by Board Retailers Association | Aug 8, 2019 | Associate Members, Industry, News, Resources, Skateboard, Snowboard, Surf, Trade Shows, Wakeboard
PRESS RELEASES | Published Aug 7, 2019 BRA Names New Chairman, Executive Director The Board Retailers Association (BRA), a non-profit organization representing thousands of independently owned surf, skate, snow and wake retailers, is pleased to announce that it elected a new Chairman, George Leichtweis of Modern Skate & Surf this year. Having been on the Board of Directors as the Chairman of the Skateboard Committee for many years, George was a founding member of BRA and has been in the specialty retail business for 40 years. Former Chairman, Bruce Cromartie will remain on the Board of Directors. BRA Chairman George Leichtweis George is passionate about independent retailers being successful and believes that they are the backbone and feeder system for all the board sport industries. “It is where young kids have their first impression of each sport that will stay with them as they continue to grow into adults and pass on the ‘stoke’ to others. Board Retailers Association can provide smaller retailers with the tools to be successful and keep their doors open to continue to turn new kids on to the sports that they love.” George is the owner and president of Modern Sports, Inc, dba Modern Skate & Surf as well as Modern Skate Park. Over the last 40 years, he has operated multiple Modern Skate & Surf stores in Michigan and also the world-renowned Modern Skate Parks in Novi, Madison Heights and Grand Rapids, Michigan and has been involved in the “Extreme Sports” arena since 1979. He currently operates one location that consists of a retail store for Specialty Sporting Goods, a World Class Skate Park...
by Board Retailers Association | Jul 9, 2019 | Industry, Surf
New Wave Pool Set to Open in Palm Desert, CA in 2021 Catching up with CJ Hobgood about his new wave pool project, DSRT Surf. July 9, 2019 By SURFER This story. originally appeared on SURFER and has been republished in ASN with permission. Words by Zander Morton. For more stories, visit SURFER Another wave pool will be gracing the state of California – this time in the dry city of Palm Desert, a roughly 2-hour drive from the nearest ocean (and a hell of a lot closer to popular surf towns than the wave machine in Lemoore). Just a few days ago, CJ Hobgood, Josh Kerr. and Shane Beschen announced on Instagram that they’re involved with the development of the new pool – DSRT Surf. – which is set to open in 2021. To find out more about DSRT Surf, we gave CJ Hobgood a call and asked about how it all came to be, what he’s learned from past mistakes (he was involved in a wave pool start-up back in the 2000s that unfortunately failed miserably), and what sort of surf we can expect to see in Palm Desert in the (fairly) near future. The news that you’re involved with a new wave pool project in Palm Desert dropped out of the blue last week. How did that all come about? What’s been cool for me during this process is I’ve been close to a couple other projects in the past. I was around when they tried to do the wave pool over at the Ron Jon in Orlando, Florida, and that one failed. I was talking to another guy down in South Florida early on where the WSL’s new...
