OVERVIEW

Skateboarding was at one time relegated to misguided perception and city streets.  Participants were counter-culture kids considered misfits and ne’er-do-wells constantly on the run from authority.  Well, those misfits are grown up, and they’re still running.  However, now they’re running businesses, charitable foundations, and the town. This month we recognize and explore the personal expression and cultural development that skateboarding so righteously offers both fans and communities.

Miki Vuckovich is Executive Director of the Tony Hawk Foundation.  With foresight, philanthropy and passion from super-star, celebrity skateboarder Tony Hawk, Miki and company have helped build and given grants to over 537 skatepark projects in an effort that covers all 50 states since 2002. Along the way they’ve delivered community pride and donated more than $4.5 million.  Miki, joins Gene to talk about skateboarding (then and now), and the promise it holds for our future.

Wade Thompson is self diagnosed ADD, but we just see him as an extremely talented, nationally desired brand expert who happens to have better focus when he’s on a skateboard.  As President of Son & Sons, Wade gets paid to help companies and communities understand, celebrate and illuminate their brands. Who woulda’ thought that a skateboard kid wasn’t solely sliding curbs, but also seeing the city from a different perspective?!

When he was a kid, Brad Siedlecki built a quarter pipe in his front yard with his dad. In 2013 Brad’s company, Pillar Design Studios of Tempe, AZ, finished designing and building 70,000 square foot Highvalley Skateworld in Stockholm, Sweden.  Brad is living proof that hanging out at the park can evolve in to more than bumps and bruises.  Brad joins Gene to talk about his personal experience and lifelong lessons he picked up skating that go well beyond the board.

Join us as we venture back to the future (sorry, we had to), and kick it with some really great folks, doing really good things, all in the name of community, self-expression, and skateboarding.  It’s a good one.  Enjoy.