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"\"&lt;p&gt;On June 19 it was announced that Bob Rief and John Vance had become investors in the San\\u00fck brand and would be taking over the day-to-day management of the company. San\\u00fck President Jeff Kelley, who still owns the trademark, will continue to oversee the creative development of the product and the vibe of the brand.\\n&lt;p&gt;Interestingly, this does not mark an end to the ten-year licensing agreement San\\u00fck has with C&amp;#038;C Companies &amp;#8212; which also designs, manufactures, and markets Rusty&amp;#8217;s apparel program. C&amp;#038;C will continue to provide manufacturing fulfillment and invoicing services. Indeed, the addition of Rief and Vance marks a period of renewed investment in San\\u00fck by C&amp;#038;C.\\n&lt;p&gt;[IMAGE 1]&lt;P&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8220;C&amp;#038;C has been good from an infrastructure standpoint, but San\\u00fck has grown, and we&amp;#8217;ve hit a ceiling with the management of the company,&amp;#8221; says Kelley. &amp;#8220;You can have good product, but if you don&amp;#8217;t have the rest of the wheels turning, you&amp;#8217;re only going to go so far. Now, with Bob {Rief} and John {Vance}, we&amp;#8217;ll finally have the attention the brand needs &amp;#8212; while still being able to tap into C&amp;#038;C&amp;#8217;s strengths.&amp;#8221;\\n&lt;p&gt;Rief will serve as general manager, and Vance will head up the sales and marketing efforts. Both have long r\\u00e9sum\\u00e9s in the footwear or action-sports industries. Rief, who jokes he&amp;#8217;d like to give Dick Baker a run as the &amp;#8220;oldest man in the surf industry,&amp;#8221; ran Merrell footwear, helped launch Nike&amp;#8217;s golf program, and was most recently the CEO of Reef. Vance also has more than twenty years&amp;#8217; experience and has held positions at Quiksilver, Op, and Airwalk.\\n&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8220;I&amp;#8217;m stoked about it,&amp;#8221; says Kelley. &amp;#8220;Having these guys step in, and seeing the ad budgets increased, and knowing we&amp;#8217;re going to be able to promote the brand on the consumer level as well as with the trade, is super exciting. It&amp;#8217;s good to have people like this to work with.&amp;#8221;\\n&lt;p&gt;After Rief left Reef, he says he spent a lot of time looking at the market from a retail perspective. What he saw convinced him that San\\u00fck was a big opportunity waiting to happen. &amp;#8220;Maybe the big guys in some of the categories have too much market share,&amp;#8221; he says. &amp;#8220;It&amp;#8217;s hard to defend market share. When I looked at San\\u00fck, I saw fresh, creative product that&amp;#8217;s not derived from competitors &amp;#8212; and also a brand that was entirely authentic.&amp;#8221;\\n&lt;p&gt;Both Kelley and Rief are former employees of Reef, so does this cash infusion mark a renewed rivalry between the heads of both companies? &amp;#8220;Our message with this brand is that we&amp;#8217;re not trying to beat Reef,&amp;#8221; says Rief. &amp;#8220;We&amp;#8217;re simply an alternative to a company that has a huge market share.&amp;#8221;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.grindtv.com/surf/san-k-secures-new-investors/>