UC exclusive interview from NL3.

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Undercover Exclusive Interview.

Hi Neal, it’s nice of you to take some time to talk about aggressive wheels. Some call you the Master of PU wheels, other’s say the Pope of Rolling, some absolutely have no idea who you are. How would you introduce yourself?
_Some folks in our little world of wheels know me I suppose. I guess I’ve been involved in the manufacture of polyurethane wheels for around 25 years. That is a hell of a long time in one place by today’s standards. I dream only in circles now. I love donuts. I hate square pegs. Gravity is good. As far as aggressive wheels, along with my current partner Tony Gabrielle, I helped run-out the original aggressive brand, Senate, back when it was still produced in the USA. Maybe the better way to be relative to my wheel making career is with numbers. I was asked to look back over some annual manufacturing volumes throughout my career. It wasn’t for a museum or anything. I think if was for life insurance. Anyway, considering all types of polyurethane recreational wheels out there, I’ve probably produced over 200 million wheels in the USA of all shapes and sizes under my own designs and proprietary production equipment. My goal is 1 billion wheels made and served. I can’t die soon.

That’s a lot of zeros and you are pretty old, man!
You worked briefly for Kryptonics, then Hyper, then Robot and now you have your own company, AEND Industries. How did this all start for you?
_I graduated in 1983 with a Mechanical Engineering degree and went directly into sporting goods manufacturing. I’ve never done anything else in my career but support and produce sporting goods lines. I’m focused that way. I first worked for Rawlings Sporting Goods Company. Little did I know then, but back in the early 80′s, all sporting goods brands were in the middle of a huge transition of moving production from the USA to Asia. A little known company back then called Nike was born around those years, by the way. For me though, after two years of supporting both USA and international technical projects, I made my first big decision in my young career. I wanted to always dedicate myself to domestic sporting goods manufacturing in the future. With two years of baseballs and catcher’s equipment production behind me, I went back to my home state of Colorado and started for Kryptonics at a steep salary discount. I really was only there for 6 months though. I actually didn’t work on recreational wheels at Krypt. I never saw those then-vaulted Krypto formulas. They were super secret. I was just some young goofball engineer still in training on all types of polyurethane production at Kryptonics. That was where I first met Tom and Donna Peterson. Tom and Donna left Krypto to start Hyper Corporation and shortly invited me to head their technical development. Hyper is where I faced the fire of learning to become a complete inline wheel designer and PU formulator. I had corporate experience and a good engineering school education, but I lost some body parts in that mission.

I should have asked a more specific question I guess. You engineering types talk a lot don’t you? Ya’ like those run-on sentences too. Can you give us a shorter timeline for this wheel deal?
_Yes, I really have some trouble with short answers. I suppose it was the school of hard knocks for me in the late 80′s and early 90′s. There was no “Inline” yet, it was brand new. There was no dedicated inline manufacturing equipment to be found either. It all had to be custom built. Tom, Donna, and I were another start-up team of 20-something-year-olds going full speed on attitude and minimal funding. Mercifully, inline took off in the mid 90′s and eventually made some modest heroes out of a bunch of knuckle-heads. Riding that kind of growth is a once in lifetime experience. I think we built and moved into 20 buildings in around 5 years. We couldn’t make enough wheels in the mid 90′s out of the USA. Hyper built its reputation at being the very first overall Inline Wheel Company. We had a bunch of precedent wheel designs and PU formulas before anyone (particularly Asia) woke up to this market boom. We were dedicated to top performance, quality, and building new Brands. We all started Senate in those days too. We started Pleasure Tools, 976, Medium, Realm, Factory, True, Grand, and made OEM for Mindgame for a while too.

Sounds exciting. I hate to ask, Neal, but then what happened?
_Like many too-good things, the Inline market tanked and began to feed on itself. Hyper was acquired by Bravo, and Bravo bought Kryptonics. What a mess. Tom and Donna left. Ultimately the new Bravo management team came to me with their new corporate vision and offered me. “Global Manufacturing Responsibility”. Is that a title? I left in a few short months before all their wheel production eventually landed in Asia. Wow, this tale is turning back on itself and building into a Stephen King novel.sorry about that. To finish (?).The old original Hyper team, Tom and Donna, started another small USA exclusive manufacturing company and I joined up again. But very tragically, Donna passed away suddenly. We spun in circles for around a year without Donna. Tom needed to do the right thing for family and wanted out.

Wow I’m sorry to hear all that. That really is a lot of people we don’t know. So then how did AEND Industries come to be?
_My current partner, Tony Gabrielle, who once ran Senate along with many other brands and start-ups, came in to help. He brought experience and vision to rebuild the wheel dream again. I acquired from The Petersons as many assets as could be secured against my house. We started AEND from those pieces. We were a bit older and just slightly smarter. Fortunately, there is also always a place for top quality, custom designed, USA made PU wheels. That was seven years ago. Today, with Tony and I, AEND is really pacing now. We believe we design and produce some of the best PU recreational wheels in the World today.

Wow, I need some coffee. OK, so I guess it is true that during your career you have been with more aggressive wheel brands and labels than any other person out there. You have made more inline wheel designs and new compounds than anybody out there too. You really can’t find another job anywhere else, I guess. Now with your latest company AEND Industries you are focusing again on aggressive in cooperation with Undercover. So what makes Undercover different from other brands you worked on before? Please be brief, it’s almost Christmas.
_Undercover is the culmination of so much history as you’ve only heard a few highlights from. The key today is listening to the new needs of a new generation of aggressive skaters. What was once dreamed about performing on skates in the early 90′s is now a reality for today’s elite aggressive skaters. Aggressive wheels have to be the most compact PU wheel in the world designed for impacts that most humans really shouldn’t attempt to absorb. This is a truly punishing sport on body and product when products are not designed correctly. Undercover found AEND Industries probably due to all the wheel production history. But there is a new dream here too. The latest UC wheels, first of all, are 100% USA made.
This is not the norm for this business today. The new wheels have a completely new core design with a circular wall thickness built for hellish pressures and forces. Free-falling over 20 feet, at full speed, onto wheels that are less than 60mm in diameter, will create some unusual design requirements, you follow me? UC has this top team of new skaters that wanted to start over with a wheel design that can take the punishment but still roll, grip, and last appropriately for the World Class Skaters. When it works for those guys, it works for the next generation of top skaters too. UC wants to build more designs and push this sport to higher limits. I want to be buried under a pile of my own wheel designs some day. The successful ones, that is. I’m thinking then that UC and AEND make a pretty good team. I believe I have around 25 more years of wheel making left in me. This is a Stephen King frickin’ novel, kind of creepy, really. truthfully, I do need more Brands like UC that are willing to take the chances to develop new things to break more barriers and keep their sports fresh.

What makes a good aggressive wheel better, is it just the PU?
_The best and right USA made PU is critical. UC and AEND have spent over a year to add more roll, grip and wear into already top formulas for the World’s Aggressive Skating Elite. But there is one common product design rule about aggressive equipment. “It can wear out, but the %#$@ can’t break.” We also have a new core for UC that is unprecedented. The unique processing, the material selection, and the massive wall thicknesses in this new aggressive skating core is now locked in place. The new UC core technology is rugged yet still allows for the feel and control necessary to stick big tricks. It takes some brains (?) and the stones to throw the large air stuff for sure.but it takes the right wheels to land and roll out of these major tricks too.

Did you just say, “massive wall thicknesses”? Do you think aggressive wheels still have room to get better?
_AEND listens to the world’s best skaters every day. For aggressive, I think you have some of most demented and determined minds toward pushing skating to new levels. AEND has proven it can build stuff right, but it takes the right skaters to field-test and give us the direction for the process of always growing and pushing a sport. The Pro skaters for UC are ready to do some new things for their brand. The sport needs it. We’re also a bit crazy at AEND. We believe we can build any wheel for the job under the human powered condition. If you can lock-fit ideas with determination, there are no limits, my friend. That’s how long term partnerships are born. AEND and UC have a big job to do.

Thanks for all of your time, lots of it, and ours too. Work on that whole Stephen King or Wayne’s World thing a bit more too, OK champ.
Looking forward to some long(er) stories and more adventures coming soon from UC and AEND Industries.