VERTICAL SKATEPARKS Owner ties hobby into job

The entrepreneur spends a lot of time advising young skateboarders across the country who are lobbying for a park.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Jay Brundege loves to fly, and he likes to do it on a skateboard.
At 32, Brundege has never outgrown his love for the ramp-jumping, flipping, spinning, fly-through-the-air kind of skateboarding.
Fortunately, the McDonald native has discovered a way to make a living with his favorite sport.
Brundege is president and founder of Vertical Skateparks, a Youngstown-based company specializing in the design and construction of parks for "extreme sports" -- skateboarding, trick rollerblading and trick bicycling.
The company is small and still headquartered in Brundege's Rush Boulevard home on Youngstown's South Side, but its Web site is attracting letters, e-mails and requests for bids from all over the country.
In the works: Vertical Skateparks has two local projects on the drawing board. Brundege submitted several proposed designs to the village of New Middletown for a public park there, and he's advising a group of youthful skateboarders who are lobbying for a skate park in Canfield.
And the company is making a name outside the Mahoning Valley as well.
Brundege is working on the design for a concrete, public skate park planned for the city of Akron, and he's putting the final touches on a park for the Grand River Boys Academy, a private boys school in Austinburg, Ohio.
This summer he'll head for Grand Island, N.Y., to build a 40,000-square-foot skate park on site, and he's negotiating a design contract for a project at a BMX racetrack in Burbank, Calif.
A skate park is generally made up of a series of ramps and platforms with a wood frame base and covered with a smooth surface designed for that purpose. Brundege does some construction in his backyard and garage but builds about 80 percent of his projects on site.
Having an edge: Brundege is an experienced carpenter and, even now, works for a local construction company during the winter months to supplement his business income. He says that woodworking experience, combined with years of firsthand experience making ramps for his own use, give him an edge over competitors accustomed to more traditional projects.
Skate parks are often initiated by teen-age extreme-sports participants like the group who recently approached Canfield City Council to request a park. He said he gets letters and e-mail almost daily from teen and pre-teen skaters, bikers and skateboarders pleading for his help to get a facility built in their neighborhood.
For that reason, Brundege spends a lot of his time as an unpaid consultant to young park promoters, providing them with safety data, accident statistics and liability facts.
Liability is always a major concern for anyone considering a skate park, but Brundege said reasonably priced liability coverage is available through the Skate Park Association of America. The association also litigates lawsuits filed against member parks.
Vertical Skateparks carries an additional $2 million in liability coverage on its projects.
Calling himself an "aging expert," Brundege admitted he's been injured several times while skateboarding. "I've probably broken all my bones at least a couple times," he joked.
Safety statistics: But the entrepreneur cites statistics from the National Safety Council that suggest skateboarding participants have fewer accidents that people who fish. The 1997 figures, which he said are the most recent available, list 8.24 million skateboarders and 48,186 injuries that year, compared with 3.8 million fishing enthusiasts who reported 72,598 injuries.
"When a municipality tells me that their insurance carrier is threatening to cancel coverage because they're putting in a skate park, I tell them to find a new carrier," he said. "There are plenty of companies out there that will provide coverage."
Background: Brundege grew up in McDonald, graduated from McDonald High School in 1986, then headed off to Colorado with plans to attend college there. Instead he became an accomplished professional snowboarder and landed a promotional contract with a snowboard manufacturer.
"My mom was worried to death," he recalled, grinning. ""She kept asking me when I was going to stop living like a gypsy."
Also an avid skateboarder at the time, he banded together with a group of skateboarders at his home in Snowmass, Colo., and began lobbying for a public skate park. When the town council approved the project it also agreed to let him build it, and Vertical Skateparks was on its way.
Soon after, Brundege returned to the Mahoning Valley, planning to spend the summer visiting family and friends before settling in the west, but he met his wife, Meghan, and decided to stay. Now he's looking for a permanent headquarters for his business, one large enough to house an indoor skate park and a production area.
He's also making it his goal to get extreme-sports participants off the streets and steps of public buildings and into parks designed for them.
"I'm for the promotion of skate parks, no matter how it happens," he said. "I want every town to have one."