A longtime running and swimming store in the heart of Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood is crossing the finish line.
After 42 years in business, Transports is closing permanently because the owner, Beverly “Bev” Nakashima, is retiring.
“It’s time for me to try something new,” said Nakashima, who started working at Transports in 1985.
Nakashima told The Oaklandside that a “potential buyer” has expressed interest in taking over the business but could not provide additional information.
Transports is running a closing sale and will remain open through the end of May, according to Nakashima.
Transports through the years
Piedmont resident Kei Kodani founded Transports on College Avenue in 1982. It used to be in the neighboring space—which now houses Berkeley Kids’ Room, a children’s furniture store—and moved next door to its current location in the early 2000s.
Nakashima, who knew Kodani because she went to high school with his wife, had just graduated from college in the early ’80s and was competing in triathlons and running races for fun when she heard about Kodani’s store. In 1985, she joined Kodani as a business partner and added swimming apparel and gear to the shop.
One year later, Pleasant Hill resident Frank Monaghan—who also attended high school with Nakashima—joined Transports as a business partner. In 1996, Oakland resident Richie Boulet began working at Transports while studying at UC Berkeley and running for the university’s track and field team. Boulet, who ran an impressive sub-four-minute mile at Cal, became a business partner in 2002, Nakashima said.
The co-owners eventually expanded, opening a second Transports on Solano Avenue in Berkeley in 2007. Nakashima’s business partners eventually moved on, making her the sole owner since 2018.
In late 2022, Nakashima permanently shut down the Berkeley location, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was just getting harder to run two stores,” she said. “People’s buying habits had changed, more people were doing online shopping due to COVID.”
Kodani is now retired and fills his time with volunteering, traveling, and spending time with his grandchildren. Monaghan currently works for Mount Diablo Unified School District’s accounting department. Boulet is a realtor with Red Oak Realty, according to Nakashima.
To this day, all four original co-owners still chat and hang out. Just last weekend, Nakashima said, they got dinner together and reminisced about their favorite times at Transports.
“It was remarkable that the four of us got along so well for so long,” said Nakashima, laughing.
Ex-Transports employees have achieved athletic and professional success
Many previous Transports sales associates have gone on to make big moves, both athletically and professionally, said Nakashima. Some have competed in the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii—which consists of a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride, and a 26.22-mile run, in that order—and the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Two former employees ran the Boston Marathon last Monday.
Maja Ruznic, a New Mexico-based artist, worked at Transports while studying at California College of the Arts. Her artwork is in permanent collections in museums worldwide, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the He Art Museum in China, and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art in Finland.
“Certain athletes have a very focused drive, and that is somehow related to being very good at anything,” Nakashima said. “Even if it was just a silly job selling shoes, they were really good at it.”
Ryan Casey, an engineer for San Francisco’s Public Health Department who lives in Oakland, has many fond memories from his time as a sales associate at Transports from 2010 to 2012. Some of those memories, he said, were selling barefoot running shoes to Danny Glover; meeting Michael Pollan, an author who co-founded UC Berkeley’s Center for the Science of Psychedelics; and helping find shoes for a 70-year-old man who ran three miles every day.
“The job was really fun because you were helping people … and you got to hear their stories. It was a little bit like therapy,” he said.
Today, Casey still stays in touch with current and former employees, including Ruznic. “It felt like the four co-owners were sort of like your parents, and your co-workers were like your siblings,” he added. “I’ll be sad when it’s gone. It had a long run.”
