Rick Howard is a skateboarder and businessman who has an estimated net worth of $45 million. A native of Canada, he relocated to California at the age of seventeen. He then began his skateboarding career with Blockhead Skateboards, where he was assigned the professional status, and with Gullwing Trucks.

In 1991, Howard skated for Plan B Skateboards. During this time, he left Gullwing and switched to Independent Trucks. He is well-known in the second video of Plan B called Virtual Reality with his advancement of “switch-stance” skating or skateboarding with the opposite stance of that which a rider naturally adopts. He became a fashion icon in the video when he wore a short-sleeved check shirt. He was also filmed performing in skits for the 2012 Girl/Chocolate co-production Pretty Sweet. However, the film did not feature any skateboarding footage from him.

When Rick Howard left Plan B, he co-founded a new company called Girl Skateboards along with Spike Jonze, Mike Carroll and Megan Baltimore in 1993. Though he is sponsored by DC Shoes where he has a signature model shoe, he left DC to launch his own company called Lakai Limited Footwear, with Carroll. Girl Skateboards, Lakai Footwear, Four Star Clothing, Royal Trucks and Chocolate Skateboards are under Howard’s Crailtap Distribution Company.

Under the shoe company, Howard was a producer of several street skateboarding videos. One of them is the award-winning Fully Flared (2007) where he was also included among the host of professional skateboarders in the 90-minute feature film. He once again showed off his new techniques which were admired by thousands of die-hard fans. During its release, the film received the Best Video of the Year Award from Transworld Skateboarding and the Skateboard magazine.