Boston’s Hardest Working Skater

By Erin Chack

Outside, April showers are washing down the grimy streets of Mission Hill, Boston. It’s a grey, desolate New England day but you would hardly know it standing inside Orchard Skateshop. Lime-green wall to lime-green wall, the shop is radiating good vibes, from the Hubba wheels to the Halfcab sneaks. A group of kids that dropped in for a couple of new decks stick around to watch a skate video on the flat-screen TV in the back of the shop while they grip their boards and argue over which spot to skate next.

“We should skate Eggs,” says one.

“Nah, Eggs is beat,” says another, and then he laughs at his own lame joke (and so do I).

The group settles on Hospital Banks, since “they’re sick,” according to the jokester. For these kids and many like them, Orchard is the proverbial watering hole—a place to drink in a daily dose of skateboard culture when they’re not out shredding Boston. I watch them bicker from across the shop and notice a vibrant, colored-pencil drawing of a naked woman pinned to the neon walls above their beanied heads—just one piece of original artwork among many done by local artists that litter the empty wall space, a testament to Orchard’s commitment to supporting the community.

That’s when Orchard’s founder and co-owner Broderick Gumpright, skateboarding’s own Willy Wonka to this fun factory, emerges from the back room. He’s carrying a tower of shoeboxes so high I can only see his fuzzy brown hair and familiar blue eyes, but these mellow features and laid back attitude conceal a passionate skateboarder with heavy credentials. Bro sets the boxes on the counter and begins ringing up a customer in a Plan B tee shirt.

“I didn’t expect it to be so busy today,” he says to me with a hint of apology in his voice. “It’s so shitty out.”

I shrug him off with a casual “No worries.” Bro is just being modest. No matter the day or the weather, Orchard brims with skater-activity. Locals flock to Orchard because it offers more than just skate gear; it offers genuine skate culture. This raw authenticity in an industry that’s becoming more and more mass-marketed is rare but kept alive by Broderick’s passion for preserving and supporting the local skate scene.

It’s no surprise that a dude with this much love for skate culture has been shredding for 21 years strong, a career that’s old enough to legally drink and began before most of his clients were even born. At the tender age of ten Bro started tearing up the pavement in his hometown of Brewster, Massachusetts. Bro will humbly tell you that the Brewster skate scene was “pretty small” but Cape Cod must be doing something right to produce talent like his and that of his younger counterpart Kevin Coakley. His commitment to skating caused him to migrate northwestward to Beantown in 2000 where the scene was bigger and more productive. Broderick landed a few sponsorships over the years including The Boarding House in Hyannis, Mass, Saint Skateboards, True Love Collective, and Boston’s own True East Skateshop.

Now a 31-year-old veteran, Bro’s name is synonymous with Boston’s best shredders. “The dude rips,” one local bluntly puts it. “His skating is unreal.” If you’re looking for proof that Bro skates hard, do a quick YouTube search of his name. Watching him ollie enormous street gaps, 50-50 treacherous rails, or throw himself down 12-foot drops should be enough to convince you he’s insanely good at what he does and he doesn’t care how many slams it takes to prove it. When he finally does ride away, and he always eventually does, the celebratory screams and yells won’t come from Bro but the dudes he’s with that are going nuts for the epic trick he just landed. His style is “big and basic,” as another local puts it, which is what Boston skating is all about.

With Bro contributing so much to the Boston scene, the obvious next step was to give even more by investing all of his nickels and dimes into a skateshop in Mission Hill. Battling the high Boston rent prices and the temptation of taking out a loan (which he did not), Bro “poured every cent [he] had” from a soul-crushing office job into renting a space for the shop. But Orchard wasn’t a one-man project. He hooked up with co-owners Armin Bachman, who was formerly involved with Shelter Skatepark in Albany, NY and Matt Bagley, who owns the local wheel company Fast Life. “They’re good guys,” Bro vouches, “and they’ve been involved with skating for many moons.” Together, this triple alliance of dedicated dudes formed what is now considered to be the premiere skateshop in all of Boston. Orchard is proper as hell, and if you even try to reduce it down to just another hipster store, the culture gods will smite you with skateboard-shaped lightning bolts. As a result of its success, the shop sponsors some of the biggest talent from the area including Coakley, Jahmal Williams, Lee Berman, Lurker Lou, Joey Pepper and Broderick Gumpright himself. Take a look down the full list of Orchard team members and you’ll remember why Boston skateboarders are so fun to get hyped on—each skater brings raw talent and true east coast steeze. Bro considers riding for his own shop “not the most legit way to be sponsored,” but again, that’s just his modesty talking—his gnarly bag of tricks and love for the city make him an integral part of the team.

Because Bro is so involved in the local scene, Orchard has become the hub of Boston skateboard culture. Any month of the year, Bro and his shop host some sort of event that keeps people psyched on Boston skating from video premieres to skate jams to parties and even art shows—anything that “adds tangible culture,” according to him. That’s because for Bro, skateboarding is an art. “It’s something you create by yourself,” he explains. “Some people say skating is a sport, but really, no one’s keeping score.” Either way, Bro’s involvement keeps the scene’s heart pumping strong. “I always wanted to be a pro skater,” Bro says. “Even though I’m not, the shop lets me stay immersed in the culture. I live in it and I love it.” And he works hard to make sure that everyone from Boston’s smallest skate-rats to the biggest names gets to experience this culture, too.

Hang around his events or the shop and it won’t take long for Bro to serve you a big, steaming pile of skateboard tradition (which is good because the pizza here sucks). The owners of Orchard—Gumpright, Bachman, and Bagley—pride themselves on being “an independent skater owned business with roots in the old school [that] embraces the new school,” so a tight community is key. Bro is constantly interacting with his clients, offering advice, sharing spots, and handing out invitations to his next event. He does this because he understands the importance of keeping in touch with the local skateboarders—it’s preserving the future of skateboarding. “Skating needs shops like us,” Bro says with a solemn shake of his head. “We teach kids the way and pass on advice. We connect with them—we’re not just some Walmart trying to make a buck.” You’ll see evidence of Bro’s selflessness when you catch him at the shop setting up used decks for kids with no cash or giving discounts to regulars. It’s all about keeping the tradition and without guys like Bro, what’s stopping kids from running out to the nearest Zumiez, buying a Sheckler deck with mom’s money, and putting the power in the hands of corporate CEO’s that don’t know a bearing from a bushing? Bro helps to maintain a For Skaters By Skaters standard while still “getting kids psyched on skating and passing around goodwill.”

As hard as Bro tries to protect the scene, he still faces a lot of factors that work against him. His biggest competition is the Internet—online shops threaten business like a rain cloud threatens a good session. “Kids will come in the shop and try on a pair shoes and say, ‘cool, I’m going to order these online, is that alright?’ No. That’s not cool—support the shop,” says Bro. And because YouTube eats skate videos like they’re Skittles, Bro couldn’t get his hands on an advanced copy of Alien Workshop’s Mindfield to premiere in Boston last February. He had to wait until the release of the video to purchase a copy and then showed it at a local gallery near Fenway Park (for free, courtesy of Orchard). But despite the Internet’s far-reaching powers, there are areas where it’s lacking: “Sometimes when we’re out skating we’ll see customers and skate with them. Our customers are really our friends. You can’t get that with an Internet shop.” Bro’s right—if you’re friends with an Internet shop, it’s probably time you left the house and went out skating.

With owning a shop, skating and filming around Boston, managing a team, saving the skate scene, putting together events, and balancing a second job as a valet to cover expenses, Bro deserves at least a high-five for his true dedication to skateboarding. Although he’s living the dream, his life’s not all fun and games of S-K-A-T-E. “Owning a business is stressful 24/7. It seems pretty mellow when you come here, but really there’s a lot to worry about. I don’t have any kids, but I assume this is a lot like having a baby.” If you want proof of his commitment, just peep his paychecks. All you’ll see is a giant zero staring back at you with its unblinking, cycloptic eye because Bro, Bachman, and Bagley don’t pay themselves a salary for any of their hard work done at Orchard. Every cent from purchases made at the shop goes directly back into running it. Just another testament to how Bro keeps it real, one hundred percent of the time.

But if you ask Broderick if it’s hard not getting paid for owning and operating a popular shop in the middle of a major US city, he’ll just shrug and rub the back of his neck. “I guess it’s just a labor of love,” he’ll say. And that’s about the closest he’ll ever come to being cliché.