[ JAPANESE / ENGLISH ]

Photos courtesy of Tactics
Special thanks_Tactics Japan

VHSMAG (V)：　Where did Tactics start and what do you do there?

Dugan Baker (D)：　Tactics was started in Eugene, Oregon, where both Silas and I grew up. Tactics was my local skate and snowboard shop when I was in college. I worked at Nike SB for about 20 years and my last role there was general manager for North America. Matt and Bob, who were the two founders of Tactics, who I knew from my relationship at Nike and also from being a shop kid there, decided that they wanted to retire. They were looking for the next crew to lead Tactics and I was very happy and proud to be offered that role. It's a place that I grew up at and I have a lot of heart and love for. So it was truly an honor to be part of this company.

Silas Baxter-Neal (S)：　I grew up in Eugene and it has a great skate scene. We, as kids, made a lot of videos and there's a lot of stuff to skate. I think Tactics came around in 1999. I moved out of Eugene in 2001 and I didn't have much of a relationship when I lived there. Around 2015, Tactics reached out and I liked the fact that they were rider owned and they employed a lot of skateboarders, and it was from my hometown.

 

 

V：　What are the core values of Tactics?

D：　We focus on everything within our community. We want to support the community and be an avenue for people and kids to come into skateboarding and snowboarding. One thing that we really pride ourselves on is that it's a welcoming place for everyone. We're going to take care of you. If you want to be part of this culture and this community, we'll do everything we can, whether it's selling your product, getting you connected with organizations like Skate Like a Girl, or even local communities to go learn how to skateboard or snowboard. One of our mottoes is "Standing sideways, moving forward." Having worked at Nike for a long time, I always stood tall when we talked about skateboarding. Skateboarding is a community that truly takes care of its own. It's welcoming and it supports art and the things that we as young people want to stand for today.

S：　Tactics does a lot of local events and they put on contests and do jams, whatever they can for the community. They've been pretty inclusive and helpful in a lot of ways. They've also helped some of their younger dudes with getting themselves out, and getting a little more exposure. They helped significantly with Romel Torres, who's now on FA. They're helping Alex Lobasyuk get his career going. They do what they can for the riders.

D：　What we try not to do is, we don't like to show up with an event or a project and then wrap up the doors and the banners and walk away and have nothing left behind. Matt and Bob who founded Tactics, they worked with the local government and they did a lot of work for Washington-Jefferson Skatepark, which is an undercover lit safe spot for kids to skateboard in Eugene. And they didn't take any credit for it, even though they did a lot of the work for it. At the end of the day, it wasn't about selling more shoes or skateboards, it was about providing a safe and dry place to skate since it rains a lot in Oregon. Through our partnerships with organizations like Skate Like a Girl, we do everything we can to show up in a community and leave something behind.

V：　What are some of the memorable projects that Tactics has worked on?

D：　Being born and raised in Eugene, Washington-Jefferson Skatepark. It's a leave behind for the community. It's something that will be around for many years. Also there's an event that we started in the early days of Tactics called Northwest Open. We did it for many years in our early days and it fell off and we didn't do it for a while, but we brought it back up three years ago. It's a great event in Portland, where we have people that can come from all over the city.

 

S：　We made a video called "Easier Said Than Done." That came out in 2022, and it focused on the Portland team and riders who live around here. It was fun going out and filming with those guys and making something. It was cool to do it with Tactics and do it locally.

 

V：　There must be something special about representing your hometown.

S：　Yeah, definitely. I really love Oregon in general. Portland's now my home and I really like living here and skating spots that I skated when I was a teenager, and skating with some of the people that I skated growing up. Tactics also did this project called "Fire in the Shire," which was a whole video part that I filmed in Eugene. So it was going back to all these old spots that I had skated as a kid and hadn't skated for years and years. It was super fun to go back, revisit them, kind of have a new take on them.

 

D：　I might have to blow Silas up here a little bit (laugh). I'm a couple years older than him and we went to the same high school. We all knew who Silas was. He probably didn't know who we were because we were fans. I remember Silas had a photo in our yearbook, and I think you were on... were you ever on Adio?

S：　No, maybe Savier at that point or DVS flow or something.

D：　Anyway, it made us all so hyped because there was a kid that we knew that was on the way to making it out. Eugene is a town that a lot of people just drive through when you're going from Portland to San Francisco, but it's a town that we all love. Seeing someone that was making it out always made us really hyped. And I can still picture Silas' photo in the yearbook (laughs).

V：　What's the importance of a physical skate shop? These days people are buying stuff online and you're opening a new location in Sapporo.

D：　I truly believe that the skate shop is the fabric of the culture of skateboarding. Skateboarding doesn't have Little League or the Super Bowl or the World Series. We have our moments and events, but there isn't somewhere where you can go on a schedule and see the culture happening and be a part of it and become it. To me, a skate shop is where the real love of our sport and what we do exists. Someone comes in and if they buy their first skateboard, it's not about selling it to them, it's about teaching them how it's built. We want to make sure you understand what you're getting and where you are in your experience. The physical location sells products, but it also keeps this culture alive. Having worked at Nike, I know a lot of the guys that run skate shops in the big cities. If you don't have a skate shop, the culture falls apart and goes away.

S：　I think it really helps create community. When you're getting into skateboarding for the first time, you might have your own idea of what you think skateboarding is. But if you go into a shop and you meet the employees and you see who other skaters are, you really get an actual idea of what skateboarding is about and who skateboarders are. It's a place to meet people and it's a place to meet up. I spent hours and hours in my local skate shop back home in Eugene watching skate videos and hanging out, and it became like a family. It really became a hub for what we were doing. And I think that it continues to be like that. Like premiering professional level videos or local videos, or just doing events or contests or whatever, it brings the skateboard scene together through one avenue and helps promote what skateboarding is. And beyond that, as kids get better and they start to get sponsored, it gives them a foot in the door. Skate shops have relationships with all of the reps and different brands. And so when they see a skateboarder that's excelling, it's an opportunity for them to push them in a direction and introduce them to the larger industry.

V：　Tactics is opening its first international location. Why Sapporo?

D：　We wanted a city that was youthful and had a certain kind of culture, and geographically we wanted proximity to mountains. Having been to Sapporo, you could drive to Niseko or Asahikawa, and that drive to me is so much like the drive from Eugene to Seattle. The bountiful valleys, the beautiful farmlands, the gorgeous mountains, proximity to the coast. Portland and Sapporo are sister cities. Actually having been there, there's this weird symbiotic similarity. The beer scene in both places is pretty robust. Just an amazing feeling in two completely different places. There's obviously other places that we could look at in Japan but we wanted to maintain our roots. We don't have a store in LA because it's very different. We don't have one in San Francisco, Texas, New York because we know our spot and what we are about and what we love. Sapporo just felt like a very natural fit.

S：　I've been there for skateboarding, and it's a beautiful city. I felt like Sapporo had a lot of emphasis on art and also parks and green open spaces. I feel like that's really similar to Portland. I've also been there with my family and there's a really strong foodie community. There's also an organic farming community that's thriving as well.

V：　Tactics is a cultural hub for the local community in each location. How do you plan to replicate the sense of community in Sapporo?

D：　Sapporo is very similar to the plan that we've done in all of our locations. We want to invest in the local up-and-coming kids. Also anything that we can to build places where kids can skate safely. I know safety isn't as big of an issue in Japan as it is in the States, but same as what we did in Eugene. If we could fast forward five or 10 years down the road and point to something like Washington-Jefferson that we helped build in Eugene, that, to me, would be a perfect scenario whether Tactics is there or not. We've left something or made the community better by being part of it.

V：　Silas, you've spent a lot of time in Japan and know a lot of skaters here. How do you see skateboarding in Japan?

S：　I mean, I would love to go there and spend more time there. From my perspective, I think that Japan has a full skate scene where there's lots of different aspects. From when I first started paying attention and knowing about the scene in Japan, I immediately noticed that their videos are different. The way they skate is different. I think what Morita did as far as making different styles of videos, like a lot of movements of the camera, holding the camera light up high, filming a lot at night, a lot of older dudes... I think that really shaped a different formula for how skate videos are made and it was very different from what we were doing in the United States. I think that lots of other companies have really emulated it. I also think that there's a lot of young dudes who are coming up in Japan who are very much all about the streets. You see people like Kotora, who's a really authentic, pure skateboarder. And you have dudes like Gou Miyagi who are one of the most artistic people on a skateboard ever. "Lens III" video was incredible too. So I think that Japan has this really strong street culture that's really exciting for me to watch. I feel like Japan really took their own route and made it a different thing. It would be cool to highlight that more through Tactics if possible.

V：　So the new location is opening in Sapporo in November.

D：　I definitely want to provide a space where anyone who wants to be part of our industry is welcomed. We want to be inclusive. We want to have a space where people are empowered to become part of skateboarding and snowboarding if they want. The way we do that is through local events, through engagements, through something as simple as a shop video. That's something that we continue to look at and invest in, because that's what showcases the kids and the community. Silas referenced "Easier Said Than Done," and there were a couple guys in our team that really stood out and had their first bigger moment outside of Oregon. So if we can do something like that — take that young boy or young girl who wants to become a part of it, and give them a place where they can come, experience the culture, get to know the kids behind the counter, and eventually become the next kid behind the counter, the next Silas, the next me, or the next you — I think that's what, when I look at Sapporo, if I were to fast forward to the future and define success, it's not about a single metric like revenue or sales. It's about the community and making sure we leave it better than when we arrived.

S：　I would love to have an opportunity to be out there more. I really like skating in Japan and if Tactics does a video project out there, I think it'd be an amazing thing for the community. I always felt that video projects help excel the skateboarders in general. It gives them something to work towards. It gives them a chance to go out and try to film different areas and get out of the skatepark, explore their city and their abilities. I think a skate video in Sapporo would be amazing. I'd love to see more of it.

 

Tactics @tacticsjapan

Tactics was established in Eugene, Oregon in 1999. Since then, the shop has expanded to Portland, Bend, Seattle, and other locations in the Pacific Northwest. In November, they will open their first international location in Sapporo, Japan.

Dugan Baker @tactics

Dugan Baker is the CEO of Tactics, a skater/snowboarder from Eugene, Oregon. He has been with Nike SB for 20 years and is using the experience to carry on the Tactics legacy.

Silas Baxter-Neal @silasbaxterneal

Silas Baxter-Neal is one of the Tactics team riders and also skates for Habitat and adidas Skateboarding. He's well versed in the Japanese skate scene and is the 2008 SOTY.