What do you get when you take a business, engineering and art major and put them together?

Obviously an entirely customizable skateboard business, specifically longboards.

Tabor Luther, Andy Leon and Ty Doeing, Naperville residents and first-year College of DuPage students, took their passion for longboarding and morphed it into a side project fueled with passion called BIG Boards Co.

The three students loved longboarding, but they couldn’t find the perfect board to fit their unique wants or the perfect ride. To solve this problem, they created their own boards, which gave them the ability to customize every aspect from artwork to wheels.

The company offers different alterations and combinations on everything they offer. This includes getting a completely bare board to customize yourself, no wheels, no trucks, and it’s at an affordable college student price.

“Our friend made one board, and we saw that and thought ‘hey, we could do this,’ and picked up momentum and got super excited about it,” said Luther. “I longboard myself; we all do, and this would be a nice way to make boards for ourselves, especially a way to get out of paying for the way too expensive boards.”

After making their own longboards, they decided to see if anybody else was tired of the basic galaxy, rasta-colored boards that filled Zumiez and other skate shops.

“Our friend did it because he couldn’t find any designs that were already pre-made on any longboards, so he’s just like ‘I just want to make my own cause there’s nothing out there I like,’ so we had the idea ‘Oh, let’s be the only longboarding business out there that has 100 percent customized to whatever you want,’” said Leon. “You want a lion with your name across it? We can do that!”

“It’s a creative, innovative, fun alternative to boards that are already on the market,” added Luther.

Together, the three students work in Doeing’s garage, titling themselves: “Boys in Garage,” which transfers to their company name: BIG Boards Co. The only thing not made themselves? The wheels and trucks. The team also includes Jack Rothmund, their artist.

The only limitation the boys have for artwork is imagination, and “it just needs to fit on the board.”

For each board, the team takes huge pieces of lumber and presses them together with specific cuts and designs, all based on the request of the buyer.

“We designed our own push-presses to make smaller boards, the design and also the cut for totally different riding styles,” said Leon. “You can pick a painting with a different shape and different size all the way down to the color of the wheels, the bearings [and] the trucks.”

The team agrees the greatest part about their business besides customization is the unbeatable price.

“You can get a really nice board that feels the same way in riding for $300-400 when we can give you a board that you want completely 110 percent everything customized for just over $100,” said Leon. “We’re not trying to rob your pockets. We understand where everyone else is coming from, and we want to make good quality boards.”

As the students go to class and work their day jobs at Lifetime Fitness and Costco, they will always have the love for their side project. As of now, the team is unsure if the side-passion will transform into their main focus or a large enough business.

“We went into it thinking we’re not going to get rich, just make a couple bucks off of something we love doing to make people happy,” said Leon. “We love it, and other people say that they’ve loved it, so it’s worked out. It’s a cool experience getting to work with your best friends.”

Customize your own board: make it completely bare, deck it out with your own face or make it the perfect size for your backpack at bigboardsco.com