I am a big advocate for more women in leadership roles throughout the skateboarding industry. Denise Downs Barter (who now goes by Denise Pehrsson) is a great example from the 1970s of a person who garnered a lot of respect from skaters of that generation for her activity in sports management.
In Vicki Vicker’s six-page interview for Skateboarder in December 1979, she stated that the one person who was elevating women in skateboarding was Denise, who had just taken over as manager for the Sims team. “Right now, she’s got me an upcoming interview with Seventeen Magazine. She’s done pretty well. She always keeps up the girls’ morale because the girls get so depressed so often because we are taken advantage of. And the ones that are really good, know that they’re good, and they know that they should be subject to just as much press” (Goodrich).
From what I can glean online, it looks like Denise was also the team manager for Dogtown since there’s a photo of her by Kevin Thatcher encouraging a very young Christian Hosoi with Facebook comments speculating that it was taken in 1980 for the Gold Cup series at Pipeline in Upland.
John Lucero acknowledged Denise as well. He shared in an interview with Steve Olson for Juice magazine (March 1, 2005) that he first got sponsored in 1980 at an ASPO event. “I was riding 2A at 13 years old. I was at ASPO at the Reseda Skatercross, and I was riding one of your boards. I had some Blood Revolver wheels on and some Indys. I ran into Denise Barter, and she was stoked I was riding those wheels. She checked me out in the contest, and then she asked if I wanted to ride for Dogtown… I was down, but I never got a phone call back or anything. I found out later that Dogtown was going under.”
It appears that Denise had some serious skill as a manager and was receptive to all kinds of extreme sports. In a Facebook post by the legendary roller-skater, Fred Blood, he said that Denise’s dad was connected with NASA and as an engineer, he invented a system utilized in big rig trucks. Even more interesting was his comment about Denise: “Harvard and Yale Grad before she was even known to the Action Sport world.”
I found a 5-page article that Denise wrote for the November 1980 issue Action Now magazine, called “Blood & the Boyz” (33) where she celebrates Fred Blood, Jamie Ide, Randy Stahlecker, Marty Carter and Duke Rennie. Barter explains that this new movement was “drawing more from hardcore skateboarding than disco rolling, Blood, Duke et al. have taken vertical 8-wheeling into a radical new era.”
It then appears that her expertise and interest lead Denise to BMX riding, as she becomes the Director of Marketing for Premier Helmets and was quoted in the August 1982 issue of BMX Action saying that “There’s a sport here, for skateparks and freestyle ramp riding too.”
Regardless of the sport and the athletes she was advocating for, Denise was respected, and her fashion sense was especially admired even going so far as introducing new-wave fashion to the top pros in BMX by 1983.
Based on her LinkedIn account, Denise went on to be the President of Dynaflex Products in 2012 to the present, running the company with her son. The company was co-founded in 1972 by her father, Gil Contreras.
I’ll hopefully hear back from Denise and learn more about her story!
Reference:
- Goodrich, Jim. “Vicki Vickers.” Skateboarder. December 1979, p.48.
- Olson, Steve. “John Lucero.” Juice magazine. March 1, 2005.
Womxn Skateboard History 