Agents of Change: The Story of DC Shoes and Its Athletes [Paperback]

Eric Blehm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 4, 2003

For nearly a decade, DC Shoes - one of the best-known action sports companies - has helped advance alternative sports and bring both the athletes and their products successfully into the mainstream media. What most people don't see is the amazing story being the company. This highly visual narrative reconstructs a garage company's rise to number one. Agents Of Change uses action-packed photography and revealing interviews to give a rare glimpse into the lives of the DC Shoe athletes, the sports they represent - snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX, surfing and motocross. The DC Shoes story illustrates the historic achievements of the DC athletes with some never-before-seen photographs, and shares the secrets that have made DC a pop-culture favourite.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eric Blehm is a freelance writer and the former editor of TransWorld Snowboarding. He is the son of one of the company's cofounders Clayton Blehm.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks; 1 edition (February 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060505605
• ISBN-13: 978-0060505608
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 10 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #975,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuUTZZA2KH8

Eric Blehm is a bestselling author and award-winning journalist. Winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Award (2006) for The Last Season, a gripping account of the disappearance of legendary National Park Service ranger Randy Morgenson, Blehm has distinguished himself as one of America's most important new non-fiction writers. In 2009, The Last Season was named by Outside magazine as one of the ten "greatest adventure biographies ever written." Blehm's latest book, The Only Thing Worth Dying For (HarperCollins, January 2010), has been hailed by former congressman Charlie Wilson, of Charlie Wilson's War, as a "must read" among books about the current war in Afghanistan.

In 1999, Blehm broke ground as the first journalist to accompany and keep pace with an elite Army Ranger unit on a training mission. His access into the Special Operations community and reportage set an important milestone for American war journalism two years before reporters began to gain widespread embedded status with the U.S. military in the War Against Terror. His coverage of the Ranger training, along with a reputation for following stories to remote and/or risky environments--snowboarding the rugged mountains of Iran, stalking native golden trout through California's High Sierra backcountry, retracing lost miners' routes in the deserts of Death Valley, jumping out of planes in New Zealand--led Blehm to the previously untold story of an elite team of eleven Green Berets who operated in the hinterland of Taliban-held Afghanistan just weeks after 9/11.

The Only Thing Worth Dying For is the fruit of three-plus years of investigation into the first Special Forces mission in the south of Afghanistan and the ensuing battles, which resulted in the fall of the Taliban and the rise of Hamid Karzai. By winning the trust of men from ODA 574, the Green Beret team tasked with the mission, Blehm has been able to reveal in extraordinary detail how these resourceful U.S. soldiers managed to foment a rebellion among the Pashtun and forge a new Afghanistan from behind enemy lines. It is telling of Blehm's ethic that he met and received the blessing of family members of the men on the team who were killed in action before embarking upon the telling of this story.

In addition to writing books and articles that take readers into the depths of fascinating subcultures, Blehm is a recognized voice in the search-and-rescue community for his detailed reporting of the Morgenson investigation--one of the most extensive search-and-rescue operations in National Park Service history. He is also widely known for his participatory coverage of outdoor sports and topics in the realm of adventure travel. He has contributed to GQ, Outside, Men's Journal, Backpacker, Climbing, Couloir, Hemispheres, and the Los Angeles Times. Eric Blehm lives in Southern California with his wife and two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must have for all extreme athletes, February 4, 2003

By 

A Sampogna (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agents of Change: The Story of DC Shoes and Its Athletes (Paperback)

Someone recommended this book to me, and even though I've never really followed extreme sports, I found this book fascinating.

Agents of Change is a book that should be read by all athletes. It showcases the lives of some of the most talented skateboarders, snowboarders, surfers, BMXers and motorcross athletes, showing not only the hard work and challengese they face, but also the preserverance, determination and courage they have. The bios on the athletes capture the audience and the photo footage is amazing... I would purchase the book for the pictures and bios alone.

The book also outlines the history of DC Shoes, a company that grew out of a garage and flourised into a multi-million a year company during a time when extreme sports were at their lowest popularity. DC has formed an amazing team that includes several of these atheletes and incorporates their ideas, suggestions and insight of these sports to better their designs. DC is an avid supporter of these sports and designs their products with the comfort, safety and coolness these sports warrant. The company started from the idea of Ken Block and Damon Way, (both avid skateboarders and snowboarders), with creating some cool logos on T-Shirts and with the insight and business savy of Clayton Blehm, was transformed into one of the strongest producers of gear for extreme sport athletes. This book could have provided much important information for all the dot-com industries that grew into huge companies overnight and crashed just as quickly about the importance of being realistic and conservative when starting a new company.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's about time, February 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Agents of Change: The Story of DC Shoes and Its Athletes (Paperback)

Finally someone takes the initiative to tell the story of a company that's corporate, but not really corporate. Not Microsoft or Enron or Nike or any of the Big Money companies but instead a down to earth story about a tiny little 100 million dollar company that has a story that's actually interesting. And if the story itself got boring (it never did) I could still just look at all the great photos. This is an important book for a number of reasons. It documents an era when sports in America are changing. It documents a company that stayed true to those sports. It is inspiring in a way that will show kids to follow their heart, and success will follow. Finally, it isn't a big marketing scam hidden under false pretenses. What you see with AGENTS OF CHANGE is what you get, and what you get is a great book for a book shelf or coffee table; skate park or corporate meeting room of any company who targets the youth demographic.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SB from Rome, February 22, 2003

By 

SB (Rome, Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agents of Change: The Story of DC Shoes and Its Athletes (Paperback)

I was able to pick up Agents of Change and I was blown away by what I saw. Not only are the pictures up-to-date and unbelievable, but the spectrum of sports presented, from skateboarding, to snowboarding, surfing, and motocross, presents a compelling argument as to why this book is relevent at all.

The story of DC shoes, from it's start in a garage with kids with a dream, is as much a part of the world of extreme sports as the athletes who drop from helicopters onto halfpipes or launch themselves off of snow-covered cliffs.

Told in a compelling narrative with interviews, bios, and a history of the company's inception. This book reads like the story of the American dream. Three guys, no money just an idea, and how they turn that idea into a hundred million dollar-a-year company.

This book is not just for people who love extreme sports. It's also for those of us who have dreams of one day changing the world--and making a killing at it.