SIMA Holds Boot Camp For Board Builders

josh hunter

April 22 2008
3 comments

On Wednesday, April 16, 2008 SIMA held a seminar for surfboard builders at the Surfing Heritage Museum in San Clemente, California as part of its Boot Camp Series. The half-day agenda was broken up into three informative presentations, offering attendees intensive crash courses in EPA Compliance, Accounting, and Marketing.

First up was Dr. Jennifer Kraus, who has degrees in public heath and epidemiology from Princeton, UCLA, and UCSD. She’s an expert on the environmental, health, and safety (EHS) field, and offered an in-depth look into what surfboards builders need to do in order to be in compliance with all the federal, state, and local authorities.

Her presentation also touched on new strategies and solutions for hazard communications and management, injury and illness prevention, respiratory protection, empty container management, and aerosol can management.

Between OSHA, EPA, NIOSH, and CA DTSC there were more acronyms than a NASA launch sequence, but a healthy Q&A session afterward seemed helpful for all the shapers in the room.

The second speaker was Lisa Guild, a financial & operational consultant who has extensive experience within the surf industry. She went through an accounting 101 course to help shapers with their basic bookkeeping questions and concerns. Simple lessons, great delivery, and plenty of take away was the general consensus.

And last, but never least, the one-and-only Peter “PT” Townend, founder of The ActiveEmpire, delivered a presentation on Marketing On A Small Budget. From his years of experience in the world of surfing, PT offered a ton of useful tips and tricks to marketing a product without spending big bucks.He also covered questions on print advertising, athletes, and costs of sponsorship.