Eric Swenson, a founder of Thrasher, a magazine that re-energized the sport of skateboarding and helped propel it from a suburban teenage activity to an international form of recreation and a competitive sport, died June 20 in San Francisco. He was 64.

The cause was suicide; he shot himself in front of a police station, the police said.

Swenson and a partner, Fausto Vitello, started Thrasher in 1981, largely to promote their business, Independent Trucks, which made skateboard “trucks” — the fixtures that connect the deck of the board to the wheels.

Swenson was known as the quiet, pragmatic, handy partner, largely concerned with the design and fabrication of the company’s skateboard hardware. Vitello, who died in 2006, was more outspoken.

From the start, Thrasher professed the values of punk-rock, the renegade music of the era; its articles, interviews and photos had a swagger, a recklessness. The ethos was expressed in an oft-repeated motto: “Skate and destroy.”

Thrasher galvanized skating enthusiasts, drew former skateboarders back to it, and created new fans and participants. The magazine today has a circulation of about 250,000.

His wife, Linda McKay, said that as the years went by her husband had trouble with his back, his hip and his knees. He had been in increasing pain recently, she said.

“I was shocked,” she said about his suicide, “but he felt old and sick, and he said he was a burden to me.”