A passion for board sports

COEUR d'ALENE - The excitement and thrill of mastering the skateboard or snowboard, whether high on a snow capped mountain or in the local skateboarding park, helped fuel Jason and Kameron Shadricks' passion for board sports.

They have been involved with snowboarding, skateboarding, and surfing for more than 20 years. Jason was a professional snowboarder and has expended his talents to include marketing and graphic/Web design. Kameron has been a high school teacher, property manager and business manager.

Three years ago they decided to open a board shop business. They believed North Idaho was growing and lacked a board shop that had cutting edge technology, experience, products and trends, while also catering to snowboarders and skateboarders of all ages and background.

Wanting to be a positive role model to the youth of the board sports community helped to make the dream of opening Merit Boardshop a reality.

"Every one of our team members is knowledgeable and passionate about both skateboarding and snowboarding," Kameron said. "We first get to know our customers, their experience level, passions, and goals, then we educate them so they can be part of the decision making process."

They have a full service snowboard repair department, tune and wax skis, a snowboard rental department and sell lift tickets to local mountains.

Because of their passion for young people Merit Boardshop regularly partners with nonprofits such as "Boarders For Christ," "For the Love" and provides free snowboard rentals for "Project Ride."

Jason and Kameron have combined their talents to make Merit Boardshop a successful business, but not without struggles and hard work. They felt a need to understand business better and to gain more business skills.

Kameron saw an article about Entrepreneurial Leadership Training offered by the Idaho Small Business Development Center at North Idaho College and decided to sign up.

"Bill Jhung, our coach, in addition to the ELT course, helped us become true entrepreneurs," Kameron said. "Before we met Bill, Jason and I were not giving our personal lives enough attention or time, everything was dedicated to the business. The downturn of the economy was a surprise to everyone, and Bill taught us how to weather the storm. We personally feel we have more balance in our lives, and our profits have increased substantially."

Jason and Kameron have a three-year goal of getting their online store up and running and also to move to a location with a larger service department space.

"Your business should not be your life, you must have balance," Kameron said. "We can always improve the way we run our business, no matter how successful our business already is. As business leaders we must be willing to assess our business and how well we are running it. We must be humble enough to ask for help, and smart enough to implement what we learn."

Merit Boardshop has three employees and is at 180 E. Neider Ave.

Information: (208) 667-3037; www.meritboardshop.com

For more information on Idaho SBDC at NIC call (208) 666-8009 or visit www.IdahoSBDC.org.