We caught up with the career carpenter to talk about all of the tools required to build a proper skateboard community. Today, he grinds harder than ever juggling two skate-oriented businesses of his own on top of holding down a full-time job as a union carpenter.ĭo you need a skatepark in your hometown? Have you ever considered where to begin or what it will take to get a movement started in your neighborhood? Wilhelm has the know-how for building a skate scene from foundation to finished product, and he is happy to share the knowledge. Later, Wilhelm found his way onto the legendary Grindline Skateparks crew, working alongside Mark “Monk” Hubbard himself. Temporary parks came and went for decades.Īt 25, Wilhelm was part of a small group of friends that managed to open and operate an inspirational indoor skatepark for a few years before complications forced its closure.
As the new kid in town, Wilhelm remembers repeated efforts from local families with children that skateboarded to get a permanent skatepark. Two years later he moved away to another small, rural town, Port Orchard similarly located outside of Seattle, Washington.
Wilhelm helped build his first mini ramp when he was 10 years old living in a neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Wilhelm has worked with, and been inspired by, countless others throughout the process, and today his neighborhood is home to one of the largest cement skateparks in the state. Wilhelm has put in blood, sweat and tears to build a skateboard scene that he believed the local kids in his area deserved, but he didn’t do it alone. “You can’t spell community without Unity,” says Ian Wilhelm, 44, a lifelong skateboarder and owner of Unity Skate Shop as well as Unity Ramp Builders.
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