For Sean Meyers longboarding is more than a hobby, it’s a way of life and now livelihood.
Three years ago, Meyers was just a senior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in need of a quick and easy way to class. His solution was simple: create an electric skateboard that could easily take him from point A to point B.

Now as he glides down the hallway of the Electric Revolution (EREV) South 17th Street headquarters on his original prototype, Meyers’ brainchild has become much more than an excuse to hit the snooze button one more time.

Meyers started EREV right after graduation and soon after merged with Backbone Longboards, a locally based custom longboard maker. Now both the traditional and energy-efficient versions ship across the nation, and the company is quickly making a name for itself in the longboarding community throughout the East Coast.

Meyers, who freely admits riding his electric boards is not an effortless task, believes his boards are a sustainable substitute to driving a car.

“It’s [sustainability] something that more people need to think about in terms of transportation,” Meyers said. “I hope that everything will be electric one day.”

From electric cars to electric bicycles, the industry is a growing sector. Revenue from electric bicycles, for example, is projected to grow from $8.4 billion in 2013 to $10.8 billion in 2020, according to Navigant Research.

At EREV, from packaging made from recycled materials to new lithium batteries that take half the charge time and travel for twice the distance than the company’s initial batteries, the boards continue to create new ways to become even more sustainable and eco-friendly.

“It’s crazy the progressions we’ve made,” Meyers said. “Everything has evolved.”

In the company’s early days, Meyers along with his wife began taking EREV boards around the various festivals surrounding the Wilmington area when they came across another local board designer named Mike Fox.

It was not long after that Meyers and Fox began working together and merged their companies.

“EREV boards has developed into Backbone Longboards,” Meyers said.

Meyers and his new partner went back to the woodshop and began rethinking the way they viewed longboards.

“It was so important for us to go back and kind of focus on the originality of the deck and the wood and kind of shape,” Meyers said. “We really wanted to get our hands dirty in the woodshop again.”

With six new Backbone Longboards deck shapes – all named after classic, American muscle cars – the company prides itself on not only having unique body styles but also for being entirely American made.

“We take pride in what we do and aren’t just going to put out a product we aren’t proud of,” Meyers said. “A lot of our competitors are just push, push, push, but we are working to put out something that’s quality.”

Even though their competitors can produce triple the volume that Meyers and Fox can, the Wilmington duo believe that the quality of their work will give their products the edge.

For example, Meyers is currently working on a board where the carvings on the deck of the board will replace the traditional grip tape. Meyers said this type of board, which would allow for barefoot riding, would be the only one of its kind. He went on to say a major obstacle with the new board would be marketing it appropriately.

Pegging the typical customer for the EREV product can be challenging for the growing business.

“It’s crazy,” Meyers said. “I thought when we first started I had a perception of our demographic, but I’ve literally sold this board to a 50-year-old warehouse manager in Leland, where he gets around instead of a Segway on our board.”

Meyers’ wife, Sarah, said the electric boards are also popular with film crew members. She said workers on Iron Man 3 bought the electric boards to ride around EUE/Screen Gem Studios when it filmed in Wilmington.

From innovative techniques to a creative advertising campaign, the company’s plan appears to be working, and now its biggest obstacle is much different than before.

“You’re a small business, and capital is tough,” Sean Meyers said. “But keeping up with demand is the hardest part.”

When asked where he sees his company headed, Sean Meyers laughed and then said, “Have you seen Back to the Future II? Because I’m thinking hover boards.”

Then in a more serious tone, he said the most important things for the company are continuing efforts to create innovative products and to expand product awareness.

Even though the majority of Sean Meyers’ energy is now fixated on Backbone Longboards, he has not forgotten EREV.

With a new website launching in early July and a smartphone app that will replace the handheld remotes, EREV continues to make progressions that will help keep the company going as Sean Meyers focuses on creating more standard longboards. 

He does not view the growth of Backbone Longboards as a necessarily bad thing for EREV either.

Instead, he views a strong longboarding culture as a vital stepping-stone to making electric longboarding more recognizable.  

“As the longboarding culture grows, electric skateboarding will start to grow too, but we have to build that longboarding community first,” he said.

“Then we can start getting people on our electric boards. You know it’s not just a skateboard, it’s a mode of transportation.”