About company
Vans is a Southern California based manufacturer of sneakers, skate shoes and other shoe types catering primarily to the active youth market. Founded on March 15, 1966 by Paul Van Doren, was originally known as Van Doren Rubber Company in the beginning. In 1975 they had the blue deck shoes, but the guys: Tony Alva and Stacey Peralta wanted to make customs. They decided to add something to the shoe construction and that was new skate shoe that came out on March 18, 1976. The Skate Hi had padded sides so when the board flew off the pool and into the ankles they didn’t kill themselves. That was a big thing, that saved lives for skaters. In the 1980s, Vans lost much of its core customer base when the company started producing baseball and football shoes. The corporation was forced into bankruptcy in 1984 . Four years after emerging from bankruptcy protection, investment bankers McCown DeLeeuw Company bought Vans and went public in 1991. In 2004 the company was acquired by VF Corporation, manufacturers of Lee and Wrangler Jeans for $396 million.
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