to the surfboard world what Standard Oil was to petroleum products, Kodak was to film, and Microsoft is to software. Clark is as close to a monopoly as the law allows, supplying an estimated 80 per cent of the foam blanks used in America and around the world, a number estimated at anywhere between 300,000 and 700,000 a year. There are other surfboard suppliers like Surftech who mold their boards in China and ship them in, and there are other blank manufacturers like Walker Foam in Wilmington, Bennett Foam in Australia and other larger and smaller companies in China and South America. While some of these surfboard companies and blank manufacturers were doing backflips and singing "Ding dong the witch is dead" they also were looking at a huge vacuum to be filled, and no one in the surfing world knew exactly how big that hole was, and how long it would take to fill it.

So people went a little berserk in the two days following Clark's announcement, which was delivered in an earnest, eloquent, seven-page, 3000-word fax that was sent around to all of Clark's major distributors and volume clients.

The short version of my explanation is that the State of California
and especially Orange County where Clark Foam is located have made it
very clear they no longer want manufacturers like Clark Foam in their
area.

The main concern of the state and county government is a toxic
chemical we use called Toluene Di Isocynate commonly called TDI. Some
of the other concerns are the use of polyester resin, dust, trash,
some of the equipment I built or was built to my specifications, and
numerous safety concerns both for employees and the local community.

To most of the surfing world, Clark Foam is the chocolate factory and Gordon "Grubby" Clark is Willy Wonka. Clark Foam is a thoroughly modern facility capable of producing custom blanks in a wide range of thickness, width, length, foam densities and stringer material. Surfboard shapers and surfers depend on all the flavors that come from the Clark factory, but what goes on beyond those locked gates is a Wonka-like mystery: How many Oompa Loompas does Clark employ? How many of those loyal Oompa Loompas are on disability, or will be from exposure to toxins?

And most importantly: How many blanks do they produce a year? That is a question as closely guarded as the recipe for Ever-Lasting Gobstoppers, and the only answers are guesses. Some say Clark Foam operates 24/365 and produces a thousand blanks a day. Others guess that the number is 2000 a day, but even at the low estimate, that is more than 300,000 blanks all of a sudden yanked from a market that consumes surfboards like Wonka Bars.

Based upon a complaint by the Orange County Fire Authority and
information that was almost 100% supplied by the Orange County Fire
Authority, the very strict Ninth District of the Federal Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) issued Clark Foam a 10-page, very serious
citation. This has never been resolved. The EPA has hired a private
safety engineer to pursue their citation and I believe this process is
still taking place. The seriousness of their citation could mean that
I could have to go to prison and be fined an astronomical amount of
money. (A personal friend just paid a $4,000,000.00 EPA fine and
barely got out of going to prison.) It is my understanding that the
EPA is very slow, are difficult to deal with, and Federal Judges
almost always agree with the EPA. Essentially they refuse to directly
communicate with Clark Foam.


Just across the Orange Curtain, in Westminster, Brad Nadell was feeling like the owner of a Wal Mart in the wake of hurricane Katrina. The owner of Foam E-Z, the main distributor of Clark blanks to the OC and Los Angeles counties, Nadell wisely closed his doors and waited to see which way the wind was blowing: "I got the fax from Gordon Clark at 10:00 on Friday morning," Nadell said. "It was a surprise and not a surprise at all, because I had told friends something like this might be coming. But I locked my doors right away, changed the locks, talked to the police about night patrols, and I haven't sold a blank since. I have been answering phone calls from everywhere - shapers, other foam distributors, the media - trying to calm people down, trying to figure out what to do with the inventory I have now, and how to replace it when it's gone."

Foam E-Z is only a thousand square feet of space, but Nadell did not want to say how many blanks he had in stock when Clark sent out his manifesto. He did say that in a regular business month, he would move anywhere from a thousand to fifteen hundred blanks, one at a time to hobbyists or by the dozens to big suppliers: "I wasn't making a mint, but it was a solid, steady business," Nadell said. "And now it is all up in the air. There are all kinds of rumors flying around, that there are containers already sailing here from Australia and South Africa and Brazil, and I heard that Harold Walker's son is in China, working on production there."

WALKER FOAM
If Clark is Willy Wonka, then Harold Walker is his Slugworth. Walker Foam also produces polyurethane foam surfboard blanks but they have been doing it in the shadow of Clark for decades - hanging in there through various loyalties, but always in the shadow.

Walker Foam is in Los Angeles County, in an industrial park in Wilmington surrounded by the petroleum industrial complex, so if they are dealing with TDI and venting the same toxins, they are in a heavy-metal neighborhood where that sort of thing is more acceptable.

Following the Clark announcement, the people at Walker had already adopted a Wonka-like policy and they were not talking. Others were willing to talk about the Walker/Clark rivalry but they were guarded in the same way that Iraqis are still guarded when talking about Saddam Hussein. Clark was history, but shapers who had dealt with the company for years were still reluctant to go on the record about He Who Cannot Be Named.

A surfboard shaper who divides his time between Hawaii and a boutique shop in LA County was willing to talk about it all, as long as he was behind a curtain and his voice was changed: "I am partners in a small surf shop and we had a great relationship with Clark for about a year, starting around 1995 or 1996," the Unknown Shaper said. "We were small potatoes, getting maybe 8 - 10 boards a week. I use a rocker that is unique, but they stocked that rocker and I am a couture shaper - there are hundreds and thousands like me out there. They had no problem taking a custom order and delivering those blanks to my door in a week. Their customer service was incredible, like a much larger company, like a Fed Ex or something. So we had a relationship for about a year and then I ordered some blanks from Walker. Very soon after that, I got a call from Clark saying they had made a mistake, that we never should have had an account with them in the first place. They didn't cut me off completely, but now we had to make a two-hour drive to get our blanks. I don't think it was coincidence."

The Unknown Shaper spoke frankly about what was going to happen to his business. He shapes maybe three boards a week and had a short supply of blanks available, but like a lot of others, he didn't know how to act: "Do I shape the boards? Do I store them? Do I sell them on EBay? I have no idea. I know this, it is going to take a while for the industry to gear up to replace Clark. To have it back to where it was on Friday is going to take six months or a year but for the trickle down is just… crazy."

The only apology I will make to customers and employees is that I
should have seen this coming many years sooner and closed years ago in
a slower, more predictable manner. I waited far too long, being
optimistic rather then realistic. I also failed to do my homework.

What will I be doing in the near future? There is a very good chance
that I will spend a lot of time in courtrooms over the next few years
and could go to prison. I have a tremendous cleanup expense to exit
my business. I have the potential for serious fines. My full time
efforts will be to extract myself from the mess that I have created
for myself.

In closing I want to thank everyone for their wonderful support over
the years. This has been a great ride with great people. I have
loved this job and the people I worked with.

So Grubby Clark was the Blank Nazi, someone who had been in business since the late 50s and had laid one of the cornerstones of the surf industrial complex. The surf industry is now a multi-billion dollar business. Surfboards are at the foundation of all that, but making surfboards has never been a high-profit business. Most shapers work like dogs to get by and support families, and the Clark shutdown will have a trickle-down effect that will effect thousands of distributors, retailers, shapers, glassers and sanders from Waialua to Rhode Island. Clark dropped his bomb on the world on December 5, three weeks before Christmas when retailers are already stressing to keep boards in stock, and surfboard makers are adding Christmas stress to all the others. So on top of Willy Wonka and the Blank Nazi and Bill Gates, is Grubby Clark also Scrooge?

Grubby Clark is 72-years-old and is said to be the largest private landowner in Oregon. He has made more than enough money and is tired of the business and of all those EPA's and AQMD's breathing down his neck over TDI and other toxic acronyms.

A lot of people aren't buying the EPA story and there are conflicting reports on whether the EPA and the AQMD and OC Fire was really breathing down his neck that hard, whether his liabilities were that extreme and whether he really was going to prison.

Some say Clark was heartless, shutting down so abruptly and leaving thousands of former clients hanging. Others see a different, more benevolent scenario that is closer to Willy Wonka than Ebenezer Scrooge. When Wonka decided he was getting too old to oversee his factory, he began an elaborate search for a young successor who had the integrity to care for all he would have to care for. Wonka found Charlie and in the end, he made his announcement abruptly, shocked Charlie and his grandpa then went rocketing up out of his factory and over the town in a flying elevator.

Clark's announcement was as abrupt and dramatic as that elevator stunt. Some say he gave thousands of loyal clients the shaft, others say Clark should be praised for his timing: "Grubby decided to go out of the industry at the single most beneficial moment for surfing which has existed since the company was founded. THAT is what just happened. You miss this fact and you have missed the story," said David Puu, a former shaper and retailer now photographer from Ventura County. Puu believes there will be a dip in the supply that will last no longer than six months: "The infrastructure is there to fill that vacuum. Not overnight, but soon. It is all going to China. Oz went there ten years ago when Grubby froze em out of the US market (Dion and Burford). South Africa can compete, as can Canada. Brazil is a contender as well."

But for now, it is all up in the air. Those sitting on supplies of Clark blanks are guarding them with a shotgun, a mean dog and an ugly woman. They are waiting to see how all this is going to break, and figuring out the fairest way to feed all those hungry mouths, thrust skyward. Retailers are pulling their entire inventory off the racks, and some have already jacked retail prices as much as $200, just in time for Christmas.

All hell is breaking loose, and people are going to suffer, from the mother struggling to buy her son a new surfboard for Christmas, to the shaper all of a sudden locked out of his supply, struggling to buy a turkey for the Christmas table. It is all very dramatic, but it's temporary.

For those thinking about buying a loved one a surfboard for Christmas, maybe the best idea is to get a gift certificate to a retailer is good for six months. The chunk of business that Clark left behind is good for anywhere from 300,000 to 700,000 blanks a year. Even at a profit of $10 a blank, that is always a market worth pursuing and vacuums do not last long in this modern world.

[Coconut]

more for your reading pleasure...

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."

[Beeline2.0]

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[curlykneelo]

Could this blanks problem have an even worse impact on U.S. kneelos?

Think about it , those companies still making blanks will be stretched to meet shortboard and longboard needs . Will they sacrifice the kneelo community .
Blanks from China? Kneelo blanks also take up lots of room in containers .

[K-man]

Doubtful.That blank[62C]covers a wide variety of board types.KBs fish.and grom boards.It's very popular.And generally what's popular is a money maker.

[ScottMac]

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[surfhorn]

Alternative, nonpollluting materials need to be explored more seriously.

[Bud]

I'm on it already!

Soon we'll have boards that are not only satisfying to ride but to the apatite as well.

I've devised a foam formula that is a mix of meringue, cotton candy, gellatine, taffy, whey protien powder and other secret healthy ingredients.

In extreme emergencies, (say you get marooned on some remote island or your boat trip turns into a survival situation and you are a drift at sea), you'll be able to last a month by eating your board in measured portions.

Who said you can't have your cake and ride it to?

Just name your flavor!

Problem is my production staff just can't keep their fingers out of the bowl.

[KAVA]

maybe you could come up with a fish chum scent too so the sharks will no longer spit the boards out when they bite em.

[ScottMac]

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