American Gear Company is a ski and snowboard brand headquartered in St. George, Utah. It was founded in Big Bear Lake, California, in 1997.
A snowboard company in southern Utah also builds arcade cabinets. American Gear Company says the Monson brothers began making snowboards as a garage hobby at Big Bear Mountain in 1997, pitching a tent outside a local rental shop so riders could try them. Nothing in that origin story points toward a joystick, which is most of the charm.
A custom snowboard for a Tower Records magazine contest, the company says, turned the hobby into a business. St. George News reported in 2014 that Ryan Monson founded Monson Snowboards in 1997 in a small shop in southern California. Fifteen years later he created American Gear Company, which includes Monson and two other companies. Humanity and SPOT are its house brands.
In 2012 the company moved its manufacturing to Washington, Utah. It says everything is done under one roof, from CAD design to the finished product, and the shop lists factory hours of 7:30 to 5, Monday through Friday. Customers range from riders ordering a single custom board to brands and agencies that want a run of promotional ones, and the company says it can handle volume as well as one-offs.
The wakesurf boards are the most hands-on work. Each one, the company says, is hand-glassed in southern Utah one at a time, with the fiberglass laid and wet out by hand. The graphics are laminated under the glass instead of stuck on top. A custom board costs $1,100 to $1,200, and the Humanity Skillet wakesurfer runs $600.
The party gear is a category of its own. The shot ski line now includes a Shot-Guitar with real guitar tuners and a Slapshot shaped like a hockey stick, and the shop also sells skate decks made from seven layers of North American maple. A Kiva team inside the company funds small loans to entrepreneurs around the world.
Then there are the Americade cabinets. The company says they are built from Baltic birch plywood and carry a five-year warranty, and the shop lists them from $2,870. The FAQ says they arrive assembled and ready to play, which spares you the part of an arcade purchase where you read instructions.
Not everything here is made in Utah. The shop tags some of its snowboards as built at its Utah factory and others as built by an overseas partner, and the company started in California, so this listing is about where it runs now. The Humanity C2 All Mountain, a $399 snowboard in 155 and 158 centimeters, is listed as built in Washington, Utah.
The company that once demoed boards from a tent at Big Bear now keeps posted hours in St. George and will build you an arcade cabinet.
American Gear Company's wakesurf shapes include one called the Grater and another called the Skillet.
