Skip to main content

Poole Alumnus Keegan Guizard Creates Foundation to Help Skateboarders Go to College

Poole alumnus Keegan Guizard doing a 'frontside grind' at his 'now local' Garvanza Skatepark in Highland Park, Calif.
Poole alumnus Keegan Guizard doing a 'frontside grind' at his 'now local' Garvanza Skatepark in Highland Park, Calif.

“I have become captivated by social entrepreneurship and the greater good that can be accomplished through that,” said Poole College alumnus Keegan Guizard (BSBA ’12) in a January 2013 story about how he had combined two passions – entrepreneurship and skateboarding – to create Collegiate Skate Tour, the first national contest series to bring together skateboarders who are studying in college.

Keegan Guizard (left) is commentator at the Collegiate Skate Tour's third annual contest event held at the Transworld Skateboarding HQ Skatepark, along with content judges pro skateboarder Kenny Hoyle, CSEF Board Member Thomas Barker and pro skateboarder and full-time student at CSU Fullerton, Zachary "Ducky" Kovacs
Keegan Guizard (left) is commentator at Collegiate Skate Tour’s third annual contest held at Transworld Skateboarding HQ Skatepark, with contest judges pro skateboarder Kenny Hoyle, CSEF Board Member Thomas Barker, and pro skateboarder and full-time student college student  Zachary “Ducky” Kovacs.

Now five years later, Guizard, an avid skateboarder, entrepreneur, writer, and traveler living in Los Angeles, Calif., is continuing to focus on the greater good, this time by launching the College Skateboarding Educational Foundation (CSEF), the only education foundation offering merit college scholarships for skateboarders on the national level.

The CSEF website describes the foundation as a “new, unique college scholarship fund that is built for skateboarders, by skateboarders.” It quotes Guizard saying that the education he “received at NC State, along with what he’s learned from 18 years of skateboarding, inspires him to encourage higher education for skateboarders everywhere,” reiterating a statement he had made when launching Collegiate Skate Tour in 2012.

In a video interview produced by CSEF and posted by Transworld SKATEboarding, Guizard elaborates on the academic connection, saying that he and other CSEF members “believe that skateboarders kill it; they have a skillset, and falling down and getting back up again (shows) they have the discipline and the determination, so given the right path and a little bit of guidance – you can get that in college – the sky’s the limit.”

Guizard provided more insight in an email interview with Poole College communications.

Q. When did you decide to establish the foundation? What was the catalyst?

Over the years of running Collegiate Skate Tour, people often asked if the company was a nonprofit corp. My response was always, “no, but that’s a great idea” or “that could happen with the right team in place.” After living in California for almost a year, that team started to come together, and the need for financial assistance for skateboarders (or anyone) was becoming more and more obvious. We received our articles of incorporation on Halloween 2016.

Q. How did you go about doing that, including identifying the members of your leadership team?

After meeting professional skateboarder Amelia Brodka at a surfing event in Encinitas, she introduced me to a former classmate of hers from the University of Southern California. That was Neftalie Williams, who at the time taught the undergraduate course: “Skateboarding and Action Sports in Business, Media, and Culture” at USC.

I was invited to speak in their class – as founder of Collegiate Skate Tour – and returned to hear Thomas Barker (executive director of the International Association of Skateboard Companies) speak to the same class. Thomas and I talked over coffee about the idea of a skateboarding scholarship (he had previously given some thought to that). Before I knew it, Neftalie, Thomas, and I became the founding board members, before the nonprofit even had a name. Pat Sison – our mad genius illustrator – is a good friend that I met at the local skatepark, and Ian – our mad genius designer – was referred by Thomas. The five of us, with the help of several others, ultimately became the College Skateboarding Educational Foundation.

Q. Share a few highlights from your past five years: your work with the Collegiate Skate Tour, its impact on elevating skateboarding, anything else.

Collegiate Skate Tour turned five last year, and the evolution of the contest series has been a wild ride. Some of its growth has been calculated, and some of it has been by learning the hard way. Nevertheless, the Tour has scaled tremendously. What started as a student skateboarding club organizing local events became road trips to Florida and New York. It then evolved into contest events in New Hampshire, Atlanta, Tampa, Cocoa Beach, Charleston, and the list went on. Now we host annual events in Queens, NY; Gainesville, FL; Portland, OR; and Carlsbad, CA. Being able to partner with some of the biggest skateboarding media companies in the world, we’re seen by skaters and others worldwide. Now, with Skateboarding in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, the culture is becoming more accepting of this idea of student-accessible skateboarding. Collegiate Skate Tour, and other orgs that represent skateboarding in a positive way, are in great position to make optimal impact in this next decade. Between the growing for-profit and the brand-new nonprofit, everyone on our team is super excited.

Q. Tying back to your academics: How did your studies help you to launch/grow the Collegiate Skate Tour and establish the foundation.

During my time at Pool College of Management, I learned a lot inside and outside of the classroom. Much of what begets entrepreneurs’ success is hustle. A lack of mistakes and pre-funding operations are important, but picking up the phone and putting in the time are crucial to success when doing your own thing. I also studied supply chain and operations, which teaches a deep understanding of sequential efficiency and time management. Honestly, a large part of why I started the company is credited to inspiration from Lewis Sheats, one of my entrepreneurship professors. Serendipitously, I made friends with other ambitious skaters who started the skateboarding club at NC State, and studying entrepreneurship at Poole helped me to put the pieces of the opportunity together. Also, my first entrepreneurship professor, David Townsend (now at Virginia Tech), started my interest in possibly being an entrepreneur.

Q. Anything else you’d like to add.

Education (beyond primary public school) is a privilege reserved for those with the means or those that manage to navigate a complex system. Proper access to education (in the United States and abroad) is still far from accomplished. My love for skateboarding fueled my motivation to start these organizations, but my interest in making quality education more attainable (in this case, for skateboarders) has started to overtake my focus. I see a growing opportunity gap in our country, making it harder for lower-income households and immigrant families to afford higher education.

I’d like to say that skateboarding has taught me (and many, many others) the ability to push through tough times and situations. Falling down (usually onto concrete) is routine in skateboarding. Failure is integral to the activity; therefore, I believe skaters are the perfect candidates for most challenges. College is a great challenge with a great reward, and that’s why I feel so strongly that skaters should be empowered to approach that challenge.

I’m a passionate skateboarder, and that fuels my passion for skateboarding-focused ventures, but more and more the emphasis has become setting an example to make an even greater impact.

Working with Guizard on the foundation are:

  • Thomas Barker, co-chairman of the board. He also is executive director at International Association of Skateboard Companies (IASC), president of the Go Skateboarding Foundation, and executive producer of the Skateboarding Hall of Fame Ceremony.
  • Neftalie Williams, co-chairman of the board, a doctoral candidate at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and the inaugural 2017 LA84 Foundation-USC AISMS Fellow. He teaches the course, “Skateboarding and Action Sports in Business, Media and Culture” and conducts research at the University of Southern California at Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. His work involves the analysis and documentation of the effects of globalization on issues of diversity, identity and youth empowerment, using the lens of skateboarding and emerging sport culture.
  • Ian Smile leads design for CSEF. He is a creative director, user experience designer and skateboarder living in Costa Mesa, Calif., is creative director for the Skateboarding Hall of Fame and has worked in the past with Stoked Mentoring and Exposure Skate, the Harold Hunter Foundation and Grind for Life, with the goal of helping people live better lives through design and skateboarding.
  • Pat Sison, head illustrator at CSEF, is a graphic designer and illustrator from Los Angeles who has been skateboarding for about 18 years.

Read more:

Poole Alum Aims to Bring Competitive Skateboarding to Campus