By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
News Editor
February 6, 2008

A quarter-century of wind sports tradition shifts to a new owner with the sale Tuesday of Windance.

Dave Nunn purchased the store from Brian Carlstrom, who founded the store in 1983 and opened it in a garage in 1984.

Windance is located on Highway 35 near Highway 30 next to Tum-A-Lum Lumber.

Nunn will keep the name, location, and “feeling” of the store, the longest-running such business in Hood River County. Expect more of the swap meets for which Windance is famous, he said.

“We’re staying open during renovations, and we’ll have a grand reopening in March,” said Nunn, who bought the business but is leasing the land and building from Carlstrom, who is not leaving Hood River altogether.

“We have lots of friends here. It is a wonderful community. And we can always come here to windsurf!”

Carlstrom, who learned to shape boards in Hawaii in the early 1980s, said of the sale, “I have mixed emotions about it, but I am looking forward to new challenges.”

“It’s a really big change, definitely the end of an era,” he said. “Anytime you do one thing for 25 years, it’s a big change.”

Carlstrom said he met his wife, Lorraine, when she was a store customer. The couple has two children, Logan, 14, and McKenzie, 11, and the family now lives in Nelson, British Columbia, where they have purchased farm property.

Carlstrom is also developing an invention of his, the “Bike Pusher,” an electric-powered device for propelling bicycles up slopes. Carlstrom said he is using “local talent” as he researches and develops the Bike Pusher, a product he said is well-suited for hilly places such as Nelson and Hood River.

The store closed for a few days while Nunn and his employees did inventory; the sale took effect on Jan. 29 making Jan. 30 Nunn’s first full day in the store.

Nunn spent the last two years directing North Sport’s Aquaglide division international sales. He founded and remains a minority owner in the Toronto-based business Board Sports. In 1991 he bought the business, founded in 1972 as Wind Promotions, and changed the name in 1996.

“Board Sports is a lot like this store: customer-oriented. Windance is really its own community, with things such as the message boards and swap meets, and I plan to keep that and build on it. The feeling of this store has to be continued,” said Nunn, who requires all his employees to actively engage in water sports.

Nunn plans to expand the swap meets from two to four and will bring back the coffee shop, and with it a food menu, as well as continuing consignment sales, lessons and rentals.

Swap dates will be April 27, May 19, June 29 and Aug. 19.

“Windsurfing is number one, but we’ll be adding other wind sports lines including kiteboarding, snowboarding and waveboarding,” said Nunn.

“It’s all the same sport to me; you’re chasing the same wind, just doing different things different days.”