Press

"Company goes with the flow"

By Karen Robes
Staff Writer
Press-Telegram - Long Beach, CA

LONG BEACH - The moment Michael Kern came across the 14-wheeled skateboard known as "the flowboard," the Long Beach entrepreneur had to have it.

"A guy came around with this flowboard he bought off the street and I thought, 'Wow, this thing's really cool,'" Kern said of the skateboard that can carve 45-degree turns without resistance.

"You can wakeboard, snowboard and surf on concrete," he said. "You've always got that rush of the surf, even in Wichita, Kansas."

Kern was so floored that he called the guys who developed the product that day, flew to San Francisco the next day...

"Sport Technology's Flowboard sales pick up speed"

By Conor L. Sanchez
Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times

For five years, Rickett and Kern have been working to bring the experience of carving deep powder and awesome waves to the asphalt. Their goal is to make it the nation's latest skating sensation.

"We're being compared to the Rollerblade trend where it started out as a hockey trainer in the off-season," Kern said. "From there it went into recreation, workout and transportation."

Developed in 1999 by a couple of San Francisco design students looking for a way to skate down the city's steep hillsides, the board appeared in Kern's warehouse one day when one of his employees rode it to work. Unlike a regular skateboard, the Flowboard has 14 wheels, enabling the rider to make the curving motions of a snowboarder.