Ten Questions is no more, and we've replaced it with a more in-depth look at people in the industry who have transcended beyond the pro rider role. This issue Craig Cunningham drops in, he's been looking after the Duotone team and working with the movie creators to ensure their content is as good as it can be. Find out how he got there and what it takes to work in the industry right here.

Park shredder and Duotone International Rider, Craig Cunningham, shares his story from where and how it all began in Port Dover, Ontario to moving to Hood River, and ending up living on the shores of Peniche, Portugal!

Hey Craig, it's great to catch up, finally! Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, and what it was like growing up in Port Dover? How did you first get introduced to kiteboarding?

Thanks for having me! I grew up in a small town in Southern Canada called Port Dover with a very supportive family and an interesting group of friends! For the most part of my early years, I played many teams sports but primarily focussed on hockey, but that was until I started skateboarding. I quickly lost interest in the whole jock-scene and just wanted to skateboard and snowboard instead. I also started wakeboarding, but since I didn't have access to a proper boat, I wasn't able to go out that often. One day, I noticed a few guys kiteboarding at our local beach, and that's when and where it all began!

How did you end up in Oregon and when did you start park riding? What was the local scene like back when you started?

As I was already hitting rails skateboarding, wakeboarding and winching, as soon as I started kiteboarding, it was only a matter of time that I wanted to start park riding! As soon as I began riding upwind, I started popping rails on the water. I ended up spending most of my summers at Hood River, I had a solid group of friends who were all pushing park riding over there at the time, so it only made sense to make it my home base!

After the end of an epic run of the Wind Voyagers Triple-S event, what's your take on the current state of park riding and what's next, in your opinion?

Honestly, the best riding doesn't happen during competitions; it all happens in the videos! With the current level of park riding and the new feature we have access to, I think 2020 is going to be pretty exciting!

The feature we (Duotone) just built in Hatteras is just waiting for shredders like Noè Font, Ewan Jaspan, Alex Maes and all the OG's to take some new lines that just weren't possible in the past. It's going to be interesting to watch, and as the saying goes "when one door closes another one opens”. It’s a bummer to lose Triple-S, but I’m sure it will pave the way for other opportunities.

You play a big role behind the scenes with the Duotone team, what are your responsibilities, and what are the pros and cons of the job?

I do a lot of the creative direction on our non-product focused marketing. I look at it like a character development position, wherewith my knowledge of the industry, I can help get the best out of our team and make sure everything is running as smoothly and efficiently as possible. The cons are spending more time behind a screen than I'd like, but the pros far outweigh the cons!

Right now, I'm only working on projects I'm passionate about! I still get to travel a lot, and most of the time I can work remotely, so really, I couldn't be more happy and grateful for Boards & More group and my bosses Tommy (Kaiser) and Till (Eberle) for trusting in me to help out and giving me the opportunity to be doing what I’m doing right now.  

You've worked your way up from pro rider to various roles, how did you make that happen and was it planned?

Becoming a pro rider was never planned! I had actually just finished school for Power Engineering when I got my first contract with Liquid Force. It brought me into a new world aka "the Bubble" and finding a spot I thought I could excel in within the brand, was definitely planned to extend my time in the bubble.

From day one with Duotone (North at the time), I was involved in various projects and photoshoots. I eventually got more and more responsibility and it just made sense to take it on fulltime. At the same time, I was starting to lose motivation for riding and even though I just had a top 5 KPL ranking, I got injured shooting 'Goodbye, Hello' with Noè by being pretty careless. I was injured, we were about to start to process of rebranding, and the timing just seemed to make sense, and it was the perfect way to keep me focused throughout most of 2018 and 2019. It was fantastic to come into this position during the rebranding, and to get to influence the direction of the "new brand" so much. Working so closely with the office team in Munich on the launch and the 2019 campaign was one of the most exciting projects I had ever had the chance to be involved with.

If you look back in sports and especially boardsports, a rebranding like this was unprecedented - I couldn't believe we pulled off in one year!

You've got an eye for design and a knack for inspiring other team riders, how do you keep them motivated?

I just put ideas out there and see what people think and I try not to be a micromanager or a boss of any sort, more of a tool to support the team throughout their journey. My favourite thing to do is brainstorm ideas with everyone and work on new concepts for everything and anything between. It's not hard to keep them motivated, they are all hungry, and they all know that there are heaps of kids who want their jobs!

Working with riders like Noè, Mika, Valentin etc. and seeing them succeed is just as rewarding, if not more, than doing things for me these days. It sounds cliché, but the team at Duotone is like a family, and I look at these guys as little brothers and sisters!

We tend to see your name in most of Duotone's video credits, what do you enjoy most about it working on movies? Given a choice, would you rather be in front of the lens or behind it?

Well, we have lots of people behind the scenes working on projects. Tom Kaiser, Philipp Becker, Carlos Guzman and Patrick Dudek do most of the product shoots, and episodes, Tom Court, Noè Font, Lukas Salomon and I do some of the other stuff. We have such a cool team to work with, and I'm absolutely frothing on some of the projects we have in the pipes for 2020!

As far as getting in front of the lens or on the other side of things, I'll still be doing both as long as I can. It's definitely more behind-the-scenes, dealing with all the moving parts and executing projects but I have a couple more video projects I want to work on this year.

You guys recently hosted a 'Duotone Grom search' in Brazil, if a young talented rider expressed interest in becoming a pro rider, what advice would you give them and how could you, help them fulfil their dreams?

The main thing is to have fun! If you feel like you need to train and aren't riding because you love it, hard to say, but you probably won't go far. People like Airton, Mika and Valentin win World Titles because they love to kiteboard, period. So, don't worry about sponsors when you just landed a raley to blind, have fun with your friends, develop a crew, push each other, shoot videos, compete if that's what you're into but most importantly have fun and do it because you love it!

You must be incredibly proud of Valentin Rodrigues and Mikaili Sol; they killed it this year, and they're both so young! What is their secret?!

This is precisely what I meant above; they love to kiteboard! And yes, I'm so hyped on these two! Mika continues to impress me in all aspects of sport and to be honest, I still can't believe Valentin is the World Champion. This time last year, we were talking about if he wanted to do the full tour and if he was capable of all the travelling? He said he wanted to do it, and I thought we could work with him, and maybe in 2 or 3 years he would have shot! To see him exceed every single expectation from his family and us and to pull through and claim the World Title win this year in Cumbucco; it meant a lot too many different people. I'm so proud of him, and it's great to watch him learning off the water as quickly as he is learning on the water. Can you imagine how quickly his life has changed in the last 12 months? It's insane!

You recently moved to Portugal; it must be quite the change! What instigated the move, and what it's like living on the other side of the world?!

It's so rad, I'm so stoked to be in Peniche! Today, for example, I worked 8 hours, surfed twice, ate loads of good food and tomorrow it looks like the lagoon will be working, so I'll go shred with Christophe (Tack) and our little-but-growing crew out here. Basically, I was getting over living in Hood River because of the time difference with Germany. I also do a lot of Creative Direction work and Athlete Management for an action sports agency called Makulo that is based there in Germany as well, so coordinating with two companies in Europe, while working remotely from the west coast of the US was not ideal! Working remotely, you should be able to choose when you work and play a bit, but the time difference was forcing really early and late hours. While on the other side of things, the Oregon winters aren't far off from the ones I grew up in Canada. So, I knew I wanted to be somewhere in Europe and somewhere warm but still with seasons. It came down to Tarifa or a few spots in Portugal, but since I want to surf and ride my bike a lot, plus still kite as much as possible, Peniche was the perfect choice and a bit more off the beaten path as far as the kite scene goes.

Are there are any exciting new projects in the pipeline that you'd like to share with us?

We have a new brand video coming out soon that I'm hyped about, but the thing I can't wait to drop is a video we worked on with Lidewij Hartog and the Duotone Surf Team in Mauritius. I usually spend more time with the twin tippers, but I have to say, we had a mental trip, and I think what's going to come out of it should be a little different than most of what you see traditionally in kitesurfing.

Thanks, Craig for the interview! We wish you the best of luck for 2020!

Cheers guys, stay stoked!

Videos

Craig En La Playa (Part #3)
KNOT FUTURE: Goodbye, Hello.
LA BUENA VIDA
The Bubble Film.
By Jen Tyler
Italian/Egyptian Jen Tyler grew up on the sandy beaches of the Red Sea and has been on the IKSURFMAG & Tonic Mag team since 2017.

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