Tim Pogue: Mizu’s New CEO

Tim Pogue’s the shit, love to see this go well.
The Juice-Box’s product is timely and on point, no more designer-plastic, filtered-tap water people!
Buy a Brita for crissakes and pour it in your stainless steel canteen.
And while you’re at it, vote to ban single-use plastic bags in your hometown. Way to go Seattle!

I was never burned/ripped off by the Pogue & Salter power coupling. The wheels did come off the Ride bandwagon, but *Snowboarding* is littered with a trail of tears dating back to the olden days (early 90s anyone?). Morrow Snowboards…5150…etc., etc.
NG, you may know something I don’t about Pogue’s ‘ethics’ but the fact that he bailed on a bunch of MMA brands says something. Irregardless, I’m backing Jussi and Mizu, hope people wake up and back brands with a plan.

Well let’s see… shall we start with the class action lawsuit that was filed against Tim, Jamie and the other owners of Ride? Here’s a copy of the brief: http://securities.stanford.edu/1009/RIDE97/001.html. I particularly like the part where Tim and Jamie use insider information to cash out their shares for millions of dollars, while the rest of their investors to took a bath. And what about all the people who lost their job in that fiasco? I had good friends who got canned when Ride took over Thermal. those guys didn’t care – it was all a big joke to them. As long as the C.A.S. machine got fed they didn’t care.

Are we supposed to believe that this leopard has suddenly changed his spots? I don’t think so.

It’s Jake Blauvelt – sorry for the typo Jake!

You know what they say Nigheist, opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one. I am wondering why you are not voicing your anger toward the seller of Thermal, as opposed to the buyer. This is most likely why your friends lost their employment. After reading the entire class action suit, nowhere does it quote Mr. Pogue making false statements. To the contrary, Mr. Pogue only states that the company needed a better long-term strategy. Also, to confirm, Mr. Pogue only ran the snowboard branded side of the business, which accounted for only 45% of the business revenues. In regards to selling stock, Mr. Pogue sold roughly 20% of his shares during the class action timeframe. Any knowledgable financial planner would advise large shareholders of public entitiies to diversify, and recognize some of the gains once shareholder lock-up agreements have been exhausted. This happens all the time. In regards to Japan, it blew up for many industries, not just in the snowboard and skate business, or just Ride. Anyone doing business internationally, knows that distributor agreements are almost impossible to enforce and are typically done by letter of credit to guarantee funds. The only way to know if a distributor is truthful with purchase commitments is to have the letter of credit in place. Analysts following the stock should have been commenting about this and the only way management can give different guidance is when failure to post the letter of credit happens, basically in real time. In 1996-1997, while Japan was dealing with a real estate bubble and recession, many Japanese distributors lost their way and ultimately the Japanese retailers became more powerful than distributors. This was referred to as the Japanese Distribution Revolution. If you look at retailers in the U.S. today, the exact same thing is happening right now. After a U.S. real estate bubble and recession, retailers are doing a power grab, and fracturing their relationships between high-end manufacturers and distributors, and demanding unrealistic expectations of suppliers in a depressed economy. In fairness to Mr. Pogue and his reputation, he holds loyal and committed friendships and business relationships by industry professionals, media marketers and teamriders he has worked with throughout his career. Congrats Tim on your new venture.