Tony Hawk Travels from Los Angeles, USA
Topics
- Adventure Sport
- Business Success
- Entrepreneur
- International Speaker
- Risk Management
- Sport
The world knows Tony Hawk as a legendary skateboarder, entrepreneur, and founder of The Skatepark Project, and he is the most recognized action sports figure in the world.
Tony Hawk was just nine-years old when his brother changed his life by giving him a blue fiberglass Bahne skateboard. By 14 he’d turned pro, and by 16 he was widely considered the best skateboarder on earth. He was world champion 12 years in a row and is a 16-time X Games medalist.
In 1999, he became the first skater to ever complete a 900, the holy grail of vert skating. Shortly thereafter, he teamed up with Activision to launch Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, now a billion dollar video game franchise. He has created a Tony Hawk brand that includes Birdhouse Skateboards, Hawk Clothing, and the Tony Hawk Signature Series sporting goods and toys. His speaking engagements draw huge crowds, inspiring everyone from media savvy millennials to corporate veterans.
Tony served as a correspondent at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games for NBC when skateboarding became an Olympic sport for the first time. An intuitive marketer with social networking, Tony’s fan base numbers in the millions on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram. And he recently launched a new podcast co-hosted by Jason Ellis called Hawk vs. Wolf. Tony authored a New York Times bestseller, the bio HAWK—Occupation: Skateboarder, and his book How Did I Get Here? The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO, covers the business side of his career. In 2022, a biographical documentary film titled Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off by award-winning director Sam Jones debuted on HBO, giving an in-depth look at Tony’s legendary career and personal life. Tony also oversees his own film, television and commercial production company. In 2002, Tony founded The Skatepark Project (formerly the Tony Hawk Foundation), which has given away over $10M to help fund over 650 public skatepark projects throughout the United States that serve over six million visitors a year.
The craziest thing he's ever done on a skateboard was jumping between two seven-story buildings in downtown Los Angeles for an MTV show. Hawk also rode his skateboard in the Grand Foyer of the White House in Washington for a Father's Day celebration hosted by President Barack Obama.
For the skateboarding illiterate, there is perhaps no more famous name than Tony Hawk. Even those who cannot differentiate a kickflip from a heelflip can probably tell you something about the most popular skateboarder of all time: the video games that bear his name, his appearances in “Jackass,” or even his 900 at the 1999 X-Games. No one has done more to bring the skateboarding community into the mainstream than Hawk. It’s a bit surprising, then, that it has taken so long for Hawk to get his own hagiographic documentary.
Sam Jones