Category
Brand
Brand
Chocolate
Mike Carroll, co-founder of Girl, started skateboarding at a young age and got his first sponsor with H-Street Skateboards before eventually leaving to ride for “Plan B” Skateboards. Rick Howard, 2nd co-founder of Girl, was currently riding for Plan B, and he & Carroll became close friends. One day, while out to lunch, both Howard & Carroll were discussing how dissatisfied they were with the state of a skateboard career at the time & how easy it was to become replaceable. Rick Howard brought the idea of creating a new skateboard company with his friends Spike Jonez & Megan Baltimore; both were working at World Industries skateboards at the time & were excited about Mike & Rick’s idea and wanted to be in on it. Together, Spike, Mike, Rick & Megan all decided that they were going to take a chance and create their own board company, and in August of 1993, Girl Skateboards was born. Before the Brand was announced, Mike and several other skateboarders went on a skate tour for Plan B and World Industries & decided that they were all going to wear t-shirts with the girl logo on the front. When Steve Rocco, the owner of World Industries, discovered what was happening, she tried to get Girl skateboards from being sold in skate shops.
The original team consisted of Mike Caroll, Rick Howard, Jovante Turner, Sean Sheffey, Jeron Wilson, Tony Ferguson, Rudy Johnson, Eric Koston, and Guy Mariano. After years of riding for Plan B, Rick McCrank also joined Girl.
Chocolate Skateboards was conceived during a Girl Tour in 1994; Chico Brenes, who was an am rider for Girl, was left behind because there wasn’t enough room on the tour van to include him. Not long after, in 1994, they decided to start Chocolate Skateboards under the Girl Skateboards umbrella. They added all their friends who couldn’t fit on the Girl team. The original Chocolate team was Keenan Milton, Chico Brenes, Daniel Castillo, Paulo Diaz, Richard Mulder, Gabriel Rodriguez, Shamil Randle & Ben Sanchez. Shiloh Greathouse & Kareem Campbell were two riders considered to be on Chocolate’s original team, but the riders disagreed about that decision. Today, Girl & Chocolate is still a sister company under the Crailtap distribution.
Author: Courtney Pegram
