Four sports pros who call Cape Fear home are proving that business can be as gratifying as the next hole-in-one.

Using specialized skills and business smarts, celebrities in skateboarding, surfing and golf are creating fresh opportunities from the games that brought them fame.

Reggie Barnes

At the Wilmington headquarters of Eastern Skateboard Supply, employees do kick flips over working with former freestyle pro Reggie Barnes, the company’s founder and president. 

Barnes has built a business into what he says is the world’s largest wholesale distributor of skateboards and accessories through a fanatical belief in erasing debt, staying in close touch with friends and capitalizing on trends. 

Walking through his operation recently, Barnes greeted employees on break as they skated on a street course where Barnes also does some tricks. “The Bowl,” a separate nine-foot-deep, 4,000-square-foot rink used to demonstrate products to customers, is the centerpiece of the facility.  

The firm employs 40-50 workers, depending on the season. Associates take orders from skate shops, surf shops and other retailers; track tens of thousands of items including cruisers, wheels and bearings; and place each product on the firm’s website as it arrives from the manufacturer.

Barnes keeps tabs on the operation from an upstairs office where an eye-riveting array of skateboards hangs behind him.

“First, I wanted to be the best skateboarder I could be,” said Barnes, who placed among the top five in 10 freestyle events during a pro career that began in 1979. But all along, he dreamed of creating a business. 

Barnes, who holds an associate degree in business administration from Cape Fear Community College, got his footing as an entrepreneur by building decks for homes. He remembers how he skated one day and drove nails the next. “It was almost like I was having an identity crisis,” Barnes said. 

Opening a combined wholesale-retail skateboarding business with two partners in Raleigh in 1985, it didn’t take long for Barnes to realize that he wanted to focus on wholesale, based in Wilmington. He used a loan from his father to buy out his partners, paid his dad back and established credit with a bank. 

“And I was a fanatic on always paying our vendors on time,” he added.  

In 1990, Barnes opened Eastern Skateboard Supply at his first location on Amsterdam Way, adding to the property twice. “I paid cash so I knew where I stood,” he said.

In addition to taking financial “baby steps,” Barnes grew his enterprise through an extensive network of contacts.

It was a UPS driver who whispered to Barnes that his current location at 6612 Amsterdam Way would come on the market. Barnes jumped on the rumor and bought the property down the street directly from the owner.  

Maintaining ties with friends also helps Barnes jump above the competition. 

“The relationships that I started building in the 1970s … those benefits pay off still to this day,” he emphasized. “New products, new designs, new pro riders; I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to sell those things.”

Still, staying in touch in a global marketplace is difficult, so trade shows became essential.

Penny Skateboards, now a huge hit, were at first snubbed by Barnes because of soft demand and unfavorable pricing. But attending an expo, Barnes felt compelled to buy 500 of them to establish rapport with the manufacturer, who quickly named Eastern Skateboard Supply as its exclusive U.S. distributor. Now, the product is riding a wave of popularity. “We just got in six or seven hundred – of one color,” Barnes noted.

Penny is the latest product to pay off for Barnes, who believes that whatever the trend, his company will be ready. “We identified three or four brands that we don’t have and we’ve been hearing a little bit of a buzz about,” Barnes confided. “It keeps me hungry.”

Ben Bourgeois and Tony Silvagni

While Barnes’ business is in high gear, those of two pro surfers are still cresting. 

Ben Bourgeois, 34, left the pro circuit in 2008 after snagging two East Coast championships and a World Junior Championship. He now represents industry sponsors, including Dakine and SPY eyewear, but knows that sponsorships don’t last forever. 

“I’m slowly brainstorming all day long,” Bourgeois said. “I’m lucky enough that I made a name for myself when the industry was doing really good.”

The idea of creating international travel packages is one that has Bourgeois testing the waters. “I’m going to be taking small groups of people to private surf destinations,” he said, adding he may also develop some overseas properties that he owns.

While traveling, Bourgeois remains on the lookout for new surfboards and apparel for Sweetwater Surf Shop, the Lumina Ave. in Wrightsville Beach store opened by his father, who assists him on contracts. “He’s taught me a lot. … my dad definitely helped me learn the right way instead of the hard way,” Bourgeois said.

At Carolina Beach, Tony Silvagni, 26, splits his time between the pro circuit and the surf school that he founded five years ago.

Tony Silvagni Surf School operates out of a colorful shack on Hamlet Ave. It offers private and group lessons, week-long surf camps and surf birthday parties. “We want to focus on giving instruction that’s close to home,” the young pro said.  

Silvagni, the 2011 World Longboard Champion, will compete abroad this fall. Because he chooses fellow surfers he trusts as his associates, it’ll be business as usual at the surf school while he’s away. 

J. Banks Guyton  

At 72, J. Banks Guyton, a Wilmington native, is home to stay. A PGA-certified club pro, Guyton competed in the U.S. Senior Open, PGA Senior Championship and other tournaments. 

Guyton never considered anything but golf when he left the tour. “I began teaching and building golf clubs and doing club repair,” he said.   

Three days a week, Guyton takes the ferry from Southport to teach at Beau Rivage Resort & Golf Club in New Hanover County. His wife, who has worked in various pro shops with him, doesn’t tag along. 

“She gets me out of the house three days a week,” he said with a chuckle.