We are parents, skaters, entrepreneurs, and advocates for kids.
Christine and Mike live in Lancaster, PA with their two young daughters, Ryleigh & Louisa. Mike grew up with a passion for skateboarding and has a decade’s worth of youth mentoring experience. Christine brings a background in design, tech, and project management along with a passion for building community. You'll often find us enjoying time downtown and spending time with family and friends.
Our Story
Christine and Mike have been married for 11 years, and in business together for longer.
In 2022, looking to shake things up, Christine suggested that we “quit our jobs and open a skate shop in town”. The motivation was to become more connected with our community and to take control of our destiny. Unfortunately, a cursory investigation made it clear that the success rate for brick-and-mortar skate shops is criminally low.
During this time, Mike was also managing a side project, PA Skateparks, visiting and cataloging 60+ skateparks across Pennsylvania. In the process, he observed two services within skateboarding that appeared to be sustainable, and even growing: (1) building concrete parks, and (2) teaching kids. Neither of us know anything about construction, but fortunately, youth programming was right in our wheelhouse.
The light bulb moment came when Christine suggested that perhaps we didn’t need a physical skatepark to get started, at least at first. What if we could prove the concept out of the back of a van?
Ramp Up has enjoyed steady growth from that moment forward. To date, we’ve served:
90 skaters in 2023
250+ skaters in 2024
400+ (projected) skaters for 2025
Our ambitions for Ramp Up are epic, and we’re just getting started!
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to connect with us at christine@rampupskate.com.