Nixon is an accessories company for the youth lifestyle market founded in 1997 by Andy Laats & Chad DiNenna in Encinitas, California. Nixon began with a small line of custom built, team designed watches with focused distribution in specialty surf, skate, snow, and fashion stores. Expanding into accessories and limited softgoods in 2000, Nixon has continued its growth into over 25 countries and is now part of Billabong International. Nixon was founded by Andy Laats and Chad DiNenna after DiNenna's unsuccessful attempt to find a watch that reflected his surfing lifestyle. Laats was a mechanical engineer with a bachelor's degree from Cornell University who had worked at Burton, a snowboard company in Vermont for six years, and who was getting his MBA from Stanford. DiNenna studied communications at Long Beach State and worked for publishing company Transworld for five years. The two raised nearly $1 million from venture capitalists to start Nixon and in 1997, Nixon's catalog debuted with seven models that were available at 200 retailers. Nixon opened a subsidiary in France in 2000, and by 2005 had 90 models and 60 employees, with sales growing by 55 percent annually.