Eric Swenson

Born in San Francisco in 1946, Eric Swenson never skated himself but became one of the architects of modern skateboarding. In 1978 he co-founded Independent Truck Company with Fausto Vitello, partnering with NHS distribution out of Santa Cruz to produce trucks whose durability quickly made them the discipline's default hardware. In 1981 he and Vitello launched Thrasher Magazine, whose punk-rock attitude and Skate and Destroy ethos drove the second-wave revival of skateboarding through the 1980s and 1990s. Swenson remained chief skateboard designer at Independent and a guiding voice at Thrasher until his death in 2011.