Alien Workshop (AWS) is an independent American skateboarding company that was founded in 1990 by Chris Carter, Mike Hill, and Neil Blender in Dayton, Ohio.
[3] As of 2016, Alien Workshop, led by Mike Hill phased out working with Tum-Yeto and moved all operations back to the Mound Laboratories in Miamisburg, Ohio.
Carter, Hill and Blender decided to form a company based in Dayton, Ohio, United States (U.S.), at a time when the skateboard industry's core was located in California.
[4][5] The nascent company's first video was titled Memory Screen (1991), and featured a team that consisted of Dyrdek, Pitre, Bo Turner, John Pryor, Scott Conklin, Steve Claar and Thomas Morgan.
[7] Around the year 2000, the company hired Joe Castrucci to oversee the production of the Photosynthesis video—Castrucci would later oversee the development of the Habitat skateboard deck brand, which joined Alien Workshop under the DNA Distribution parent company that was created internally, and enlisted Alien Workshop riders, such as Kerry Getz and Danny Garcia, for the new brand.
[8] Photosynthesis was the first video in which Jason Dill and Anthony van Engelen, two team riders who would become foremost figures of the company, appeared.
[9] Pappalardo later stated that hearing a message from Dyrdek on his answering machine and officially becoming an amateur rider for Alien Workshop—an occasion accompanied by a Castrucci-made commercial—were two experiences that has made him "proud, honored" and maybe led to "a sense of achievement from skateboarding".
In 2012, Saari provided further insight into his decision to leave Flip, citing the death of former teammate Shane Cross as an underpinning factor: "It wasn't, like, a easy thing to do, but, at the time, I knew I had to do it ... for the reasons that happened, you know?
"[19] In August of the same year, the brand released a series of skateboard decks, wheels, apparel, and stickers that featured the art of Keith Haring.
[20] On May 1, 2013, two senior skateboard team members Jason Dill and Anthony Van Engelen (AVE) publicly announced their departure from Alien Workshop.
[23] On May 15, 2014, PVH published a "corporate update" and a "bi-weekly Default Status Report in accordance with National Policy 12-203 - Cease Trade Orders for Continuous Defaults ("NP 12-203")" on the TMX Money website, explaining that significant debt issues had led to structural changes and interested investors from Toronto, Ontario, Canada may also be of assistance.
In addition to the closure of Alien Workshop, PVH closed 18 under-performing retail locations, eliminated 14 head office positions and negotiated temporary salary reductions with certain management personnel, resulting in a total cost saving of US$722,000 annually.
Thanks, Joe[27]Dyrdek participated in an interview with the ESPN media company and revealed that Alien Workshop is merely in a period of hiatus, among other topics of significance to the global skateboarding culture.
[28]In 2015, Alien Workshop was resurfaced by Hill under TumYeto Distribution; Carter is no longer involved, as his sole focus was the now defunct Reflex Bearings brand.
On October 29, 2015, Thrasher Magazine premiered Alien Workshop's sixth video, Bunker Down and Yaje Popson was added to the team in early 2016.
In early 2017 the Workshop promoted team riders Yaje Popson and Joey Guevara and released pro model boards for the occasion.
Shortly following the release of the boards Mike Hill, the artist and current force (with Matt Williams) behind the Workshop gave an extensive interview to Thrasher,[31] speaking about the demise and rebirth of the brand, his art, his community vision for the Bunker - where operations are headquartered.
The company introduced a web-based video series, entitled Life Splicing, in early 2011, with each segment featuring a montage of the brand's riders and artistic filming/production techniques—videographers included Greg Hunt, Benny Maglinao, and Cody Green.
Alien’s recent Life Splicing clips haven taken the dime-a-dozen video platform of the meat grinder known as the Internet and transformed it into a full-on fine art gallery.