Snow Business Is Booming in Sunny Orange County.

There's no business like snow business in Orange County -- even though it virtually never snows there and the local resorts in Big Bear and Snow Summit depend on the manmade stuff.

"We have all these snowboard companies in Southern California," said Travis Wood, director of marketing at Four Star Distribution, a snowboard and clothing manufacturer in San Clemente. "This is where everything in snowboarding goes on. The magazines and riders are here, and the industry is here."

Interest in snowboarding has grown rapidly in the past decade, leading to the creation of snowboard parks at ski resorts that are fueling even more interest in the sport. About 4.5 million Americans will snowboard at least once this season.

Over the past decade, Orange County surfwear companies such as Billabong, Volcom, Rusty Apparel and Hurley International have created a loyal following among surfers who have taken up the winter sport. The new category helps keep sales up during the winter months.

The snowboard industry recently experienced a shakeout, triggered by sagging sales in Asia during the economic downturn there. Some companies were acquired in consolidation moves, while others downsized or exited the market. But most observers see that period ending.

Bright future

"We are optimistic about the future," said Billabong USA President Paul Naude. "It's no secret that there was a shakeout in the snow business over the last three or four years, but the industry is positioned for a period of growth again. ... The correction phase is over."

Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver Inc., whose logo is a symbol of a mountain inside a wave, was one of the first among local surfwear companies to enter the snow business, and has the largest stake in Orange County. Two years ago, Quiksilver created an entire winter-sports division with the purchase of Mervin Manufacturing of Seattle, which employs about 75 at two plants and produces Lib Technologies and Gnu snowboard lines and the Arcane and Bent Metal step-in boot and binding systems.

The division more than doubled annual sales in 1998, to $10.7 million, though that still represents only 3.4 percent of Quiksilver's total sales.

"People within the company refer to Quiksilver as a board-riding company, not a surf company," said Bill Bussiere, who recently replaced John Vantz as senior vice president of Quiksilver's winter-sports division.

Meanwhile, local boarding companies, including skateboard manufacturers like World Industries in Huntington Beach, are building snowboard decks, apparel and accessories for the snow industry. Sunglasses manufacturers, including Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc., San Clemente-based Arnette and Costa Mesa-based Black Flys, also have a stake in the industry, with products ranging from goggles and accessories to some pants and outerwear.

Sole Technology in Lake Forest had been making skateboard sneakers for five years when it entered the snowboard-boot business in 1995 with the brand 32. The boot division has about a 5 percent slice of sales.

"We started out as a skateboarding company, but we wanted to access the whole action-sports market," said spokeswoman Stephanie Tufts, adding that the company sponsors a team of 12 snowboarders.

There also is a group of snowboard manufacturing, companies including Four Star Distribution in San Clemente, Joyride Ltd. in Laguna Beach, Snowmass Apparel Inc. in Irvine and Random Snowboards LLC in San Clemente.

A few years ago, there were as many snowboard manufacturers as there were snowboarders. The industry was heavily dependent on sales to the Asian market, but a lot of companies were swallowed up when the Asian flu hit.

Los Angeles-based industry giant K2 recently acquired Preston, Wash.-based Ride Snowboards, bringing the snowboard brands 5150 and Liquid under its winter-sports division that includes K2 snowboards, boots and bindings and K2 skis. K2 also picked up Morrow Snowboards Inc. in Pittsburgh.

"At one point, Joyride was a large company with 120 employees, but the whole industry underwent a consolidation and our overhead was too high, so we had to scale back," said Jason Arnold, North American sales manager at Joyride, who is now one of six employees at the snowboard company. Joyride closed its manufacturing facilities in Orange County.

Some scaling back

Despite all the activity, some apparel companies have scaled back.

"It's a difficult category," said Ocean Pacific President Dick Baker, whose company no longer manufactures snow apparel. "It's highly technical and core snowboarders are loyal to core snowboard brands. They are not really open to mainstream brands."

Costa Mesa-based Cold as Ice, which produces women's labels Cold as Ice, Pixi and Stardust, recently sold a 50 percent stake in its clothing business to Patagonia in Ventura.

Founder Darcy Lee -- a snowboarder whose background is in the design of men's snowboard clothing for companies including Quiksilver, Gotcha, SMP and Fila -- takes an upbeat view of the changes.

"When we first started, it was very much a free-for-all," she said. "People were trying to figure out what the business was and who the customer was. Retailers and manufacturers were trying different things, but now it's a real business and it has a track record, a history to draw from. I think that the maturity of the snowboard industry has allowed us to flourish."