We were lucky to catch up with Carlina & Jeff Bjork And Shashona Burke recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Carlina & Jeff Bjork , thanks for joining us today. So, one thing many business owners consider is donating a percentage of sales or profits to an organization or cause. We’d love to hear your thoughts and the story behind how and why you chose the cause or organization you donate to.
OCN Culture is always searching for ways that we can participate in giving back. Most recently, we created a shirt design in collaboration with one of our good friends who is a well known illustrator/ artist, Kevin Mirsky in support of the people of Maui who were impacted by the Lahaina fire. We designed an organic and sustainable t-shirt with a beautifully designed hula dancer with a heart of aloha. She was wearing a palm frond skirt that said Maui Strong on the fronds. We donated 100% of the profits to non-profit foundations Hawaii Community Foundation, Lahui Foundation, Maui United Way, and some Maui Victims that we individually vetted.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
OCN Culture is myself (Jeff), Carlina Bjork, and Sho Burke. Hawaiian and beach lifestyle has been a part of my life from day 1. I really believe the foundation of OCN Culture was established a couple generations ago through lineage dating back to the 1920 and 30’s. My Grandfather and Grandmother were the epitome of Style & Aloha in an era of modern surfing and Hawaiian Beach Culture. The style was immaculate. Tourists and Travelers arrived by ship with adventure and curiosity of capturing the essence of Hawaii. They’d stay at the Moana and Royal Hawaiian Hotels on Waikiki Beach where they would learn true Aloha and a culture like no other. The main entertainment was provided by the Waikiki Beach Boys whether in the water or on land singing and strumming ukulele’s while the exotic and amazingly beautiful Hula Dancers like my Grandmother swayed beneath the banyan tree. If I could get in a time machine, this would be the time and place hands down. In the meantime, when anyone walks in our Shop, we greet them with warmth and Aloha carrying on the tradition.
OCN Culture has been a way for us to bring a unique authenticity to the beach lifestyle industry. We have a strong community of creatives and artists who share the joy of the ocean and beach culture. We are highly supportive of these rising and established artists. We feature the artists and creatives through shows and collaborations which really brings community together and we couldn’t be more proud as they are well attended and have proven to be very successful.
We have a slogan “Style & Aloha”. We love this, because simply put, you can’t fake either one. You either have it, or you don’t, but we love it when you do!
Have you ever had to pivot?
We are constantly making internal pivots with OCN Culture. When owning a small business, we found that it’s almost imperative, but it is also what makes the ride more exciting whether we like it or not. In my eyes, it’s just another wave, and I’ve been riding them all of my life. More recently, we have started to help our customers with some design projects that would allow them to bring some of this beach culture life into their home. One of our regular customers was looking at our surfboards in our Shop. My gut told me that she probably wasn’t going to purchase a surfboard for herself to ride. However, I had to ask, “Are you looking for a surfboard? Can I help guide you?” She mentioned that she was in the process of building a home in Hawaii and that she wanted some surfboards for the new home. OCN Culture provides surfboards focusing on Longboards, Retro Fish Designs, Hulls, and Alaias. She is a woman of exceptional taste, a great eye for aesthetics and understands and values authenticity and quality. She appreciates modern design but is speaking with someone who appreciates retro/ throwback design. We had a discussion about art and if the medium is a surfboard, the importance of it being functional. In other words, if these surfboards are propped up on a wall, and someone like Gerry Lopez walked in to the house, he would give you the nod of approval. So just like that, I asked her “What if we create iconic retro designed boards, and bring a very modern feel through the use of black resin tinting with high gloss?”. We created a mood board to deliver the foundation, and sketches of the actual board designs. I enlisted one of my good friends and amazing Shaper/ Owner Mike Wallace of Iconoclast Surfboards to do the cutting and shaping, and we were off shaping 4 custom boards. The finished product was beyond amazing. I honestly wanted to keep them for the Shop. They are now at their new home in Hawaii. This was a pivot for us because now we have other customers purchasing boards from us along with interior decorators reaching out which has become a new channel of business and we really do it well.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
This story is going to be completely unrelated to OCN Culture, but here you go…. I met Carlina in a club in the city about 30 years ago. She was working at Club 181 Eddy. She was the Coatcheck Girl who was in a small room and trapped by many club goers. I was with some friends and couldn’t help notice how beautiful she was, but also felt that I knew her from somewhere else. My friends encouraged me to go ask her and talk to her. I responded, “Yeah, I’m going to go walk up to her and say, hey, don’t I know you from somewhere!?”. That simply wasn’t going to happen. As the night went on, and beverages making me a little bolder, I decided, it was time. I’ve always lived by a couple things; 1) Winners take chances, 2) If you can’t dream it, you can’t do it, so never stop dreaming. There I went. I start walking toward her, mind you no jacket in hand, and then the impossible, she looked me in the eye and said “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” My reply, “What’s your sign?” She says “Aquarius”. My response, “No way! So am I!”. It was all true and the rest is literally history. She is my Partner in life and in business.
Carlina and I met Sho and her husband Dan in 2019. It was a strange moment. Sho was dressed as a witch and Dan was dressed as some sort of boy band character, I think. It was hard to tell back then, and I’m still not quite sure today. They are amazing people. Just like we do at OCN Culture, when we find amazing humans, we reel them in, hold them tight, and hope they never go away. They have been our best friends ever since.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ocnculture.com
- Instagram: @ocnculture
- Facebook: @ocnculture
- Youtube: OCN Culture
- Yelp: https://yelp.com/biz/ocn-culture-san-anselmo
