How many people do you know with science or engineering backgrounds that are part of a company in the skateboard industry? Are there any occupations in skateboarding that are specifically suited for people with science or engineering training and experience?
Not as many as you'd think. As some already know, 80% of the hard goods industry is marketing and distributing. Anything relating to manufacturing skategoods/doing R & D etc.. is tough to break into. As always, networking is gold, the actual engineering of wheels, trucks, and decks is a pretty tiny group of workers (compared to a lot of other industries a sci/eng type could work in).
This is why you see so many new projects in the longboard world, regular skateboards are hard to find design/engineering opportunities in.