By Erich Neuhaus
The Tonawanda News
CITY OF TONAWANDA —
Not many people can say they’ve started their own business based off two childhood hobbies.
And when the hobbies are photography and skateboarding, even fewer people speak up.
City of Tonawanda resident Micah Weber can raise his hand to that, though, creating his own skateboarding company called Zen Seven Skateboards, which combines his artistic and professional photography skills and uses the picture to design a graphic for the underside of skateboards.
The idea erupted in 2009, when Weber said he got back into skateboarding from a 10-year hiatus. He’s been skating and taking pictures since he was approximately 10 years old.
“I’d really like to have my own company that involves my two passions,” Weber said.
So the 30-year-old, with an office job at Ingram Micro, pursued his idea on a part-time basis. Already having his own website for his part-time photography gigs, Weber designed and created a website for Zen Seven and partnered up with childhood friend Jay Morgan to really get the ball rolling.
With skateboard decks being made through a company called Polestar — to which Weber e-mails proposed board designs so the company can make them — all they had to do is hit the streets with the boards and show them off.
Weber would go out and skate himself, whether if it was at Ives Pond or hosting skate competitions at Xtreme Wheels Indoor Skate Park on Hertel Avenue in Buffalo, and skateboarders of all ages were intrigued about the sharp graphic on the underside of the board and the new company.
But that’s not all they were intrigued about.
“I think the thing they like the most is that, as an owner, I’m skating with them. Being face-to-face is huge,” Weber said.
To showcase the company even more, Weber started the search for a good skateboarder to lead his company by example. That’s when 20 year-old Shayne Witmer answered an ad on Craigslist.com.
When Weber and Morgan met him and saw him skate, they knew they found their man.
“He’s just a good kid. I mean if you were running any kind of company, you’d want him to be working for you,” Morgan said of his sponsored skater. “And he’s really good.”
Word of mouth and skating the streets and the skate parks have been the driving force for this young company’s success. Besides just selling skateboards, Weber also sells Zen Seven graphic T-shirts and now key chains. Facebook has also been a big part in “spreading the Zen,” as Weber calls it.
The Facebook page has more than 1,000 fans, and it’s common for people to order their Zen gear there, where Weber will place the order himself.
Just over a year ago, Weber received his first shipment of boards and has sold or given away more than 100 of them, some of them shipped to as far away as Australia. He says most skaters who have purchased a deck have bought another one because of durability of the deck, and, of course, the design. Some have even purchased boards as art to be put into their homes.
Zen Seven offers three decks right now, with a fourth design to come out in August.
The gas mask deck is a photo of a military green gas mask on what looks like a brick-red textured board with the Zen Seven logo on the end of the board. The money clip board is a close up photo of a money clip with a $100 bill showcased with the Zen Seven logo on the clip itself. And the DCM board is a design of a photograph of the ceiling at Washington DC’s Metro by Weber, and arching concrete structure with hundreds of rectangles, almost looking like a net, with Zen Seven in blue capital letters spreading the length of the board.
“I love ‘em,” Witmer says. “I think it’s awesome that it’s his real photography.”
The Zen Life
Weber, Witmer and Morgan try to meet up as often as possible to skate, but between full-time jobs and school, meeting up can be hard. In July, though, the three gathered at Xtreme Wheels.
On a street-styled course — one in which is comprised of railings, ledges, picnic benches, etc. — with ramps for getting air and a quarter pipe to send you back to the other side of the course, Witmer and Weber skated for about an hour with Morgan watching on.
It’s easy to see Witmer’s talent is in another league than Weber and the other skateboarders there. He uses a ramp to get up to five feet in the air, landing with ease before he takes on the quarter-pipe that will send him on his way back through the course. As he gains speed, and his iPod humming through his ears, Witmer goes up the 45-degree ramp with a two-foot rail in the middle of it, and easily jumps the rail while spinning himself and the board with his feet a full 360 degrees.
“The bigger this company gets, the more he’ll get out there,” Morgan said after witnessing Witmer’s 360 flip trick. “(Witmer) is never satisfied, always looking to get better.
Weber, in the mean time, is right beside Witmer, trying his own moves trying to get better, too. It’s not a typical owner-to-player relationship, it’s friendly and fun, both encouraging each other and the other skaters.
Wearing a red polo shirt and an all black Yankees cap to match his wide, flat-bottomed skater shoes with the word “Zen” sketched into his dark stone-washed blue jeans, Weber can pull off a few moves of his own, jumping his board on the rail, or “grinding” it on the trucks of his skateboard, then landing it nicely back on the wooden surface.
With a couple of skateboarders looking on, 19-year-old Elliott Smith from Tonawanda decides it’s time for a new board and comes up to Weber to inquire about buying a deck off of Weber.
“This Zen Seven deck has me feeling like a kid again,” Smith exclaimed out loud as he rides down the ramp on his new money clip deck.
It must be a Zen feeling.
“Everyone that gets one freaks. They all want to be a part of this,” Morgan said as he looked on to the course.
One more talented skater will become a part of the Zen Seven team next month as Weber plans to surprise a teen he’s had his eye on with a sponsorship at the release part for his new deck at Xtreme Wheels — all signs that more and more skaters are starting to feel the Zen.
For more information on Zen Seven Skateboards, and their sponsored events, visit ZenSevenSkatboards.com.
