text: Thrasher magazine co-founder ID’d as suicide in front of Mission Police Station 
   
   Eric Swenson, Craig Stecyk and Fausto Vitello, at the Independent foundry in San Francisco in 1983. (Photo by MoFo/www.thrashermagazine.com) 
   
   Eric Swenson, Craig Stecyk and Fausto Vitello, at the Independent foundry in San Francisco in 1983. (Photo by MoFo/www.thrashermagazine.com) 
   
   The man who ended his life in front of the Mission Police Station on Monday was a skateboarding icon and co-founder of San Francisco-based Thrasher magazine. 
   
   Skaters worldwide are mourning the loss of Eric Swenson, 64, of Potrero Hill, whose local manufacturing and publishing ventures helped launch a massive and lasting subculture. 
   
   Swenson shot himself around 8:30 a.m. without going inside the police station or talking to any officers. Loved ones believe the longtime San Franciscan's struggle with a debilitating motorcycle injury led to the suicide. 
   
   A "very private person," Swenson may have chosen the police station to end his life in order to spare his loved ones from finding him, said Gwynn Vitello, Thrasher's publisher and wife of Swenson's business partner, the late Fausto Vitello. 
   
   Related... Suicide reported in front of Mission Police Station Read More A person put a gun to his head and ended his life in front of Mission Police Station as passersby watched in horror Monday morning, police said. The victim, identified only as a white male, committed suicide around 8:30 a.m. at the station at 17th and Valencia streets. He used a high-caliber handgun and shot himself right in front of the station’s front doors. 
   
   Swenson leaves behind his wife Linda and sister Rebekah, "along with a tremendous number of admirers," Thrasher magazine said in a statement. 
   
   "Eric was not a person who wanted to burden anybody," Vitello said. "In my mind this was the most unselfish way he could do what he had to do." 
   
   When he was about 20, Swenson severely injured his leg in a motorycle accident that kept him at Laguna Honda Hospital for more than a half year, Vitello said. Years of pain stemming from that injury might have become too overwhelming for Swenson, she said. 
   
   "Toward the end, walking was kind of a struggle for him," Vitello said, who added that friends and loved ones can only speculate as to why he took his own life. 
   
   Swenson co-founded High Speed Productions Inc., which includes magazines Thrasher, Juxtapoz and Slap. He also co-founded Independent Trucks in 1978, the manufacturer of skateboard trucks and other parts that helped launch the sport. 
   
   Eben Sterling, advertising director for Thrasher and Slap, said Wednesday Independent Trucks marked a “sort of a BC/AD kind of event in skateboarding.” 
   
   The skateboard trucks allowed people to skate vertically, which “moved skateboarding from the sidewalk to what it is today,” Sterling said. Skateboarders wouldn't have been able to scale pool surfaces without the high-performance technology, he added. 
   
   Sterling, who has known Swenson for 18 years, said Thrasher magazine, started in 1981, helped establish skateboarding as a subculture. 
   
   “Before Thrasher skateboarding was just another trend like yo-yos, rollerblades and Hula Hoops. But now it had its own music, dialect and it’s own fashion style,” Sterling said. 
   
   Swenson’s partner in the skateboarding ventures was the more outgoing Fausto Vitello, the face of the company who passed away of a heart attack five years ago. 
   
   Fausto and Swenson were motorcycle mechanics hell-bent on figuring out how to offer outlaw skaters more freedom on their boards. Fausto, who had at one point fixed motorycles for the police department, met a skateboarder who complained about the limitations of skateboard trucks at the time, Vitello said. 
   
   "They did all of this on their own," said former professional skateboarder and musician Tommy Guerrero, whose known and worked with Swenson for years. "They figured it out, built it. These guys were just really hard workers." 
   
   The pair manufactured the revolutionary skateboard trucks at a foundry in the Hunters Point Shipyard. The foundry, operated under the name Ermico Enterprises Inc., has since moved to 17th Street in Potrero Hill. They also began the distribution company Deluxe Distributions, which operates adjacent to Ermico Enterprises. 
   
   The magazine side of the business was started as a way to advertize the skateboard products, Vitello said. 
   
   Swenson was "a doer from the old school," Guerrero added. Though he wasn't a skater, "he was the guy who would pull out a wrench and fix it or make it. This was his whole approach to everything." 
   
   Swenson was known as a behind the scenes workhorse. 
   
   “He wasn’t into the glory or being in the spotlight,” Sterling said. "He was extremely successful, but was a humble guy that didn’t flaunt his wealth. He basically got up in the morning and went to work, and that was his passion." 
   
   The skateboarding world took to social networking websites to pay tribute to Swenson. 
   
   “R.I.P. Mr. Swenson, You and Fausto did so much for skateboarding! Love ya,” Steve Caballero declared on Facebook. 
   
   maldax@sfexaminer.com ||||| Eric Swenson, skateboard business icon, dies 
   
   Eric Swenson, co-founder of the skateboard magazine Thrasher, committed suicide June 20, 2011. Swenson was 64. The photo is undated. Eric Swenson, co-founder of the skateboard magazine Thrasher, committed suicide June 20, 2011. Swenson was 64. The photo is undated. Photo: Courtesy Thrasher Magazine Photo: Courtesy Thrasher Magazine Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Eric Swenson, skateboard business icon, dies 1 / 1 Back to Gallery 
   
   SAN FRANCISCO -- Eric Swenson, an icon in the skateboarding culture and a co-founder of Thrasher magazine, died Monday in San Francisco. He was 64. 
   
   Mr. Swenson helped reinvigorate the skateboarding scene after it languished in the late 1970s. In 1978, Mr. Swenson co-founded Ermico Enterprises, a San Francisco foundry that became closely associated with Independent Trucks, a manufacturer of skateboard equipment and accessories. Three years later, Mr. Swenson and his friends, Fausto Vitello and Kevin Thatcher, co-founded trendsetting Thrasher magazine. 
   
   Independent Trucks manufactured a high-quality truck - the metal connector between the skateboard and its wheels - that enabled boarders to execute the moves necessary for jumps and tricks performed on rails and curbs. 
   
   The articles and photos in Thrasher focused on this new generation of skateboarders and pushed the success of Independent Trucks by advertising its products. 
   
   "People talk, but seldom act," the magazine said in a message on its website about Mr. Swenson's death. "Eric Swenson got things done. Never one to clamor for the spotlight, he preferred the hard work, orchestrating the show from behind the scenes. His mark on skateboarding is extraordinary." 
   
   Michael Brooke, publisher of Concrete Wave, a skateboarding magazine based in Toronto, said Wednesday that Mr. Swenson was "one of the critical architects" of the revitalized art of skateboarding. 
   
   "Eric Swenson is really one of those guys who drives things forward," Brooke said. "The funny thing about skateboarding is that, a lot of times, there are a lot more followers than there are visionaries. Eric, along with Fausto, were visionaries." 
   
   Vitello died of a heart attack at the age of 59 in 2006 while bike riding in Woodside. 
   
   "Too many people who are involved in this industry seem to be taken from us at far too young an age," Brooke said. 
   
   Vitello's widow, Gwynn Vitello, 61, of Hillsborough said Wednesday that Mr. Swenson was a private individual and "one of the most independent persons I've ever known. He was like John Wayne. He kept everything close to the vest. He did things because he believed in them. He was happiest when he was making things and building things and getting jobs for people." 
   
   Mr. Swenson shot and killed himself in front of the Mission Police Station, according to police. Police said witnesses saw him walk to the front door of the police station on the outside and shoot himself. 
   
   Mr. Swenson leaves behind his wife, Linda McKay, and sisters Rebekah Engle and Sonja Taylor, both of San Francisco. Services will be held privately.
target: – The skateboarding world is mourning a man who played a major role in creating the huge subculture that exists today, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Thrasher magazine co-founder Eric Swenson shot and killed himself in front of the Mission police station in San Francisco. Friends believe the 64-year-old could no longer cope with the pain from a debilitating motorbike injury he suffered years ago, and chose the police station to spare loved ones from finding his body, reports the San Francisco Examiner. Swenson, an accomplished mechanic, helped revive the skateboarding scene in the late '70s with a company making skateboarding equipment, clothes, and accessories. He founded Thrasher in 1981 with his friend Fausto Vitello. "Before Thrasher, skateboarding was just another trend like yo-yos, rollerblades and hula hoops. But now it had its own music, dialect and its own fashion style," the magazine's ad director tells the Examiner.