Where did you grow up? 

I’m from a small place in Alaska called Hoonah. You have to take a boat to get to my house. There is a trail now, off a logging road that you can use to walk through the woods to get to the house but you can’t walk the trail without a gun because the island has a super high population of grizzly bears.

My family moved to Florida later, we drove all the way together in a van. I went to high school in a place called Amelia Island, Florida

Tell me your skate story ? 

I started skating sometime around 1998. We didn’t have a skatepark so I just skated the streets and in my driveway with ramps or rails that my friends and I used to make. I skated almost every day when I was a kid and as soon as one of my friends got his license we always went street skating downtown Jacksonville. I lived about and hour from The infamous Kona skatepark In Jacksonville, Florida So that was my first skatepark and the one I went to the most. It has a snake run that’s pretty fast so I think that helped later on when I discovered downhill in college.

When I went to university I

Lived on a small hill in Tallahassee. One of my friends had heard about downhill skating with gloves and putting your hands down, Tucking all that stuff. We all bought boards together and skated everyday bombing the small hills around Florida state university. Around this time YouTube was getting popular I had grown up watching videos like Yeah Right! And Flip Sorry. We discovered the videos from Teutonia in Brazil and thought it was the most amazing thing ever.

My first race, we all went to Puerto Rico for the Guajataka event. Which is a crazy race with something like 10,000 spectators. That event planted the seed that eventually led me to buying a plane ticket to danger bay and checking out the scene and finding out where I was at compared to people o had been seeing in videos.

I had to transfer university’s to try and finish my geology degree because FSU had dropped that as a major. I basically moved to a new town didn’t have friends and skating 24/7. My parents surprised me with a $500 RV that I fixed up and drove to the west coast and never went back. This started a 3-4 year travel/skate binge living in my RV and South America. 

What have you been up to lately?

Currently I’m in Asheville Carolina. I was living in Puerto Rico but that didn’t work out and plus this is in my opinion the best place in the USA for downhill skateboarding. Corona has squashed all my travel plans so now I’m trying to save all my money and buy a house here. It’s going to take a while.

What are some things that you love about skateboarding?

I love the people you meet from skating. I wouldn’t trade all the friends I made for anything. 

Top 3 Foods

1) Spinach 2)  Rice 3) Beans 

Top 3 Bands (or types of music)

1) Electric Wizard  2) Sister Nancy  3) Rick James 

Top 3 Memories

1) How dirty China is 2) euro tour 3) Riding bulls after a race in Colombia 

Top 3 Dreams

I just feel lucky to be living this dream. 

and 1) Buy a house and build a downhill run in my backyard 2) Keep growing my company Tio Caneca 3) Explore more of the world after this pandemic is over

Top 3 Favorite Places you have traveled to:

1) Medellin Colombia 2) Romania 3) South Korea. 

Top 3 Places you would like to travel to:

1 La Reunión Island

2 Hawaii

3 Taiwan 

check out the retro lifers here : https://shop.s1helmets.com/retro-lifer/