About Ian Young

Ian Young is the pioneer of kite surfing in Australia, bringing the first commercial system, Cory Roeseler's Kiteski© into the country in 1997 - before inflatable kites were available.   After teaching himself through trial and error, he then started teaching others and established Australia's first kite surfing school in 1998.  Ian helped found the Australian Kite Surfing Association in 1999.  Although based in Perth, he has been professionally teaching kite surfing throughout Australia since 1998, was one of the first IKO  Instructors and has taught overseas including Japan, Indonesia, East Timor, USA and Europe.

Since the very early days Ian has been involved with competitions both as a rider and an official including:

 

 

Kite Surfing media exposure featuring Ian Young has gone to air or been published on many TV stations, videos, magazines and newspapers including all major Australian TV stations' evening news, Channel Nine's "Just Add Water", UK based TWI's "High Five", Alex Sanz video magazine, Action Asia magazine, The Western Australian, Panorama magazine, The West magazine, The Sunday Times, People magazine, Boarder magazine, FreeSail magazine, Subaru Sports magazine, and KiteSurf Quarterly magazine.

Ian was born in 1960 in Albury NSW. Ian served in the Australian Army for 22 years, primarily in Special Forces and travelled extensively throughout Australia and overseas including operational tours in Somalia and the Persian Gulf.  He has worked as a consultant, was the UN Deputy Chief of Security in East Timor in 1999 and for many other organizations in places such as Iraq, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Japan.

Ian's other interests include sculpture, photography, hang gliding, paragliding, tow-in surfing, stand-up paddle boarding, road & MTB cycling, squash, four wheel driving, and bush-walking.