Born in Kettering, Ohio, in 1974, Rob started skating at age 12, and in less than a year was the youngest member of the popular G&S (Gordon & Smith) skateboard team. At 16, he turned pro for Alien Workshop. Rob's most recent endeavor has been to create legal street skateboarding spots for the roughly 10-million street skateboarders in the US. To that end, he spearheaded the creation of the Rob Dyrdek/DC Shoes Skate Plaza Foundation, which actively seeks to build Skate Plazas throughout the US and beyond. In the process, Rob taught himself how to draft and designed to the inch the world's first Skate Plaza, set to open June 2005 in Kettering, Ohio.