Via SkatePortland.org—Portland Parks & Recreation’s Rod Wojtanik, the guy at the city who’s been sheparding Portland’s Skatepark Master Plan for the past seven years, is moving on.

Bureaucrats come and go in government, but Rod occupied a unique position. In addition to more traditional planning and landscape design project responsibilities, Rod oversaw development of Portland’s groundbreaking skatepark program. Portland, you probably know, has three new skate projects open to the public, two more awaiting execution, and 14 more sited and planned for development. No city on earth has done what Portland is doing, and Rod steered the system from its inception to its current status. For skateboarders, Rod’s departure marks the end of an era.

It would only be fair to acknowledge skaters’ relationship with Rod through the years has had its share of ups and downs. Advocacy requires vigilance to achieve desired goals, and sometimes that means rejecting the bureaucratic status quo. Rod didn’t always share skaters’ views or strategies, but he learned a lot about skateboarding in a hurry and always worked to see skaters get the same respect every other recreational interest group enjoys. We presented the facts, and he helped broadcast them.

Rod knows more about skateboarding and its subculture than any non-skater we know. We owe him a debt of gratitude for making the effort to translate our needs into a language the mainstream machine understands. The reality is successful advocacy is a two-way street: you can’t expect people to support your needs if you are unwilling or unable to express them in a way people understand. Rod often served as our translator.

I spoke with Rod this afternoon, and he tells me that he’ll still work on the two skateparks currently in development (three have already been built). “You get so invested after so many years,” he says, adding that he’ll probably continue to go to all the skatepark meetings.

He’s got big shoes to fill in bridging the skater community and the city. “Part of it is understanding the need and the personalities and the age diversity. A lot of my job has been speaking for the 8 year olds, because the meetings are packed with 40 year olds. While they understand the political process and that which it takes to be heard, the 8 year old’s not attuned to that.”