Schmitt's having none of that. His CreateAskate.org program is generating new skateboarders while sneaking in lessons about biology, science and conservation. "They don't know they're being taught," he says. "They're just making a skateboard."
What does Schmitt get out of it? "I'm having a blast."
He began developing the program in November 2004 and moved it into the first classroom, in Traverse City East Junior High School in Michigan, a few months later. "I've got kids that enroll in my class now just so they can do the CreateAskate project," says Scott Diment, a technology education teacher who incorporated the program into his curriculum. "I have some kids that want to take the class over and over again to make another deck."
Geared to 5th- through 12th-graders, the program teaches students about density, scale, expansion and contraction. "They have to spell those words too," Schmitt says. Students stage fundraisers to pay for supplies. If there's money left over, it's used to plant trees or donated to American Forests.
When he speaks in classrooms, Schmitt doesn't really like to introduce the whole "success in life and be a millionaire" thing into the equation, but mentioning the two pools in his backyard does get students' attention.
"The kids at school are like, 'Yeah!," he says, shooting both arms into the air.
Retailers are coaxed to get involved by offering discounts or allowing students to hold the fundraisers at their shops. They also are encouraged to learn more about skateboard construction so they can teach young customers. Then, the theory goes, the skateboarders will be smart enough to know when they should buy bigger wheels, or a new board with a longer nose.
Jeremy Batter, owner of Modern Approach surf shop in Del Mar, Calif., was sold after listening to a recent pitch from Schmitt and then making his first skateboard.
"I didn't really know anything about the rockers and things like that," says Batter, 21, as his freshly laminated board dried under nearby lamps. Now Batter says he'll encourage Torrey Pines High School in San Diego to launch the program.
"It's going to bring them to our store," he says. "It's smart for both him and us."
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leslie.earnest@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Big man on wheels
Who: Paul Schmitt
Age: 44
Job: Owner of PS Stix
Education: Tampa Bay
Technical High School
Residence: Newport Beach
Family: Married, with two children
Bedside reading: "A Comparison and Follow-up Study of Vocational Educational Graduates of San Diego ROP," a thesis by Nancy Hawk
Childhood idol: Paul Gumer, high school shop teacher
Diet: Lots of salads. Drinks a 40 oz. bottle of ice water daily.
