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HOW IT ALL STARTED
After skating quads
in the 80’s, Barry Hanson, the Founder of SkateSports,
started out developing inline skating sports in Taiwan
in 1994.
As marketing Manager at CWC, (Taiwan) he focused time
on designing, producing, testing, breaking and remodeling
skates and accessories for major skate manufacturers
Play Maker & Goodmen.
He secured distribution of California Pro, Crazy Creek,
Bauer, Hyper and later, Mission & SOAP - managed
marketing, promotions & events throughout Taiwan.
Skating the streets of Taiwan daily he and collegue
Geoff attracted interest in the local press which lead
to a call from the founder of "Montessori"
Taiwan.
Together they developed safe, fun, learn to skate programmes
based on the Montessori "play and Learn" philosophy
teaching within the School. Soon after Hanson ventured
onto Chicago IL, USA to train and become an Internationally
Certified Instructor. (later became 1st International
Inline Certified Examiner in Asia).
SKATE SCHOOL
Establishing a Skate
School in Taiwan called Asia Sports with the club being
“COCO”, he continued to expand the programme
and his instructor base teaching thousands of students
in Schools, for Corporations and private groups throughout
greater Taipei. This experience, a solid programme,
International Certification and industry networks, enabled
Barry to train extreme skaters to compete in Asian X
Games in Thailand in 97 -98.
1997, 1998, 1999 Barry co conducted International "Instructor
Certification Programs" in Taiwan, Hong Kong and
Singapore expanding the base of Certified Instructors
throughout the region. Soon after conducting the ICP
Coach Certification programme in Singapore late 1999,
Barry accepted the position as General Manager of a
new skate business "skateline". He relocated
in early 2000, helped set up the 1st skateline skate
shop then developed and implemented a variety of successful
systems and programmes and become share partner.
In order to expand and implement his cutting edge ideas,
Barry left Skateline in mid 2001 to establish Inline
Hockey Singapore & SkateSports. SkateSports
opened the largest inline skate shop in East Coast Park
in late 2002. Since then the SkateSports “Crew”
and team of Coaches developed a solid following of students
from 7 international Schools and several local Schools
and institutions. SkateSports quickly become recognized
as the premier choice for inline skate, Rental, Classes,
purchase of skates and equipment. With a focus on Inline
Hockey SkateSports have trained/coached teams of hockey
players to compete in over 25 local, regional, and international
events including World Inline Cup (Canada), CanAm (Canada),
Hong Kong YMCA Cup (HK), Pacific Cup (New Zealand) many
on an annual basis. |
