If ever there was something as the “people’s skateboarder” Tim Brauch was just that.  The speed and intensity at which he skated 100% of the time was balanced by his calm, well natured personality.  In the world of professional skateboarding there are those who fly far below the radar of notoriety and those who are as unapproachable as rockstars.  The ones who live entirely on their own terms at the benefit of no one but themselves and the ones who have been elevated so high above the general population that they’re dubbed untouchable.  Tim Brauch was neither of these.  He was a blue collar skateboarder who might as well be responsible for single-handedly putting the “professionalism” into professional skateboarding.

What Tim was able to accomplish for both his sponsors and for the greater whole of the skateboarding world is largely unmatched at the grassroots level.  There wasn’t a place Tim would show up to skate…be it a neighborhood curb, a rail in Spain, or a contest in France…that he didn’t have an ear to ear grin marking his face.  He genuinely loved what he did and represented his sponsors not as if they were sponsors but more so as if they were his own companies.  While there are easily dozens of handfuls of pro skateboarders today who won’t give a kid the time of day at a demo…Tim was different.  He knew that he was at the demos for the kids.  Limbs willing, he wouldn’t leave a demo until every trick that wanted to be seen was seen and every kid who wanted a moment of this time was given that and more.

Every company owner wishes they could clone someone like Tim…every pro skater wishes they had his talent, his speed, his ability…and every human being who met him wished they had a friend as loyal.  Even if Tim hadn’t won the Triple Crown of Skateboarding one year before his untimely death…Tim would have still been a skateboarder.  And skateboarding is better because of him.  Just as the life of every person he ever came in contact with is from having met him.  Tim’s life, regardless of how short it was in years, was lived to the fullest and is a shining example of what the independent spirit is capable of.  A small capsule of Tim’s life in skateboarding now rests as a permanent fixture in the Smithsonian Museum for visitors from all over the world to learn from and be inspired by.  Sessions is most honored to have had the relationship with him that we did.  He was not just one of our sponsored athletes…but a true friend.