Dan Hassett of LEVITATE: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become More Sustainable
An Interview With Martita Mestey
…Volunteer. On any project, sustainability related or not. Help them learn to give back and find joy in it. We’re going to need a lot of kids that are very generous with their time and efforts to reverse and undo the damage that’s been done to our environment…
As part of our series about how companies are becoming more sustainable, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dan Hassett.
Dan Hassett is the CEO of LEVITATE — the ultimate lifestyle brand that merges surf, skate, and outdoor culture. With a diverse range of eco-conscious apparel and accessories inspired by surf and skate, along with community events like music festivals, outdoor bar venues, and camps, LEVITATE is on a mission to foster a deeper connection to art, music, and nature. Founded by surfer Bob Pollard and later taken over by Dan after Bob passed away too young, LEVITATE has become the first authentic brand out of New England in a hundred years to unite the community in tune with nature and creativity amidst an increasingly digital and disconnected world.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
It’s an unusual story, and I still can’t believe it’s how my life and career actually played out.
I was a kid growing up in New England and loved alternative outlets and activities, especially surfing which was unusual around here. It just had a sense of adventure and self expression that other more traditional outlets didn’t have, and really resonated with me. I was a bus boy at a restaurant and my favorite waiter, who grew to be my mentor, had just returned from surfing around the world and would tell all these amazing stories and was so inspiring and such a great influence on me. As a 15 year old, he was the first adult I trusted and looked up to. When he said he was going to start a surf shop called Levitate to bring our community together around his vision, I was immediately excited to work for him and be part of it all. That was 21 years ago now, I’m 38 now and was 17 when Levitate opened and I began working for Bob Pollard. That was his name, Bob Pollard.
The store was the absolute best thing that could drop into a kids neighborhood. Bob had this way of valuing nature, the outdoors, and self expression that resonated with me and other kids in the area, and built a really strong community and although it was a very small niche, it started to change the broader community.
Three years in, Bob died. He was 34, had two little kids and a wife, nobody saw it coming. He had an aneurysm and that was it, just like that. It was awful. Bob’s wife Amelia kept the store open, and people supported it because they didn’t want it to go away and the situation was just so terrible. My friends and I continued to work there and help out, but it was 2006 and by 2007 the economy tanked and Levitate became a burden. Amelia, Bob’s wife, was going to close it or get rid of it and asked if I wanted to take it over and try to make it work. It was May 5, 2008 when I became the owner I was 22 years old at the time.
What is the mission of your company? What problems are you aiming to solve?
Levitate’s mission is to support the arts and outdoors in our community. These things are so easily overlooked and undervalued in our fast paced, overly digital world, ultra processed world. In aggregate when people value the arts and outdoors it drives us as individuals, our communities, and our country in a more thoughtful, healthy, and meaningful way.
Can you tell our readers about the initiatives that you or your company are taking to address climate change or sustainability? Can you give an example for each?
Early on when I became owner of Levitate, we started sharing our message by educating kids. We opened kids camps, including a surf camp, skate camp, and an art camp that we call Creative Camp. All three of these programs teach about the arts and outdoors and try to give kids a view into those worlds. We find fun ways to integrate messages about sustainability into every single day. It’s funny, it works so well and the kids love it. Kids are still uninfluenced, and they’re so naturally in love with these outlets it’s a beautiful thing, they’re open-minded to learning about sustainability, and they take it with them their entire lives.
We eventually started events, especially arts and music festivals, some of which grew into nationally recognized community celebrations with up to 20,000 attendees per day, including our signature Levitate Music & Arts Festival. Sustainability has been a huge initiative, and by having such a large audience we can integrate the messaging throughout the event and make it important and on peoples minds, something we believe they take with them on a year round basis.
Early on, we realized Levitate’s brand would eventually grow beyond its regional operations. We’d been designing and developing an apparel brand that could help us share Levitates product and mission nationally, and has been doing really well. As a small apparel brand, it’s been fascinating learning how to integrate sustainability into our supply chain and processes. It’s not a perfect system, but we’ve been really successful in emphasizing the importance of sustainability, and almost more importantly than anything, we’ve been able to share the stories with our customers as we’ve grown, and make it part of the dialogue. We’ve also committed 1% of our revenues to the Levitate Foundation, which has helped us re-invest in our mission and compound the impact of the brand from a philanthropic perspective, and allowed other individuals and companies to donate and join in with their time and donations.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
Apparel, which is emerging as our largest business line, is so fascinating and fun. People don’t shop by price alone. Apparel is really elevated by art and design, i.e. fashion, but also by brand, mission, and vision. I won’t wear shirts because of the name of the brand on the label doesn’t stand for what I believe in, and vice versa. People believe in Levitate, and are willing to pay a couple extra dollars on an item so that brand can continue to invest in our mission. Our customers really are our investors and future.
Originally, I thought Levitate’s vision and mission would prevent the success of the apparel line, because it was so so hard to develop products in a remotely sustainable way with tiny order quantities, and selling our shirts at higher prices than typical mass market brands. But interestingly, our other business lines were profitable, and helped finance the growth of our apparel line, and we’re now increasingly able to afford more sustainable product development and reinvest in our mission through the Levitate Foundation as we’ve grown. All the while, our customers believe in what we’re doing and are willing to purchase from us and in turn support the brand and mission. It’s been a long run and slow growth, but seems to be working.
The youth led climate strikes of September 2019 showed an impressive degree of activism and initiative by young people on behalf of climate change. This was great, and there is still plenty that needs to be done. In your opinion what are a few things parents should do to inspire the next generation to become engaged in sustainability and the environmental movement? Please give a story or an example for each.
1 . Have a garden with your child, or if you can’t, grow a plant. Even if it’s just on a window sill. Kids learn so much from being part of their own food supply chain and end up asking the right questions about where food and products come from.
2 . Go camping. It’s a guaranteed adventure. Kids are so happy outdoors, they get to be part of it and appreciate it, and value and respect it. They’ll take that with them their entire lives. And they sleep like babies after a day of fresh air, so that’s a plus.
3 . Expose them to the arts. Piano, painting, whatever course you can get them into, or anything you can do for free at home. There’s a connection to the arts and outdoors that we don’t have a word for in the english language, but it’s there. And it’s so good for kids and makes them more thoughtful and aware.
4 . Screen time — limit it. No explanation really needed here. It’s not helping them, it’s hurting them.
5 . Volunteer. On any project, sustainability related or not. Help them learn to give back and find joy in it. We’re going to need a lot of kids that are very generous with their time and efforts to reverse and undo the damage that’s been done to our environment.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
Oh I wouldn’t even know where to start on this one haha! I’d actually say understanding to take a break, and how that actually will make you better at your work. It’s easy to get immersed in Levitate because its so fascinating and enjoyable, but it’s important to take some time away too, for myself, my family, and for friends. Ironically, taking a break actually helps at work, as opposed to hurting. Coming back rested and refreshed every day is important.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Yea, Bob Pollard, Founder of Levitate. I always remember a story he told me, it was 3rd of 4th of July or something. I think the kids coming through the Levitate day were planning on partying, drinking, etc. and honestly you’d think a surf shop owner would support that. But I remember him telling this story to me and some other kids in their teens about how when he was a kid his friends were all drinking and doing drugs on the beach, and he was surfing and the sunset and colors reflecting on the face of the wave he while surfing were way more special than anything his friends on the beach were doing. He had our ear, and that’s what he chose to say in an understated way…I thought that was cool.
You are a person of great influence and doing some great things for the world! If you could inspire a movement that would bring the greatest amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’d love the Levitate Foundation to become a way to to share Levitate’s mission with the entire country. We just started the Foundation a couple years ago, and it’s going really well with some great programs and initiatives. We’re putting a lot of time and thought into seeing how we can put the arts and outdoors at the forefront of the national conversation.
Do you have a favorite life lesson quote? Can you tell us how that was relevant to you in your own life?
Not so much a quote, but just a belief in optimism and finding a way. There’s always a way.
What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?
On our website, we try to keep it updated with all our product and events, and recent happenings — www.levitatebrand.com
This was so inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Thank You. I really appreciate the opportunity for Levitate to be included in your series.
Dan Hassett of LEVITATE: Five Strategies Our Company Is Using To Tackle Climate Change & Become… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.