Founded by aerospace engineer George Powell and seminal Z-Boys skateboarder Stacy Peralta, the Powell-Peralta brand of skateboards is still one of the biggest and most popular among riders young and old alike--an impressive feat for a company that's been around for 38 years. Read on for the story of how Powell went from sanding boards in his SoCal garage to building a thriving international business. (And check out more stories in our Built From Passion series.) Where the Idea Came From In the mid 1960s, George Powell was just another teen in Southern California building skateboards out of two-by-fours in his parents' garage. He'd ride those things "until they died," he jokes, and continued skating through college, saving up Blue Chip stamps (a customer loyalty program started in the 1960s) to exchange for new boards when he shattered the others. By 1974, Powell was building boards for his son, who one day confessed he'd seen other kids riding yellow wheels that … [Read more...] about Inside the High-Flying Empire of Powell-Peralta