Industry Interview - Lib Tech founder Mike Olson

Snowboard Review brings you an exclusive interview with one of the snowboarding world’s true treasures. Lib Tech and GNU are renowned world wide for wacky designs and for pioneering futuristic materials, Mike Olson is the driving force behind these ideas and Mervin, the most exciting snowboard factory on the planet. Think Willy Wonka for snowboarding and you’ve got Mike.

Mike Olson is a pioneer, a genius and a personality. Mike built his first snowboard in 1977 and since starting the Mervin factory in 1984, Mike’s made more contributions to snowboard design than anyone on the planet. When the opportunity arrived to ask Mike a couple of questions, we couldn’t believe our luck…. Enjoy!

Hi Mike, I hear you’ve just got back from a surf trip in Costa Rica, how was it?

It was swell.  I chased monkeys on Christmas day.  I also learned that the “stream” that my two daughters have been swimming in for several years has multiple crocs in it.  My youngest daughter is bite-sized.

Are you big into surfing?

Yes, that has been a passion forever that I can’t quite get enough of.  We have fantastic cold waves minutes from our factory if the swell is coming the right direction from Alaska.  I’ve been shaping my own boards since I was 16.  Because we spend so much time building snowboards, most of us here are always a bit surf-starved.

Do you have the best job on the planet?

Quite simply, yes.

You and Peter Saari started Mervin back in the mid 80s, how did you end up owning one of the most respected snowboard factories on the planet?

I didn’t have any money, literally.  So, starting in 1977, I built all of my own objects to stand sideways on and glide.  I built skateboards first, then a crude snowboard, then surfboards followed.  I always sold a few to have enough money to make one for myself.  I could never have a stupid business plan that lost more money than it took because I had no money to lose.  I watched all those money-chasing companies jump into snowboarding over the last 3 decades and most lost everything as a result of greed- based decisions.  We developed a top-notch business ethic where we are highly innovative and run the business as a business, thanks to having no money.  We also had to build everything ourselves in our own shop.  Most brands farm out everything possible including snowboard manufacturing and fun things like advertising.  We do it all at home.

Mervin was bought outright by Quiksilver in 1997. Did Mervin change significantly in the wake? Do you and Peter still make the big company decisions?

Peter and I still own the Mervin Factory and have a lease deal with Quik. Quik has been a great partner over the past 13 years and yes, they do let us run the company as we always have. Before Quik, I worked with many banks for loans every year. Quik has been a pleasure to deal with. The crew running Quik consists of a bunch of people who are passionate about standing sideways on boards. It is really nice to have a partner like Quik. I pretty much only wear Quik clothing now. That’s a pretty cool perk.

Working at Mervin is obviously a huge part of your life and has been for your adult life, is it difficult to get the work / life balance right?

Good question!  Yes.  I spend a lot of time at work.  Even at home I lose my head back to designing new products or processes.  I know I need to learn to concentrate on the world outside of snowboarding a bit more.  Luckily I have a really fun wife and 2 daughters who are entertaining and love waves and snow.  And they are passionate about animals.  Every vacation we go on is to snow or waves.

Mike I read somewhere that you invented and pioneered the parabolic sidecut, surely that’ll be your legacy?

I did make the first snowboards on the market that emphasized carving.  They had a deep, clean side-cut, camber and no fins.  The other brands on the market had fins, crazy hourglass side-cuts and drifted sideways when you turned them.  Most of the other brands had heaps of money for advertising. We had none at the time so it was hard to get our message out.  Thus we had to get creative with marketing.  We literally made potato prints that said Gnu back then.  We printed Gnu on hundreds of oranges and gave them out at the first Baker contest.

How did Magnetraction come about?

The Magnetraction theories formed over many years of evolution looking into the concept of hockey skate function on ice.  Less surface area equals more bite.  The ski and snowboard industries had failed miserably for years.  Everyone thought longer edges equalled more bite.  I bought a pair of hockey skates and started skating them in the mid-eighties.  I studied how well they held on shiny ice.  We evolved this into the Gnu Concept model in 1988, and then Lib Tech “Harmonics” in the 90’s.  Finally the concept evolved further with the Steven Cobb 5 bump bread knife theory in the early 2000’s.

Lib tech’s Skate Banana is probably THE snowboard responsible for the resurrection and huge popularity of reverse camber snowboards. Were you expecting the Skate Banana to become as popular as it is? What convinced you to experiment with reverse camber?

It’s pretty funny because many magazines and journalists have already forgotten or never understood the whirlwind that took place.  We were the lone-wolf pushing a new alternative to camber for two full snow seasons. The other brands stuck their heads in the sand.  K2 then came out with a single retro-rocker Gyrator model on the market which had 1982 style rocker with flat between the bindings.  That confused our new message a bit with dealers.  Banana and K2’s “Rocker” are polar opposites.  They have nothing in common.  Bananas are the best ice carving machines in history.  Other brands “rockers” are very limited in their performance range.  We immediately dropped all camber from Lib Tech and Gnu several seasons ago.  Most other brands are still just “experimenting” with a few rocker alternatives. We knew instantly that we would change snowboarding forever. Many other brands still don’t get it.  Luckily we have a patent pending on many variations of Banana Tech.

I’ve heard it banded around on forums all over the world that Banana’s a great if the snow is soft and you’re jibbing around, in your opinion can reverse camber boards carve and pop like traditionally cambered boards?

Once again, people haven’t quite grasped what is happening yet.  Bananas are the best carving board on ice, ever.  You can do pin-line heelside 360’s with soft boots.  Our boards with enhanced Banana have more pop than any camber board in history.  We get letters raving about the pop.  Traditional cambered boards are now completely obsolete.

Last year GNU introduced the world to the Park Pickle, whatever possessed you guys to drag back the asymmetric sidecut from the 80s?

Believe it or not we actually made the first asymmetric freestyle prototypes for Nitro in 1989.  It actually makes more sense now.  The Park Pickle is designed for duck stances with heels closer together on the sidecut.  Or feel free to ride it pigeon-toed!

The Mervin factory is responsible for some pretty crazy technology, but hands down the most bonkers snowboard I’ve ever seen is the Travis Rice Banana Hammock. As I’m yet to see a Banana Hammock in the flesh, does the Banana Hammock actually exist (or is it an urban myth) and can you snowboard on it?

It exists and Travis rides it in powder.  Many of us here have ridden it in powder.  We actually sell way more than we ever expected.  They come with a printed warning not to ride the board.  They are really fun in powder, though.  Just don’t lean into a turn on hard pack or you might dislocate your shoulder

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Topsheets made from plastics developed from beans, fibres made from Magnesium Oxide and Vectran torsion rods (stronger and lighter than Carbon and used by NASA to protect spacecraft from high velocity cosmic shrapnel… no joke!), where on earth (or space) do you find these materials, and how do you go about producing workable materials that you can use in snowboard construction?

I hunt with radical abandon, and yes, I lose many hours of sleep looking for new materials.  I have spent my life as a composites geek.  We spend a lot of hours experimenting with new materials.  It is just a passion that is kind of thrilling just like riding a real wave.

I recently watched an interview with you on Youtube (nice banana hat by the way), in the interview you were talking about the all new Banana Magic. To sum it up, you were saying that the Banana Magic has absolutely no Fibreglass in it’s construction, is that even possible?

The Banana Magic is the ultimate example of composite geeking success.  We have been the pioneers of basalt fabrics since the mid 90’s.  Now we have a board that uses exclusively basalt as the reinforcement for strength.  It is light and really has a quiet, smooth ride.  A typical light board would ride a little bit nervous.  The Banana Magic is quiet yet has explosive pop.  It is my favourite board ever!  Other brands are just starting to discover basalt and claim it.

The Cygnus X is the most expensive snowboard made in the Mervin factory. What warrants the hefty price tag? Has the Cygnus X effectively future proofed the next 5 years of developments at Mervin?

The Cygnus has all the expensive bells and whistles in it.  It has won more first places in tests than any other board I know of.  The materials in it are very expensive and the process to make the Cygnus is a bit challenging and time consuming.  The Cygnus is silky smooth and very lively.  The methods used to build each Cygnus are not used in any other board that we produce.  Somehow we sell way more than we ever thought possible.

Jamie Lynn has always been synonymous with Lib Tech since the early 90s and his artwork is as much Lib Tech as the Star Spangled Banner is Palmer. Jamie’s been off the scene for a while, with the release of the Phoenix Jamie Lynn, are we about to see Jamie’s riding career rise from the ashes?

He’s actually been touring as a rock star for the last few years.  Not a snowboard rock star, but a musician.  We’ve been selling his signature model since 1993.  It still sells amazingly high numbers.  Could it be the reoccurring girl in the birthday suit theme on his graphics?

With Bean based bio-plastics, Basalt Fibres and responsibly sourced wood cores, it’s obvious that environmental issues are close to your heart. Isn’t it a little futile putting large amounts of money and time into green construction? Can snowboarding manufacture ever be green?

We’ve been green since before the market cared about it.  For us it has been especially important because we live in our factory every day.  We don’t farm out production like the other brands, so we understand the chemicals and want the safest environment for ourselves and the outside world.  It isn’t more expensive to be green.  That’s a myth spread by some crazy myth spreaders.  We even have a biodiesel pump at our shop for our crew.  Snowboard manufacturing can be pretty darn green.  If you’ve seen most of the other brand’s super shiny topsheets, you know they are toxic and not green.  They are most likely an ABS blend with super toxic automotive finish with a high solvent output during manufacturing.

Mervin’s financial future is rock steady, your boards are in more demand than ever and the technology used in every one of the boards is state of the art… what on earth are Lib Tech doing releasing Skis this coming season?

We don’t do skis except on the bottom of our snowskates.  If you are asking about our Narrow Ass Snowboard program, they are just narrow snowboards without inserts.  People can mount them however they want to.

Do you have any new technologies in the pipeline?

Yes, some really good ones that we can’t quite talk about yet.

How many people work on the design and R’n’D teams at Mervin, and do they work between the Lib Tech and GNU brands?

It is kind of hard to give a number because people all wear a lot of hats around here.  And yes, we work on both brands.  There is a crew of about a dozen that come up with most of the creative ideas, but we’ll listen to ideas from anyone.  Sometimes there are too many “bright” ideas from some people.

A lot of brands have been struggling, not least Burton who’ve had to streamline their workforce and cut wages. Has the global recession taken its toll at Mervin?

Because of Banana and Magnetraction, we have experienced our biggest growth in history.  In the last three seasons, we have grown over 100%.  We have been hiring new crew like crazy and adding new buildings to our factory.  We are by far the largest snowboard or ski factory remaining in the Americas.

Travis Rice seems to be inventing tricks faster than Mevin is creating new board designs, materials and technologies! How do you keep up with that guy?

I think you just challenged us to invent faster.  We accept the challenge!

Thanks Mike!

 

Posted by Rich Ewbank in Features.

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