Executive Director
Level 1 and Level 2 Examiner
Certified Level 1 and Level 2

As the Executive Director of Skate IA, Trish runs the day to day aspects of the company, puts on the annual Camp SkateIA event - an experience she created many years ago, and develops and operates new programs such as Side Hustle and After the Cert. As examiner Trish runs all of the Level 1 Online Certifications as well as several in-person certs around the continent. Trish is committed that skaters get to see what is possible on skates and get a chance to try different disciplines in skating!

Formerly a trial paralegal and private detective, Trish decided in 2001 to teach skating for a living. At heart, she is an artistic skater having started as a competitive ice figure skater in singles and pairs in her early teens. Trish appreciates the diversity that is possible in skating as she has done many marathons, A2A, learned how to drop in at Camp Rollerblade, loves to dance around the slalom cones, and is currently playing with Wizard skating.

Trish runs the Seattle-based Skate Journeys Skate School which has been in business since 1999 (23 years+) and has the largest staff of any school in USA - currently at 40 - teaching about 500 students a year who take about 4,000 classes annually. Trish also runs Sports-Preneur, where she assists skaters in building their own skate businesses.

Associate Director
including Website and Membership
Certified Level 1

As the Associate Director for SkateIA, Edison handles majority of the administrative duties that keeps everyone at SkateIA rolling daily, including organizing the instructor/skate school database, handling insurance requests, managing completed certifications, emails, and being the first point of contact for all our members.

Additionally, he is Trish’s direct assistant and builds/maintains SkateIA’s website.

Edison started ice skating around 2015 at his home rink in New York City. What started as a casual public session grew, and he would go to the rink every day after school to skate. He was fully self-taught, relying on friendly mentors and watching other skaters. Eventually he started inline skating, and his skills seamlessly transferred from ice to asphalt. His ambitions led him to Skate IA, where he got his Level 1 certification in 2018. As he wanted to learn as many skating disciplines as he could, his goal was to become the "jack of all trades" of skating. He was particularly into ice hockey freestyle, figure skating, inline urban skating (actively featured in Blade in NY), speed skating (first place in division and 15th overall in the 2018 Athens to Atlanta 87-mile ultramarathon), as well as ice acrobatic skating (jumping on synthetic ice ramps).

Edison is currently traveling around the world, performing for Disney On Ice as an acrobatic ice skater, where he skates alongside other world-class skaters and acrobats. His goal is to introduce skating to everyone, having been featured on the New York Times, ABC News Good Morning America, as well as many other headlines.

Tech and Processes
Level 1 and Skate Park Examiner
Certified Level 1, Level 2, Freestyle Slalom, and Skate Park

Aside from running certs and developing curricula, Sonic, as a former Google software engineer, heads up SkateIA’s tech platforms. He built the instructor search from scratch, set up the new website and registration system, and is continuously finding ways to improve SkateIA’s processes to help it run more smoothly.

Sonic’s been skating for over 25 years, but it wasn’t until Camp SkateIA in 2014 that his eyes were opened to the expansive world of skating. Since then, he’s mastered multiple skating disciplines including urban skating (blasting through NYC’s traffic laden streets), slalom, speed skating (winning the Elite Masters category at multiple races in 2022), ultra distance (skating 308 miles at the 2022 Le Mans 24 hour race to bring home a podium); and is making inroads with skate park and Wizard skating.

Sonic’s involvement in the skating community is paramount, from helping to operate the humongous NYC Wednesday Night Skate for 14 years to launching the city’s only inline skate shop in the middle of the pandemic. Sonic is not only an ambassador within the worldwide skating community, but brings it to the public eye from music videos to news articles, and even an Emmy winning feature.

Skate Park Examiner
Certified Level 1, Level 2, and Skate Park

Nikita started her skate journey early in life, rolling from the age of three at her local hometown rink where her mom and aunt worked. She continued to quad and inline skate throughout most of her life. In 2012 she joined the sport of roller derby as a player and has also been a part of their coaching/training team. For some extra fun she took up park skating in 2018. She’s had the opportunity to travel internationally doing both and attended multiple camps and clinics to learn from many longtime experienced skaters.

Wanting to take what she learned and share it with others, Nikita looked for a way to become an instructor and found Skate IA, noting their Skate Park Instructor Certification. After achieving her Level 1 certification, she was introduced to some of Washington DC’s Skate IA instructors where she worked alongside them in their skate schools, built specific curriculum to teach quad skaters how to manage the busy streets of DC, and assisted in making quarterly roll outs through the city a success. Nikita became a Skate Park Instructor at Camp SkateIA in 2021, being the first quad skater in the US to do so. In 2022, she not only became a Level 2 instructor, but also a Skate Park Examiner.