Rich Phillips feels as though he has never worked a day in his life. That is because his work feels more like play.
Phillips is the owner of Oncore in Flagstaff, which is a skateboard and snowboard shop he opened about four years ago with his partner, Dave Hilton.
“We talked about this years ago when we worked at a ski shop together.”
Still, Phillip’s career began a long time before that.
“I got into skateboarding when I was about 13. It kind of consumed me,” he said.
“I got my first job working in a skateboard-snowboard shop. That is where the thing ignited. I started as a sales kid and moved up to manager pretty quickly.”
He then moved into the warehouse.
“I got to see the inside of it,” he said. “It’s something I grew up with.”
There was a time when skateboarding was not popular and the kids who did it were considered outlaws. Things have changed.
“It is pretty common. People are starting to snowboard. It is a very youth-driven sport. One of the things we are trying to go after is the youth. The future is the kids who are going to keep things alive.”
Before opening his own shop, Phillips was a buyer for 18 years.
“I have dealt with most of the companies in business now. This is the first time I get to go and do it the way I perceive it.”
He says they decided to go after brands no one else in town or even in Arizona are carrying.
“We try not to do the same thing as everyone else is doing,” he said. “We go a little bit above and beyond. We test everything ourselves.”
The company carries not only snowboards and skateboards, it carries everything related, such as apparel and shoes. “We are the only full-service shop. We do repairs. We do rentals. We want you to get it all right here.”
As a youth working for other companies as a buyer, he would travel to demonstrations of a product and then test it out.
“I got paid to snowboard. I thought, ‘This is the life. I could do this forever,’” he said. “Now that I have a family, it’s harder to do that,”
His wife, Ashlee, is finishing schooling for her nursing degree, while working as a firefighter in Strawberry. Their children, Aven, 4, and Kylee, 11, have been snowboarding since they were toddlers.
Phillips acknowledges that opening his shop in the midst of a cranky economy was risky, but says the first four years have been good and the business has been steadily growing. “We have established a name for ourselves and are starting to become a destination shop,” he said.
The shop sponsors contests and snowboard related magazines do stories about them.
Phillips notes that he did not open the shop on a whim, but rather worked for years on a business plan and researched the placement of the business. He chose Flagstaff mainly because of the university.
“Every year there is a new group of young people coming in and we have them for the next four years,” he said.
Also aiding the business was snowmaking for the slopes of Arizona Snowbowl.
“Before that we didn’t have an assumption that the slopes would open in November,” he said. “It was scary. We also knew if we didn’t jump on it when we did, there would be other people who wanted to do it. It’s not a big town and it could be easily saturated.”
“I’m a big kid basically,” he said. “I’m pretty blessed. I have traveled a lot. Snowboarding has taken me places I probably wouldn’t have gone, I’ve been in the industry long enough to have established a name for myself. I will always have the opportunity to work in this industry. I found I loved it so much I couldn’t let go of it. I will do it until my legs won’t let me, then I will watch my kids do it.” FBN
Oncore is at 123 W. Birch Ave. #106 in Flagstaff.
To learn more, call 928-774-2673.
By Patty McCormac
Flagstaff Business News
