• Name: Eric Koston
• Gender: Male
• Hometown: Los Angeles, California
• Date of Birth: April 29, 1975
• Family: Single
• Occupation: Pro Skater, Co-owner of Fourstar Clothing Company
• Began Skating: 1986
• First Sponsored: 1991
• Turned Pro: 1993
• Favored Discipline: Street
• Stance: Goofy
• #1 Sponsors: Girl Skateboards, eS Footwear, Fourstar

Eric Koston is a fearless skater. He has technical skill combined with the willingness to try out new, untested tricks in the middle of a competition. Eric Koston is one of the few ultra successful pro skateboarders who retains his reputation for throwing everything he’s got into every competition he comes across, be it the X Games, or Koston’s famous games of SKATE.

Eric Koston’s signature trick is the K grind, or crooked grind. The K is for Koston. Though he didn’t in fact invent the trick, he was the first person to show it to the world in a video. Eric Koston has a battery of other tricks that he has invented.

1993 – Helped start Fourstar Clothing Company
2000 – Eric Koston won Globe World Contest, X Games and Gravity Games
2001 – won TransWorld Skateboarding Best Video part for his segment in eS Menikati
2002 – won gold in Gravity Games Street
2003 – won gold in X Games Street competition
2005 – Listed in Thrasher’s ’15 Most Loved Skaters of All Time’
2005 – Koston’s Game of SKATE went international, with 24 contests world wide, and the winner competing against pros in the fall.

Eric Koston’s father, Bob, was in the airforce when he and Eric’s mom met. Wanida, Eric’s mom, was from Thailand. Eric was born in Bangkok, and moved to the states at 9 months old. His parents were divorced when he was only 5, and Eric grew up in San Bernardino, CA. Eric’s older brother Chris gave him his first skateboard. Eric later went to a skate camp in MI, and met Eddie Elguera. This is where Eric realized his potential as a professional skateboarder.

Eric Koston plays basketball on an NBA Entertainment league in the winter. The team is called the Maverics, and he plays with Ashton Kutcher, Justin Timberlake and Mike Marlin to name a few. Eric also loves to play golf.

From skatinghazard.com – “The progression of skateboarding seems to be getting more technical with a flip into a slide then a flip back out as well as going down bigger rails and down more stairs. I like to do all that stuff, especially when it feels good. I don’t stick myself into one type of style, I would get bored with that.”

Rob Dyrdek is beyond characterization; he is not a personality who can be simplified into a sound bite.   Besides a long and influential career as a professional skateboarder, Rob is also a TV star, a filmmaker, a serial entrepreneur, a marketing whiz, and a multi-faceted philanthropist dedicated to supporting skateboarding. Rob Dyrdek has leveraged his creativity, business savvy, and professional skateboard career in order to launch a long list of non-profit foundations, innovative businesses, and noteworthy productions in film and television.  This includes the introduction of safe and legal Skate Plazas through the Rob Dyrdek/DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation, a children’s toy line, Wild Grinders, a feature film production titled Street Dreams, the widely distributed brands Rogue Status, Silver Trucks, and Reflex Bearings, and of course the wildly successful MTV programs Rob & Big and Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory. With almost 20 years as a professional skateboarder, Mr. Dyrdek’s illustrious career is a rare exception to the short-lived nature of being a professional athlete. In fact, many might say it is his position as a life-long skateboarder that has provided the backdrop for his innovative approach to business, entertainment, and life in general.  Once viewed as social outcasts, Dyrdek embodies the rebellious stance skateboarders are known to have against the status quo.   He has utilized this position to his advantage, however, by disregarding the conventions put in place by the corporate class and persistently pursuing his dreams, regardless of how far-fetched they seem to outsiders.

Born in Kettering, Ohio in 1974, Rob’s childhood was a far cry away from the skate and surf culture that was popular in Southern California at the time.  At the age of 12, Rob picked up a skateboard for the first time.  Within a month, he won his first competition and became the youngest member of the G&S skateboard team.   At an early age it was clear that Rob demonstrated the powerful combination of work ethic and natural ability.  Forgoing his senior year of high school, Dyrdek became a professional skateboarder at the age of 16 while simultaneously becoming one of the founding members of the legendary Ohio-based Alien Workshop skateboard team.  The year was 1991, and at the time skateboarding was no longer a focus in mainstream culture as it once was in the late 1980s.  As such, the companies and professional skaters that remained proved to be the most loyal and dedicated supporters of the sport.  Embodying this dedication, Rob would skate harder than ever for his first high-profile video part the very same year.  It was Alien Workshop’s first film, titled Memory Screen, and through it Rob’s skating gained notoriety, his part in the video having including both advanced handrail skating and the more technical street tricks that were just then evolving as part of the sport.  To continue his professional career, Rob moved to San Diego in 1994 to become more visible in the skateboarding world and to be closer to the center of the industry.  From there, Rob would go on to film prominent skateboarding parts in 411VM, Alien Workshop’s Time Code, and Photosynthesis.

Around the same time, Rob started revealing the business creativity he is now known for.  To find a space that would simultaneously serve as headquarters for his start-up record label as well as a skateboard training facility, Rob leased a small warehouse in San Diego and built a small private skate park he dubbed the TF, which simply stands for Training Facility.   After featuring the TF in several videos, the skateboard training facility craze started to take over the minds of professional skaters and companies alike, with each major brand starting to build their own private facilities for their professionals.

Soon thereafter, Rob would begin working closely with former pro skateboarder and filmmaker Greg Hunt for his upcoming part in the first ever DC Shoes skateboarding film.  Together, they came up with the entertaining idea of hiring a security guard to protect Rob while he was filming his video part.   Theoretically, this security guard would deal with the other security guards and police that tried to prevent Rob from skating illegal street spots.   In their search they came across Christopher “Big Black” Boykin; he and Rob immediately hit it off and it was agreed that they found the right security guard for the job.   From there, Rob would film his DC Shoes video part and feature Big Black in the introduction of the segment.   Amazingly, the intro became hugely popular among all those that saw the video and Rob and Big would grow to become close friends.

Big and Rob ended up racing the Gumball 3000, a week-long illegal European rally car race in 2003, where they were featured in a documentary about the race called 6 Days in May, directed by Ruben Fleischer.  Jeff Tremaine, the producer from Jackass, saw a screening of the film and proposed the idea of a TV pilot featuring Rob and Big Black.  Jeff, Rob, Big Black, and Ruben formed a partnership to make Rob & Big a reality.  From the outset of production, Rob would prove to be the driving creative force of the show, writing each segment and creating the story line of each episode.   Immediately after the pilot was approved and episodes started to air it became a smashing success; the natural odd couple of Rob and Big won over the hearts of MTV viewers and the show was an undeniable hit.   By no means, however, did Rob lose focus regarding his professional skate career and supporting the sport of skateboarding.

After the DC Video had finished filming, Rob turned to try to solve the main dilemma facing street skateboarders today.  With more than 13 million participants, skateboarding is the most popular alternative to mainstream sports.  However, there exist many barriers that have prevented the sport from reaching its full potential, the main problem being millions of street skateboarders having no legal places to practice the sport they love.  Moreover, about 80% of all skateboarders in the US, or 10 million people, prefer to ride street than imitation wooden skate parks.  As a result, they choose to skate the property of businesses or city plazas that they are not allowed to.  Sadly, this is the exact type of terrain – made up of smooth marble or concrete – that skaters love.  However, in skating these spots they have to confront police, employees, and security guards, naturally preventing them from their number one source of exercise and fun.   For years, Rob listened to skaters say they dreamed they could recreate some of the most famous skate spots and make it legal for them to skate, and sharing their dream himself, he set out to create the first foundation for legal and authentic street skateboarding plazas.

The solution for skateboarding’s biggest problem was relatively simple: create real street environments for skateboarders.  This meant the construction of authentic city terrain through the use of smooth marble, city-like landscaping, and creative architectural design.  Not only would these plazas be aesthetically better looking to the non-skater than skate parks, but also they would serve to greatly increase the likelihood of skaters using the location on a daily basis.  With the concept in place, Rob sought out the partnership of DC Shoes to create the Rob Dyrdek/DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation.  From there, Rob set out to teach himself how to draft, design architectural landscapes, and raise the sufficient funds for their first location, which was none other than his hometown of Kettering, Ohio.  Quickly, he honed his design skills, acquired the necessary financing, and worked nonstop until the first plaza was ready for construction.

On June 11, 2005, the grand opening of the Kettering Skate Plaza brought more than 3,000 skaters, network news coverage, and an  overwhelming amount of industry press.  The first plaza would prove extremely successful, becoming a landmark in the sport and paving the way for subsequent locations in Shreveport, Louisiana, Sunland Park, New Mexico, and Santiago, Chile.  The Rob Dyrdek/DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation would also evolve into include the Safe Spot Skate Spot Program, which creates smaller, noninvasive authentic street spots for skateboarders to use.  These locales minimize the amount of financing required for construction but still prove invaluable to each community by retaining a tasteful and artistic approach that appeases both the most hardcore skateboarder and non-skating city resident.  The first Safe Spot Skate Spot was opened on February 24th, 2009 in Lafayette Park, Los Angeles.   Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was in attendance and in a speech, publicly blessed the Safe Spot Skate Spot program and promised to make Los Angeles a better city for skateboarders.

With the Rob Dyrdek Skate Plaza Foundation in full swing, Rob began to focus again on his endeavors within film and television. Prior to the conclusion of MTV’s Rob and Big, Rob devoted himself to writing, financing, and producing the first true-to-life feature film about skateboarding.  Starring Paul Rodriguez, Ryan Dunn, Ryan Sheckler, Terry Kennedy, and Rob Dyrdek himself, Street Dreams is the first feature film created by actual skaters to truly represent the unique trials and tribulations of your average teenage skateboarder’s life.   Accompanied with a talented production and development team, Rob devoted himself to ensuring that Street Dreams included some of the best skateboard scenes ever shot while also retaining an engaging story line to appeal to any audience.  The film was released theatrically in June 2009.

Not one to slow down, Rob continued building his momentum in the entertainment industry and began developing his next program for MTV; he envisioned a show that highlighted his relentless pursuit of business endeavors, the quirky staff of Dyrdek Enterprises, and the light-hearted antics of chasing down fantasies.  With the green light from MTV, Rob moved Dyrdek Enterprises into a 25,000-square-foot industrial — and fully skateable — warehouse and office complex near downtown Los Angeles.  Dubbed the Fantasy Factory, Rob created the perfect place to dream up ideas and bring them to life.  The new show would shine light on the countless new projects on Rob’s plate and highlight the entertaining ways in which he and his staff interacted. Today, Rob’s Fantasy Factory is the culmination of everything that is unique about Rob Dyrdek, complete with a fully skateable indoor plaza, his cousin and assistant’s music studio, a rapping receptionist, a foam pit for outlandish stunts, a zipline, and a “corpo” department for his lawyer, toy designer, and manager.

Utilizing the newfound creative space and the success of his new show, Rob has put his pursuits on overdrive.  His partnership with Travis Barker through the clothing brand Rogue Status is seeing global growth and has garnered a loyal customer base, whereas his other consumer product brands, Silver Trucks and Reflex Bearings, hold high-regarded positions in their respective markets.  The Fantasy Factory also proved to be the birthplace for Rob’s foray into children’s toys, with his creative development of Wild Grinders — a complete set of skateboard toys modeled after his childhood crew of friends.   In addition to Wild Grinders, the Factory showcased his investment in East, an Asian Fusion restaurant located in Hollywood, California.

With the support of the Factory and his team, Rob still has many exciting projects on the horizon.  This includes Street League, the first skateboarding contest series that stays true to the nature of street skateboarding in an easy-to-understand and exciting format. The series will utilize modern skate plaza arenas and the proprietary Instant Scoring Xperience (ISX) scoring system to give skateboarding “the buzzer-beater” element that is missing in televised skate contests like the X-Games and the Dew Tour.  Also, in partnership with DC Shoes, Rob will unveil the Dyrdek Collection in the summer of 2009 — this line of footwear and apparel speaks directly to Rob’s refined tastes in both fashion and skateboarding functionality.  Beyond the massive TV audience, the world has also begun to take notice of Dyrdek’s business acumen as a serial entrepreneur.

Perhaps the word relentless, as tattooed on his forearm, best exemplifies Rob Dyrdek’s approach to business, skateboarding, and life in general.  By definition, relentlessness is “showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength, or pace.”  Since an early age, Rob has demonstrated an unmatched work ethic and a nonstop pursuit of his ambitions.  Whether it is his quest to solve skateboarding’s deepest problems through the advent of legal skateboarding plazas and the Safe Spot Skate Spot program, the release of the first true-to-life feature film around skateboarding with Street Dreams, or his intense ambition in the field of business and entertainment, Rob Dyrdek clearly shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.