NEWS

Brian Chaney, ’02, CFO/COO of Bear Walker Industries, will deliver “The Business Behind the (Skate)Board” during the next Inside the C-Suite lecture series. Hosted by Louisiana Tech University’s College of Business, this free lecture will take place at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 12, in Davis Auditorium (COB 101).

“Brian has spent nearly 20 years building and transforming organizations,” said Dr. Chris Martin, Dean of the College of Business. “Hearing about his experience, particularly his current role with Bear Walker, will be invaluable for our students—and I know they will be just as excited as I am to learn about the ins and outs of one of the world’s hottest custom skateboard companies.”

Chaney, who graduated from Tech with a business degree, began his career as an Air Force Acquisition Officer who led the transformation of the Maintenance Operations Centers from grease boards to a fully centralized automated system. He went on to become the Chief Information Architect for the Air Force Research Labs. Following his time in the Air Force, he focused his career on small businesses, growing multiple small government businesses an average of 150 percent per year.

Today, he serves as CFO/COO for Bear Walker Industries, a custom skateboard company with A-list clients like pop superstar Billie Eilish, rapper Killer Mike, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The company aims to chronicle pop culture through their custom, maple skateboards, and features collaborations with Pokémon and the NBA. Through his role, Chaney has led the company’s growth of production capacity by a 10x increase while keeping the quality of the boards the same.

The College’s Inside the C-Suite lecture series provides a forum for top corporate leaders from some of the nation’s most prominent companies to share their views on topics of societal, academic, and professional importance. The series strives to stimulate insightful conversation on current issues by providing a platform for high-level executives to speak about cutting-edge issues, elaborate on trends, share wisdom, and provide important career inspiration and advice for students. Topics cover a variety of themes in core business subjects such as economic climate, ethics, corporate responsibility, leadership, globalization, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, technology, innovation, and diversity.

With focuses on the College’s core academic themes of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, this co-curricular program is designed to complement and expand on what students are learning in the classroom.

For more information on Inside the C-Suite, contact Mary Susan Britt, Executive Director of Development, at marysusan@latechalumni.org or 318.257.3741.