Thrasher Magazine

As Girl skateboards celebrates its 30th anniversary, it may surprise many that this illustrious company has been run by an actual woman the entire time. Megan Baltimore is as hilarious as she is mysterious, and the countless friends, acquaintances and antagonists she's acquired over the years could fill, if not a book, at least a Thrasher magazine article. As seen in the May 2023 issue

Rick has IBS or some stomach issue that means at any given time he could have a “blow out,” AKA a severe bowel movement. There is no toilet or atmosphere that can come between him and this. Over the years Rick has shit in bags, boxes and on the side of most freeways. He has also come to numerous meetings and announced he has no underwear on because he either shit his pants or had to use them to wipe with.

Ben was our staff photographer and the truest and most loyal Celtics fan. He was the first fan with that much devotion at Girl who was NOT a Lakers fan, and not only did he not care, as a true Celtics fan he thought the Lakers were the corniest team ever. It was so admirable, but also so annoying. I’m a Lakers fan. When it was playoffs, Lakers and Celtics, I might have suggested that if the Lakers beat the Celtics we decorate Ben’s office Lakers style. Lakers won and I cannot remember who lead the charge, but the décor was so purple and gold and so permanent that Ben asked Rick if it was legal to do that to an employee. He then turned right around and left for the day.


One of my all-time favorite coworkers and the king of the right thing to say at the right time. Except the time he told the guys he saw “road head” on the 110 on the way to the office. Yes, Mez, I heard that.


Beyond books, music and movies, I feel like Rick and I have constantly bonded over uncomfortable moments. He loves any eye contact when things go awkward, and so do I. Imagine the joy we shared when a very inebriated Justin Eldridge, playing bongos and singing, said, “We pretty much sound better than the Beastie Boys!”

Rick went to Vancouver after we started Girl and ran into Peter. They grew up together, and during their conversation Rick hired him. Peter drove from Vancouver straight to the warehouse the next day and announced he was there to work. I tried to get ahold of Rick to find out if he’d really hired him, but by the time I was back in my office Peter was already unloading boards that were being delivered. At the end of the day I asked if he and Rick had agreed on compensation. “Rick said the homie rate,” he replied. Years later Rick told me they never even talked about money, which made me love Peter even more.

Rocco called Randy on speaker phone to tell him he was turning pro and Randy was so thrilled that he said, “Hey, I’m talking to this girl I really like on the other line. Can I talk to you guys another time?” And he clicked back over to the call waiting. 


Rudy has the biggest, purest heart. His son Diego got really into skating and while telling us about it one night at dinner, Rudy got sad. He shook his head and said, “It just sucks, because no matter what he does he can never ever be as good as I was.”

Beyond being responsible for tour names such as Bad Ass vs Dumb Ass, Super Champion Fun Zone and High Fives up the I-5, Mark once pitched an idea to Spike and I in 1989 that was a pager that played Led Zeppelin riffs as an alert. It was called the Jimmy Pager.




Sean, Marc McKee and I spray painted the inside walls of the offices at World one night for eight hours. The graffiti was everything from penises, breasts, band names and lyrics, to annoying quotes Rocco had said to us over the years. We also paid for all the spray paint with my company credit card. Imagine how un-punk we all felt when Rocco came in and loved it. 


From the time he was an amateur skater until he was VP of marketing at DVS and Matix, his mom would send him $40 a month wrapped in foil in an envelope to “help make ends meet.”

Mike and I did not know each other that well when we became business partners. From 1993 until about 1995, he told me more than a few times that Fausto told him he could always go work in the Thrasher warehouse if he needed a job. One day I finally said to him, “You don’t even work in this warehouse.” That was the last I heard of that job opportunity.

When we talked about her turning pro she had one request: “Make me cry.” Done.

Mike had an old boat, The Guppy, and one night he, Walter the IT guy at World and I took it out for a midnight cruise. It broke down as soon as we got far enough from shore to not see anything but ocean. That was when Mike told us he had been working on it all day and knew it was a bad idea AND when he realized he only had one oar. We paddled back, reaching land at 3:30AM—only exhilarating as an adventure with 20 years distance.


Spike and I have navigated quite a few disagreements over the years varying in gravity. Our earliest squabble was when we shared an answering machine and Grant Brittain left a message with a FedEx number that I thought that was too much information to expect a roommate to write down. Not stoked, Spike went with the old, “I’d do it for you!” to which I told him, “I doubt Grant will be leaving me any FedEx numbers.” We likely went silent treatment with each other for at least a week.


He designed the Golden Girls board series for us. That’s really the most important thing to know about him.

When Michael was the art director for Fourstar, we had a coworker who constantly told us about get-rich-quick schemes. Michael suggested we leave a treasure map on this person’s desk with details of treasure buried under the Girl building.  He really pushed the idea and felt we had to do it—especially after he found someone who knew how to make a map that looked like distressed leather out of an old brown grocery bag. Ultimately, we didn’t execute the plan due to other, more-pressing deadlines.


One of my favorite people, I’ve never met anyone who has read more classic literature and knows all the liner notes on every punk rock album. Information retention is his superpower.

She’s my secret crush and the best-kept secret in badassery. Any time I’m asked about being female in a male-dominated industry I think of Robin. I might have leased some vans for tours, but she got in the van, drove it and managed the entire tour.


My sister Sue, who worked with the FBI in hostage negotiations, asked me if anyone at Girl could help her edit footage for a presentation she was working on. Johannes took the job, and despite weeks of my sister telling him how sensitive the material was, one of the tapes went missing. She freaked out, Johannes freaked out and I freaked out. And without naming names, it was magically returned to the editing room. Sue ordered pizza for everyone and it was decided the Girl offices don’t have the necessary security to house anything FBI related.

Mark and Spike called me collect from Europe about eight nights in a row. I told Rocco this was happening in hopes that he would cover the charges and he said he would but to tell them to stop calling. The next night when they called I did just that, to which Mark said, “These calls are going to be so cheap compared to the other stuff we’re doing.” It was true. They drove a rental car through a cornfield and that was not free.


It was so glaring over the years that Jeron was the coolest cat with the kindest personality that at our 15-year anniversary picnic I gave him a medal that just said, “NOT A COMPLAINT IN FIFTEEN YEARS.” His is a kind of graciousness that cannot go unrewarded.


Dan owned Sessions in Chicago and I was his sales rep when I worked at World. He also owned the X-Large store in Chicago when we started Girl in the back of the X-Large warehouse. We’ve been working together in some capacity for over 30 years. We hired him as the General Manager for Girl and Chocolate in 1997. We were working on a Fourstar catalog and Max Schaaf was staying with Dan. He came into the office one morning and said that Max hadn’t realized that Mike Carroll was an owner. Never not calm, Dan said, “As you can imagine, he’s both thrilled and nervous.”




I was helping Sean sort out some taxes he owed and we got an appointment to meet with an IRS agent at the office in San Diego. The penalties and interest had made the amount Sean owed pretty high and we were going to try to negotiate a lower amount. We met in the parking lot and went over our strategy, but Sean was so pissed once we got in the IRS office that he tore his shirt off and announced he was, “Tired of being fucked with!” We were escorted out, and as much as that did not help the negotiation, it was an emotional outburst that I appreciated and really related to.