Chris is from Los Angeles and has been passionately skateboarding for more than 27 years. Skateboarding has been a constant companion through his life and he attributes many of his successes to the concepts used in skateboarding. He has put what he has learned into Pacific Skate School’s curriculum.

Chris started skateboarding in 1998 in North LA. He began skating so he could spend time with his friends outside and fell absolutely in love with it. The skate culture of art, progression, and inclusion. He was sponsored by one of his local skate shops, Ocean View Board Sports, and spent his high school years filming for skate videos with his skate crew.

He and his friends would spend their weekends coming up with creative combinations of tricks, challenging their balance, spending hours upon hours under blue skies perfecting their movements.

He went to the University of Colorado at Boulder graduating in 2011with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with an emphasis in Marketing. This lead him to an Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Study Abroad Program in Camp Town, South Africa in 2011 to work as a business consultant and fell in love with the art of an entrepreneur.

After school, Chris found an interesting opportunity to work with an art gallery that operated onboard a cruise ships. His parents exposed him and his brothers to travel at a young age, and Chris had found early a passion for people, cultures and adventure. So he took a sales associate position with Park West Gallery and spent the next 2 years living onboard cruise ships, sailing to more than 65 countries around the world, working his way up to head his own shipboard program as an Art Auctioneer. Then 3 more years shoreside with the upper management team as a Sales Training and VIP National Art Consultant.

He was able to get both exposure to running a small business while also working within a large corporation on an international scale. This is where he developed skills like marketing programs, event operations, team management, and public speaking. Working with thousands of different people and dealing with tens of millions of dollars in sales revenue, a truly unbelievable experience.

Chris first recognized the need for a quality skateboard program while living in Santa Monica, California. He was helping a friend’s 3yr old stand on his skateboard. He noticed that with a little bit of instruction and few clear step by step adjustments, the little skater was rolling in no time. Looking around, he noticed that bystanders were watching and smiling at what what the little boy could do. And that was the lightbulb moment.

It has always been apparent the lack of support for skateboarding, skateparks and no programing. He realized that by developing quality program and curriculum on learning how to skateboarding, it could be brought to Parks and Recreation departments to offer programing for youth just like other sports. It could bridge the gap for a new generation of skateboarders and help progress the support of skateboarding which he never experienced as a young skateboarder.

Pacific Skate School officially came into fruition in 2019 when Chris finally paired his passion for skateboarding with his professional ambition of running a small business.

The overall mission is to have skateboarding be more accepted by cities and communities. Make skateboarding accessible to more youth, teen, and adults by giving them safe places to skate. To gain support for skateboarding by creating more programs, building more skateparks, and sharing the community and culture of skateboarding.