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| WILLY SANTOS |
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| How old are you? I'm twenty-two. Where do you live? Mira Mesa. San Diego. Who are your sponsors? Birdhouse Projects, Gullwing trucks, Vans, Arnette, Jones Soda, True Clothing Co. It seems like just the other day you were the new kid on the block, but now you're getting to be a veteran. How long have you been pro? Gosh. Five years now. That's it? Four or Five years. Did you have G&S pro model? Yeah, But then I was asked to ride for Birdhouse and I thought that would be a better choice for my career. What year did you turn pro? It was '92. It was my junior year. Some of the kids might not understand what it took to be a pro in that day and age. What all did you have to do? Then you had to do pretty well in contests. Definitely had to get coverage in Thrasher and Transworld. Slap didn't exist then. NSA (National Skateboard Association,) I competed in the NSA for two years. If you got top ten in those contests you were ready to turn pro, or pretty soon. There were qualifiers, then regionals and then finals. In that year I got first in street finals. In Atlanta? Yeah. Who else was in that contest? Chris Senn, Colin Mckay, Jordan Richter, Brian Howard, Matt Beach, Andrew Reynolds, Eric Koston, and so on. There were so many. How did turning pro in those days differ from today? It seems these days people are turning pro pretty quick. Like they do one sick trick, or they get one sick video part and it's like, "Turn pro, turn pro!" The problem with a lot of them is that they don't maintain - the coverage, the video parts, stuff like that. You're got to maintain. You're got to take it to that other level. You seem to take your job as a skateboarder a little more seriously than some people. What is your work schedule like? My work? Well, like every week I try and hook up and shoot photos with someone. I always want to be progressing. As far as my sponsors, I make sure and always represent them, the stickers and the T-shirts. That's what they're paying me for, so I always hook it up. What about product development? Not with Birdhouse, but with True Clothing I do graphics and all that. I work with Raibyn, the designer. That's the clothing company I do. We just put out our first ad not too long ago. Hopefully I can fall back on that when I'm done skating. My brother Wilmer and I do all the sales rep things. We go every other day during the week. I call shops and he goes with me and takes care of all the paper work and stuff like that. Do you have an office? I do it out of my house, but we have an office at a skate shop where we get all the calls and everything. It's hectic, but it's cool seeing it grow. Have you run into any problems starting your own business? Stuff like catalogs can be pretty complicated. Production's done in the Philippines, and that can be tricky too. This the interveiw with willy santos by trasher magazine. |
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