A chaos-causing surfwear guy makes red-hot public offering.

He's a master at stirring things up.

Richard "Wooly" Woolcott, cofounder and chief executive of apparel maker Volcom Inc., has made a career of causing chaos through the company's rebellious motto and off-the-wall marketing.

Now he's really shaken things up--only this time by going the way of the establishment.

The Costa Mesa-based company's planned $86 million initial public offering has surprised some while others scramble to get a piece of the action.

"I've never had so many people call me and see if I could get them stock," said Dave Hollander, president of Becket Surfboards, which has stores in Corona del Mar and Huntington Beach. "No one knows what it's priced at or even if it's a good deal. This whole industry is going, 'You've got to get a piece of this thing.' They' re hot."

Woolcott is going the way of his surf buddy Bob McKnight, chief executive of Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver Inc., the biggest maker of surfwear and one of the few publicly traded ones.

McKnight and Woolcott are "of the same cloth," said Dick Baker, chief executive of Irvine-based Ocean Pacific Apparel Corp., part of Warnaco Group Inc. That is, aggressive, focused and protective of their brands.

At the same time, Baker said that Woolcott, who has lived in a trailer by his favorite surf shop in Laguna Beach for years, "is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He's a Pepperdine graduate who's extremely smart, and, oh, by the way, he's a core suffer who loves the business."

The company's motto is "youth against establishment," typified at a Volcom trade show booth that was cast in a Mexican theme complete with lots of tequila and mariachi-dressed employees. But for all that surface rebellion, Volcom is growing feverishly and in filing an IPO, is looking for cash to fuel that growth.

Last year, the company had sales of $113 million, up 49 percent from a year earlier. It has been profitable, with net income of $24.6 million last year, up 72 percent from the year before.

Volcom "has always been controlled chaos" with "really bright people" calling the shots, Hollander said. One time the company bought a beat-up sailboat, hung a sail with its giant Volcom diamond logo, and sailed it up and down the beach during a big surf event.

"It's not like a bunch of idiots just getting lucky," Hollander said. "The kids love them."

Woolcott, who declined to comment for this story, founded Volcom in 1991 with Tucker Hall. They started with about $5,000 from Woolcott's dad, Rend, who also is chairman and president of Clarendon House Advisors Ltd., a privately held investment firm.

Hall has a stake of 5 percent or more in Volcom, according to a regulatory filing. Woolcott and his father also own sizable stakes, though percentages weren't given in the company's filing.

Woolcott knew little about making clothes when the company got started (neither did Hall, who since has retired). He had worked in Quiksilver's marketing department and was a Quiksilver-sponsored suffer with a promising career until he broke his neck on a surf trip to Mexico.

Woolcott told trade publication TransWorld Business last year that Volcom was "an excuse to let off some steam." The company's first headquarters was in Woolcott's Newport Beach bedroom. Sales in the first year: $2,600.

Rend Woolcott had warned his son that he would be out of business in less than three months if he didn't get his act together. The company was out of inventory and cash--and dad wasn't planning to bail him out.

So Volcom got its act together, building a middle-tier action sports apparel maker by focusing on suffers, skaters and snowboarders.

The company's clothes and accessories are sold in 3,000 stores in the U.S., including Becker, Huntington Surf & Sport, Laguna Surf & Sport, Nordstrom, Surfside Sports and Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., one of its biggest customers.

The company is set to join a select group of publicly traded action sports companies, including Quiksilver and Irvine's Billabong USA, whose parent Billabong International Ltd. is publicly traded in Australia.

Most other surfwear makers are small and privately owned or have been sucked up in a wave of recent acquisitions by big apparel makers such as Nike Inc., Warnaco Group Inc. and VF Corp.

"He's got an amazing ability to be one of the boys and coolest guys there but without taking anything to excess," Hollander said of Woolcott. Still, he will have to tone things down for Wall Street.

At a surf industry event a few years back, for example, Woolcott made a presentation speech that included chugging tequila and thanking his grandmother for taking him surfing. It's a delicate balance, Hild said.

Volcom needs to be creative and not send "a fire drill throughout the company" and "get everyone nervous about meeting Wall Street's expectations," he said.

JENNIFER BELLANTONIO Orange County Business Journal