Faculty Profile: Ted Hunter

— by Kayla Preston-Lord, first-year student, Faculty of Art



Ted Hunter and Norah Jackson in their shop, the Roarockit Skateboard Company. Photo: Kayla Preston-Lord.As a Faculty of Design Assistant Professor teaching in the wood shop, Ted Hunter puts an emphasis on developing an intimate understanding of his chosen material. “I want [students] to understand the properties of wood — it’s not a static material, it’s moving all the time.” The same thing can be said about Hunter himself. His lifelong passion for windsurfing has brought him success, love and an unexpected business venture. Despite having never performed an “ollie,” Hunter and his wife Norah Jackson are the co-owners of Roarockit Skateboard Company, which has given skateboarders worldwide the opportunity to fabricate their own skateboards, longboards and custom decks.



A skateboard sculpture created by Hunter.While skateboarding originated from surfing, the birth of Roarockit Skateboard Company can be traced to Hunter’s love of windsurfing. Hunter met Jackson twelve years ago when the two were windsurfing at Cherry Beach in eastern Toronto. Soon the pair began travelling together to Maui, Hawaii, and there they discovered the Hui Noeau Visual Arts Centre, an old plantation house turned into a community-based arts education organization. Hunter saw an opportunity to revive the organization’s out-of-use woodshop — which administrators at Hui Noeau agreed to, so long as Hunter would also agree to teach woodworking classes to young teens in the community. “I was really unsure at first, as I had no idea what young teens would be interested in making,” Hunter says. Luckily, Jackson intervened. “What about skateboards?” she suggested.



Hunter teaching students in Maui.The skateboard deck-building classes in Maui were well-received, so upon their return to Toronto, Hunter and Jackson resolved to simplify the process of building a board, with the goal of selling cheap, easy-to-use skateboard building kits to youth across the country. These ambitions led to the creation of Hunter’s Thin Air Press technology, a now-patented process that uses a piece of foam, a wine pump, a vacuum bag and layers of veneer to bend wood into any shape imaginable. Specifically, the kits that Hunter and Jackson sell through Roarockit use seven layers of Canadian hard maple veneer, laminated together with glue over a foam mold. The mold and veneers are sealed in a vacuum bag and the wine pump sucks the air out of the bag, sustaining enough pressure to bend the veneer into the shape of the mold. It’s almost too easy to be true. “It’s like a new beginning [for skateboard culture] — we’ve made it possible to make your own skateboard again.”



Hunter helping his students mold a skatboard deck.After fine-tuning the logistics of the skateboard kit, Hunter and Jackson started Roarockit Skateboard Company, which they’ve been operating together for ten years. Their skateboard shop performs many functions — not only is it their home and business headquarters, it’s also a beacon of community development. The shop is partnered with Oasis Skateboard Factory (OSF), a program at Oasis Alternative Secondary School. Oasis is a transitional school that offers programs geared towards “at-risk youth.” Run by secondary-school teacher Craig Morrison, OSF is a two-semester program based on the possibility introduced by Hunter and Jackson’s deck-building kit — the idea that at-risk youth can be engaged, and that engagement can provide them with entrepreneurial skills, art and design fundamentals, and woodworking techniques. Similar programs are already up and running across North America, in cities like Chicago and New York, and throughout California.



Hunter with a set of stairs he designed made of skatboard decks, for his studio.Hunter remains most proud of the fact that his invention has lead to the formation of hundreds of independent, custom deck-building companies headed by young entrepreneurs. “Skateboard companies insist that you need industrial machinery to build a high-quality deck,” Hunter explains. “However, I’ve seen eight year-olds make skateboards just as good.” Jackson shares this sentiment, and takes delight in watching young people create something functional with their hands for the first time. “You watch their eyes light up as they go through the process of making a board, and they really begin to feel an affinity with what they are creating.”

The runaway success of Roarockit has turned out to be a double-edged sword for the couple. Laments Hunter, “Norah and I aren’t able to go to Maui very often anymore because we’re so busy in the shop.” Not that he isn’t humbled by his success. Hunter is a man who attributes his accomplishments to hard work, an adventurous spirit, and just a small amount of luck.