Meet the PlaneSkate Team
Mike Wiskus - Founder & CEO - mwiskus@planeskate.com
Mike is the inventor of the original Aircraft Recovery System — the product the aviation world now knows as PlaneSkate.
But the road to building it started about as far from a boardroom as you can get: a ten-year-old kid at his first air show in Mason City, Iowa, deciding right then that airplanes were going to be his whole life.
At fourteen, Mike rode his bike to the local airport every day for two weeks until the owner finally gave him a job washing planes and sweeping hangars, just to be around them.
He traded that work for flying lessons and earned his Pilot's License on his 17th birthday. More than forty years later, Mike has logged over 25,000 flight hours, qualified in more than 40 aircraft, and built one of the most recognized careers in American air show aviation — a 2002 U.S. National Aerobatic Champion and a member of the 2004 U.S. Aerobatic Team, flying the Lucas Oil Pitts at more than 20 shows a year across the U.S. and Canada.
Alongside his flying career, Mike leads and operates West Metro Aviation in Buffalo, Minnesota — a full-service maintenance, restoration, and sales facility that's become a cornerstone of the Minnesota general aviation community. It was on that shop floor, solving a problem he'd seen too many times on too many runways, that the idea for PlaneSkate was born.
Today, Mike leads PlaneSkate with the same philosophy that got a kid from Iowa into the cockpit in the first place: if you can imagine it, you can build it — and if it keeps a runway open and gets an aircraft home safely, it's worth building right.
Mike Danielson - Partner & COO - mdanielson@planeskate.com
Mike's path to PlaneSkate started the way a lot of good aviation stories do — at the controls. A licensed private pilot with a CE-500 (Citation I) type rating and more than 1,000 hours in the logbook, Mike has spent years on both sides of the ramp: as a pilot who understands what it takes to move an aircraft safely, and as an operator who understands what it takes to move a business.
For nearly two decades, Mike has been Co-Owner and President of EideCom, a Minneapolis-based event production agency he helped grow from a two-person startup into an Inc. 5000 honoree. As a Certified EOS® Integrator, he's the one who turns vision into execution — building the systems, cadences, and accountability that let teams deliver at scale. That operational discipline carries into every business he touches, including FLYSAFE, LLC, the aviation services company he co-founded in 2015.
Mike brings that same blend of aviation fluency and operator's eye to PlaneSkate. He knows what ground crews need because he's been around them his whole career, and he knows how to build a company that actually ships what it promises. When he's not flying or running operations, you'll find him coaching youth hockey in Saint Michael, serving in his parish, or somewhere in the EAA community tinkering with airplanes.
A graduate of the University of St. Thomas (B.A., Business Administration/Entrepreneurship, with honors), Mike lives in Saint Michael, Minnesota with his family.
Patrick Hodgdon - Vice President of Sales & Marketing - patrick@planeskate.com
Patrick builds sales and marketing functions from scratch — the messy, interesting work of turning a company with a great product into a company customers actually hear about. He's done it at Fortune 500 brands and at pre-revenue startups, across Medical Devices, CPG, Software, and now aviation ground support equipment, and the pattern is consistent: understanding what the customer is trying to accomplish, what's getting in their way, and how to make sure the relationship pays off for them long before it pays off for anyone else. That's the approach he brings to every PlaneSkate conversation.
At PlaneSkate, that means making sure airports, FBOs, and military operators don't just buy a product — they get real value from it. Faster runway recovery. Fewer hours of disruption. A partner who picks up the phone. Patrick's job is to make sure the experience of working with PlaneSkate is as good as the product itself, and that every customer walks away knowing they made the right call.
Be sure to ask Patrick the story about how he once designed a pair of shoes worn by LeBron James. (Hint: it involves lip balm, a signature promotion, and the distinction of being the only non-Nike employee to have designed shoes worn by LeBron.)
Patrick holds a B.A. from Ave Maria University where he studied American Economic History and Alexander Hamilton before he was Broadway show cool. Outside of work, he's a devoted family man and an avid traveler and golfer — two pursuits that have him in and out of airports constantly, and that gives him a genuine appreciation for what PlaneSkate customers are trying to protect: the open runway, the on-time departure, the trip that goes the way it's supposed to.
Steven Nye - Media and Marketing Coordinator - snye@planeskate.com
Steven comes to PlaneSkate with a background in media production and aviation. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, he is an award winning filmmaker and production specialist. Steven is also a private pilot, giving him a greater understanding of aviation which has led to the production of numerous aviation promotional and documentary productions. He has produced a number of feature length documentaries and he is perhaps best known for his production of, Losing Grip (2023), which followed U.S. Olympic Gymnast Shane Wiskus over the course of six years. Steven graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BFA in Film and Media Arts from The University of Tampa and now resides in Tampa running his own film production company, S Nye Films.
Jordan Imes - Production Supervisor - jimes@planeskate.com
Jordan originally comes to us from Buffalo, Minnesota. He served in the United States Air Force for 6 years as a maintainer on the Lockheed HC-130J’s. This aircraft serves as a dedicated fixed-wing personnel recovery platform for the Air Force and Jordan’s extensive background with these operations brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to PlaneSkate. While serving in the Air Force, Jordan deployed twice and traveled to 14 foreign countries. Jordan met his wife while serving in the Air Force and in his spare time, he enjoys spending time with family, hunting, and fishing.
Ashlyn Landa - Accounting and Finance - alanda@planeskate.com
Ashlyn comes to PlanesSkate from Annandale, Minnesota. She attended St. Cloud State University where she received her Associates Degree and then went on to Rasmussen College to become a Physical Therapist Assistant. Ashlyn spent two years as a Physical Therapist Assistant before making a career change which led her to become the Office Manager at West Metro Aviation. She now works as the head of accounting and finance for PlaneSkate and she serves as the Office Administrator for the Minnesota Pilots Association. Ashlyn enjoys spending time with family and friends mountain biking, waterskiing, and crossfit training.