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I can’t believe it’s already the end of week 4. Time has been flying by. It sure has been fun and at the same time, intense. They mentioned in the ad for the internship that it would be intense and that what part of what drew me to this opportunity. It has been really testing my skills and abilities. It has drawn me out of my shell and got me to interact with people more, out skating, even just out in the city, and has inspired more confidence in myself.

Collaborating with all the other interns has been an awesome experience. Working together has been a blessing and a challenge. The interns have provided great insight and great tools to contribute to efficiency and results. It’s been really hard getting us all together but people have been flexible and worked with their schedules for the best of the group.

We’ve had great weekly discussions. We received a great deal of information and insight into business strategy and bamboosk8’s strategy that has helped immensely to understand what bamboosk8 is all about.

I’ve been adjusting to working with new social media tools and new ways to use social media tools I’ve already worked with. I’ve had problems managing my time efficiently and I have addressed these issues by paying more attention to every task I work on and how long it’s taking me. I’ve also took advantage of having a timesheet with priorities laid out so that I have direction in my activities and know when I spend too much time on a task.

The big bosses have provided great feedback and constructive criticism. Mark has really helped me with how to address interview questions and with great insight into value added activities. They all have been great motivators, they radiant positive energy that is contagious and inspiring.

Overall, this is been the most intense, most amazing experience so far. I already feel that I have achieved much personal and professional growth and am looking brightly at the future 3 months.

It’s all about the bamboo!!

Alameda Skatepark

The street signs in my neighborhood are made with skateboards!! ha

Alameda skatepark (SF in the background)

West Oakland (Town Park)

Another West Oakland (Town Park)

I have been interning at Bamoosk8 for about four weeks now and let’s just say I got off to a very rocky start. I was so excited to start the intern process that when it actually started I got so overwhelmed with everything my performance definitely suffered. It has been really fun learning how to Skype with all of the interns, there is nine of us that have survived the first few weeks. I am also enjoying getting to know Geoff Koboldt the president at Bamboosk8. He has been my mentor the last few weeks and I have really learned a lot from him.  Another highlight was selling my first deck, it was a Bamboosk8 blank pool deck to my friend Jeff he is an old school skater and loves long boards.

Now that I am a few weeks in I have been thinking about what is next, I have been thinking of a few of the top companies that I would want to work for other than Bamboosk8 once I finish my internship. My top choice would definitely be Billabong. I have loved them as a brand for a while now and even have a few friends that I know that work there. They are located next to where I live so my commute would be a breeze which is always an added benefit. RVCA would be my next choice. They are owned by Billabong and are a very strong company. I love what they stand for; bringing art, music, and action sports together is awesome. Hurley would also be a top choice of mine, the company stands for love for the ocean, positivity, with a premium on smiles. All of these things I try and live by in my life. Having the opportunity to work for any of these companies would be great, they all are strong and have a large part in making the action sports industry what it is today.  Now, I just need to stay positive and finish the internship here at Bamboosk8, so I can hopefully work for one of these great companies someday!

Hey, all you peeps!! My name is Ryan Sandru, and I am stoked to be accepted into BambooSK8′s 12th intern class!! I heard about BambooSK8 a while back and was pleasantly surprised to discover the innovative, superior, and eco-friendly skateboards that the company produces. I was born and raised in North San Diego County and I’ve been skatin’ for a long time. I never seen anything like BambooSK8! I am fortunate to be working with such awesome people at a great company.

In 2003, I left San Diego and moved to Pasadena, CA. I studied Illustration at the Art Center College of Design from 2004 to 2006. I quickly discovered that I couldn’t swing the tuition of $15,000 per semester!! I took some time off and finally finished my degree at Cal State Fullerton. I majored in Graphic Design in 2010, and that was that. I missed San Diego the entire time that I lived in L.A. County! I didn’t want to be an actor or famous musician… I wanted to work in the skate capitol that is San Diego. As soon as I could, I moved back home.

Here I am BambooSK8!! Working for a skate company isn’t as easy as it may seem. It is definitely a professional and task-driven environment. But I wouldn’t have it any other way! After all, you can’t learn anything under any other circumstances.

We are currently wrapping-up the second week, and I can wait for future weeks. Nice to meet you all!!!! SK8 the BAMBOO!!!!

Hello Friends! My name is Michelle and I am also part of the first class of “out of office” interns. I live in Denver, Colorado and let me tell you, the weather is not as nice as it is in Oceanside right now. It is currently 14 degrees outside and dropping. I grew up in a small town in Southern Colorado and have been snowboarding since I was 14. I moved to Denver for school and will graduate in May with a business degree in marketing and management. BambooSK8 struck my interest because I hope to have a successful career in the action sports industry.

With my future career goals, BambooSK8 was definitely a step in the right direction. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to work with a company that is innovative, environmentally responsible and very organized. It is absolutely incredible what BambooSK8 is doing for the skate community and I assure you that BambooSK8 will continue to grow in the future.

We are currently in week 2 of the internship program and it has not been easy. This internship is not about getting coffee and stopping at the dry cleaners for the boss (thank goodness). There is a ton of information that needs to be learned and getting all the details perfect is the key to success for this internship. Getting into the swing of things has been tough but I am confident that it will get easier once I find a routine. So far, I have only met and worked with Geoff K (owner/president) and Mark (operations manager) who have been incredibly helpful with the whole process so far. You can tell that we are working with professionals and it is a great privilege to do so. As of now, everyone and everything is great and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next few weeks.

Well that’s it for now. I will leave you with a few pictures so you guys can paint a picture of what life in Colorado is like.

Hi my name is Jamie I am one of the new interns for the 2012 spring internship, I am super excited to start working with Bamboosk8 and can’t wait to get started. I found Bamboosk8 online and found out they offered an incredible opportunity for a marketing internship. I graduated college around a year ago with a degree in marketing and really had no real life marketing experience; I knew this would be an amazing opportunity for me to get my foot in the door. I currently am a hair stylist down in the South Orange County area; I have been doing hair for around seven years and love what I do! I am just ready to take the next step in my life. This brings me to what brought me to want to work at Bamboosk8. One of the other things that I am passionate about is action sports, I wakeboard, snowboard, and paddle surf and watch many of the others on television. Bamboosk8 seemed like a good fit for me to learn about marketing while working with people who share the same passion as I do. I also love the fact that Bamboosk8 is a green company; working for a company that is trying to make a difference by helping the environment is really inspiring to me.

I have been at Bamboosk8 for almost a week now and have learned a lot about the company, as well as the products they sell. The company as a whole is great! Everyone seems super excited about the company they work for as well as the products they sell. The use of social media has really brought a huge following for the company; I hope I can help to bring in more followers to help expand the company. Learning all of the different social media avenues is really important especially today. Most everyone uses the internet for either personal or business reasons, so learning how to properly use social media to promote a company will diffidently help me along the way with marketing. I also have learned how well the company has grown over the last few years; the company started off as just a manufacture of decks and now has a team of riders as well as a complete brand for the company. Starting to work with a company who is in growth stage will help me to see what it takes to grow a company from the ground up. It will be interesting to learn how all different pieces within the company connect to inevitably create a profitable lasting company.

Now that you know why I am here and what I have learned so far I thought I would share some of my future goals. In the next 16 weeks I hope to have gained more real life knowledge in marketing, especially in social media as well as knowledge about the skateboarding industry.  In the next year or two I plan on switching careers completely, I will give up my hair styling business and hopefully venture out into some type of entry level marketing job, hopefully for an action sports company if I am lucky. In the next five years I plan on having a secure job in marketing with a company that I am not only am passionate about but enjoy working for. Sometime during this period I would also like to have gone back to school and have gotten my MBA in management. And, hopefully in the next 10 years I plan on either managing a team or maybe even owing my own company, so an MBA would definitely help me.

Hello all, Ryan here!  I have just joined the wonderful Bamboosk8 internship team which I am very thankful to be a part of. As from what I can see this opportunity is going to be just the right, rigorously challenging experience I have been looking forward to take on! At the same time I know it will help me in many ways to grow in the exact direction I am looking for and give me the experience to be successful in the industry I have been interested in since I took my first-step on to that wooden plank with wheels.

I grew up on the west coast of Florida where it is exceptionally boring and skateboarding gave me life. It was not only an outlet from the rough times at home, but also a way to feel connected to something bigger, society. Ever since then my love for boards and action sports grew rapidly. I eventually moved to San Diego to live near family and attend college at San Diego State University where I am currently a student. I have the luxury of living in Ocean Beach where I am close to good surf and the O.B. skate park which gives me ample time to do what I love! It is my ultimate goal to develop my own company some day in the action sports industry, but right now my goals are to increase my marketing and sales wherewithal by working with others to reach maximum output and potential. I now know Bamboosk8 is the perfect place to learn how small businesses survive in this economy and more importantly how they thrive! I look forward to these next few months with excitement!

I leave you with a quote to celebrate the holiday, “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus, but a molder of consensus.” Martin Luther King Jr.

My name is Sam Britt, I am one of several interns for the spring class of 2012…

I recently have had the opportunity to join BambooSK8 for their in depth internship.  Just this last Thursday I was invited to Bamboo’s skate facility for our orientation.  As I approached the office, I realized this was uncharted territory for myself simply because I realized I have no skate experience to bring to the table.  I haven’t a lick of information on why their audience likes Bamboo’s decks over standard competitor decks or for that matter what some of the trick moves are that skaters use with these decks.  All of this ran through my mind as I approached the door to the “Intern Cave” where all interns gather for idea crunching and education.  It was there I was exposed to all things skateboard.  Literally!  There were many different style decks posted throughout the room with various graphics.  The boards cover wall to wall.  From what I gather these decks have been designed by previous intern classes and hung in “The Cave.”   One of our mentors Mark Olson, sat and introduced us to Bamboo’s way of life and of course the syllabus we all will be using for the next 4 months.  For those of you who are considering this as an easy internship, let me just say this is not a position where you can walk in and ride your board and think you can literally “skate by” on this internship.  This curriculum was well though out and planned and requires alot of your personal time in order to be successful at BambooSk8.   What I did realize is regardless of the industry, all businesses have a business model they abide by and Bamboo is no different.  The one thing I look to take from this internship is something in the public relations and social media realm.  BambooSk8 is a unique company and requires a unique tactic to grab its audiences attention.  I intend to absorb any information I can with this company and I am looking forward to meeting all the different individuals involved with BambooSk8.

So long for now….

As I sit here typing my last blog as a BambooSK8 intern I’m amazed that 4 months have gone by.  I think that statement alone says something about this internship.  It was definitely difficult and frustrating at times (what job isn’t) but it was definitely a lot of fun too.  Being busy and having fun makes time fly by.

During the internship I learned about the role that social media plays in a small company, about growing video views on youtube, and about creating press releases.  Through our midterm and final I learned about the income statement and statement of cashflow, how the two relate, and how important they are to a business owner.  I also learned a lot about myself. I now know that if I pay attention to all the little details and am more efficient with my time I can be successful.  I learned a lot in 4 months and I’m definitely proud to be 1 of the final 3 interns.  Now that its over I definitely feel more prepared for a career in marketing in any industry but especially the action sports industry.

I want to thank Geoff K, Mark, Wyatt, Geoff C, and Jackie for all the help along the way and I want to congratulate Kyle and Chelsea for making it all the way through.  Thanks guys for making this such a great experience!

For everyone out there reading this, I’m leaving you with some pictures of the office ugly sweater Christmas party…..

Have a happy Holiday!

Its getting down to it folks, only a few weeks left here at BambooSK8.  All the interns just took the final which was more difficult than I thought it would be.  It taught me a lot about lead time, which basically means I learned about inventory.  A company has a given amount of lead time ( say 8 weeks ) to get new product from the factory (total of ordering and then shipping), if you do not order your items early enough then you will run out of inventory before the new shipment comes. So business owners/companies have to plan ahead in order to optimize their inventory.  Basically the test asked you to look at the big picture and determine when you need to order your next shipment of skate decks.  I actually did pretty well on the test scoring a 47 out of 50 so that felt pretty good.  The final helped me understand the relationship of the income statement and cash flow statement with regards to lead time.  It also taught me that no matter what your area of expertise (marketing, management, accounting, finance) you need to have a basic understanding of the other departments in order to get things done.

On Tuesday I noticed another addition to the warehouse.  We can now take breaks and play ping pong!  Last night after work I beat the other intern Kyle 10 times and only lost once…. kind of a beat down…. but it was definitely fun and brought me back to when I used to play all the time.

Here’s a link to what our ping pong game looked like:

ping pong match

Thursday all the interns had mock interviews with Mark, Geoff, and Wyatt (the boss men).  I kind of sucked.  But the experience was definitely positive.  They were all super supportive and gave great feedback.  Some things I need to work on were exuding more confidence and making eye contact with all the people that were interviewing me.  They also gave me feedback on all of my interview answers so that I can practice them for future interviews and so that I can have more confidence in my answers moving forward.  At the end, they reviewed my resume and gave me some feedback on that as well.  I definitely feel more prepared for the next interview that I get, wherever that may be.

In other news I was up in LA and then visited Venice the other weekend which was a lot of fun.  Venice is a really cool town, with a lot of great skate parks, I attached some pictures because the view from the beach is great.

Venice Beach

View from the apartment I stayed at in LA

Until next time,

Tyler

I spent the past weekend at an event I never thought I would be at… a sorority informal. I was slightly nervous about this whole situation when my girlfriend invited me but as it turns out the ladies of Kappa Pi Zeta aren’t too shabby, in fact they may be bordering on great! This weekends adventure started off with one night in a hotel in Long Beach preparing ourselves to weather the storm, literally, on Catalina Island.

On Saturday morning we boarded the ferry to travel 2 hours to Catalina at the god awful time of 7 am. I assume everyone had a good boat ride because when I woke up from my Dramamine induced slumber everyone was in good spirits, and slightly tipsy from their morning mimosas. We arrived on the island with only sunny skies and the festivities began, whether it be beer pong or  the hookah people were all enjoying themselves very much. The day progressed and nap time began, but Katie and I decided it would be a much better use of time to play on the swings then go swimming in the icy ocean and retreat to a warm shower. After nearly dying of  frostbite in the freezing ocean we took off towards the showers hopeful we would soon be warmed up. Little did we know warm showers were not an option in our little camp! After many attempts to dry off and warm up we went to dinner with the rest of the gang. As the night progressed everyone became better and better friends and the pictures tell the stories of the night. We woke up the next morning to a threatening storm and we all wondered whether or not the ferry would vernture back out to  pick us up. In the end we were able to get home safe and sound.  All in all, I would say this was an extremely successful weekend : ]

In other news everything with the internship has been going really well. We were having some issues in regards to getting repsonses to emails regarding media contacts so we have done a little revamping in hopes of upping these responses. I think that that one of the tasks I have enjoyed a lot within this last week was creating a list of artists to contact in the hopes of using them to design decks. This has been really cool to see all of the artists that are out there, along with seeing all of the different types of art.