| In 2006 while #vanlife was still living in #myspace, we sold all our stuff and I moved my family from a sweet house near the beach in Encinitas (San Diego) into a 24’ motorhome. We lived in a luxury RV park with our newborn son and two hot tubs for a few months while we learned how things work living in an RV.
The plan was to drive around the country with my clothing brand PLASTIC on our summer sponsorship tour of the biggest outdoor volleyball events in the country. The tour included some big music events too, like Bonnaroo and Coachella. We would check out towns that we thought we might like to live in, and choose our new home that winter. When summer came I loaded up my PLASTIC gear into a trailer, hitched it up to my motorhome, and took off for the first event. The plan worked great as it allowed me to travel with my family, moving around product and employees (wife and kids) was easier, and it was fun!
When we came back to San Diego for some of my wife’s consulting work we looked around at some houses and decided that after the places we had been to, we needed something different. My wife killed it at her job and got a lot more work, so we needed to be close to southern California. We both loved camping, surfing and just being in Baja so we decided to give it a try. We have lived in Mexico ever since, warehousing the products in Nevada and paying our U.S. taxes but living and loving it in Mexico on the beach.
Last year on the summer tour (we now have three kids and more events) I found myself explaining what my clothing brand PLASTIC was all about to a twenty year old girl from Florida playing in the open division. The summer tour is really a chance to connect with old and new customers and friends. With over twenty years of experience in the clothing business the brand had become less about marketing and sponsorship, and more about using my talent and resources to create a top level product for the market I had been serving. This market tuned out to not just be about volleyball- the market had turned into real people and those people were athletes that loved the beach, loved to train and compete, and loved to travel (all centered around the outdoors). It was a person that I knew well because I had been living that life for a long time!
Last year while I was explaining to that young girl why PLASTIC clothing was created, I realized I was really explaining what KAMENA is doing right now. PLASTIC isn’t going anywhere in the volleyball world, but KAMENA is made specifically for the OUTDOOR volleyball and beach athlete. If you don’t know PLASTIC then welcome. If you know PLASTIC then thank you for your support, wait till you see what we do with KAMENA! |
