COMPANY PROFILE
It all started on summer day in 1967 when a few friends and I found some old roller skates in the back of the Jack’s garage. Jack Sr. said we should cut them in half and nail them to the bottom of a 2x4, one on each end. We would take turns and try a ride down his driveway, hours of fun.
Than in the summer of 69’, we started to flip through Surfer magazine, “Wow” doesn’t that look fun. We talked Dean’s older brother Miles to take us surfing, Seal Beach here we come. Sharing a longboard!
This is when skateboarding came back into to our lives, The Black Knight. Monterey Park, California was a city of hills and sidewalks we would ride all day and night pretending to be surfing. Getting tube rides up overhanging bushes, cut backs on the driveways and hanging 5 or 10 in between all that.
The 70’s came with urethane wheels, precision bearings, Tracker or Bennett trucks and whole mess of skateboard companies. There were teams of Slalom racers, Freestylers, Downhillers and Pool riders. Skateparks started popping up everywhere, contests, trade shows and Skateboarder and Skateboard World magazine.
April 1977 “BAM” Skateboarder magazine printed a shot of me, it wasn’t a small shot but the centerspread. The shot was taken at Anaheim Skatepark wearing a Sims jersey (used to sneak in). Soon after my phone rang, a call from Tom Sims saying “you have to skate for Sims skateboards”, next I would be touring the country doing skate demos. My rise to the top was fast and furious. Sponsors after sponsors, travel here and there and to top it all off, I’m voted 2nd in Skateboarder Magazine Poll by the readers. Life is good!
Fast forward to 2005. I relocate my family to Hood River, Oregon after doing a 15 year period on the Oregon Coast. We buy a small skateshop called Epoch and quickly renamed it IPS Skate and Snow Shop. Soon after we began getting request for skate lessons so I formed IPS School of Skate and started doing Skate Camps. In 2007 the School purchased a 25 passenger shuttle bus and began doing skatepark tours. That same winter I would take over the head coach psition for the Hood River High School Snowboard Team.
In 2009 my daughter Aspen would qualify for the USASA (United States of America Snowboard Association) National Championship in snowboarding. And later that year I was voted Vice-President of OISA (Oregon Interscholastic Snowboard Association) the governing body for High School Snowboarding. The next winter I would take on coaching 8 snowboarders and freestyle skier for competition in the USASA Mt Hood Series which 5 would make to Nationals.
I quickly saw the need for both skateboarding, snowboarding and freestyle ski camps and private coaching. Thence I would change the name to IPS Academy.
Our goal is to provide a world class camp atmosphere with extraordinary coaching and exceptional experiences.
Tom “Wally” Inouye
