Scott B. Olson

Scott B. Olson, born in 1959, is an American inventor, entrepreneur and former hockey player who developed and popularized the first modern inline skates, trademarked as Rollerblade, in the 1980s, launching a new recreational sport. In 1979, as an ice hockey player in Minneapolis, he came across the Super Sport Skate, became a licensed distributor and promoted the skates to hockey players around the state. With his brother Brennan he removed the wheel frames and fitted them to customers' old hockey boots, and he and a friend skated 200 miles from Minneapolis to Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in a five day marketing campaign. Through further tinkering, prototyping and road testing he arrived at a new skate design. He holds a dozen patent applications for skate and sport related innovations from 1982 through 2001, and later built and marketed SwitchIt skates, Rowbike and Skyride.