Craving that feeling of pure freedom with a rush of pure, blood-pumping adrenaline? The sky’s the limit—literally—at Skydive West Coast, where you can soar to new heights and leave your world of worries behind.
Skydive West Coast is nestled between Big Bear and San Jacinto, in the San Gorgonio Pass, offering skydiving lessons led by well-trained, highly experienced, carefully selected instructors.
This thrill-seeking business is owned and operated by Robbie and Tanya Spencer, a husband-and-wife team with over 60 years of shared experience in the sport of skydiving.
The dynamic duo, who each holds personal world records, has taken more than 30 thousand combined skydives. Robbie and Tanya have also competed at the national level, with Robbie earning both national and world championship medals.
It’s clear that the skydiving Spencers take their sport pretty seriously—and with good reason. When it comes to customer care at Skydive West Coast, Robbie and Tanya, along with their team, take pride in establishing trust through a focused, one-on-one experience.
“We take pride in treating each customer as an individual,” says Tanya. “We think about how we would want our mother to be treated if she were to go skydiving. Whenever we bring someone onto the team, we ask ourselves, would we let our mother go skydiving with this person?”.
The Skydive West Coast approach to business was initially inspired by friends and mentors, Dave and Angela Hickling. The Hicklings own and operate a skydiving business in Nottingham, England, where Tanya got her start in the sport. Tanya credits the couple with shaping their professional trajectory.
“Dave is the Chief Instructor and Angela is the Chief Pilot of British Parachute Schools. Their shared passion for aviation and skydiving, as well as their ability to work together as a couple, have really shaped our lives and set us in a direction that has become our lives,” she says.
Both Robbie and Tanya also credit their success and ambition to their supportive families. They were both fortunate to be raised by strong mothers who instilled core lessons and values in them, shaping who they would later become.
“Our mothers taught us to love one another, go after your dreams, and to be kind to strangers because you never know—they may just become your friends,” recalls Tanya. “And when it comes to business, greed kills, so never take more than you need.”
The concept of giving more than you take certainly wasn’t lost on the Skydive West Coast team, who thrive on giving back to their community through various philanthropic endeavors. One of their charitable partners includes Carol’s Kitchen, a local organization that works to feed those in need.
Skydive West Coast also works to support its community by not only attracting new visitors to the area but also by encouraging those customers to patronize nearby establishments.
“A skydiving business is an asset to any community it is located in or near. These people not only come to skydive—they also frequent the local restaurants and hotels, too. When you think about it, even our small business has bought in over 10,000 people in one year to Banning,” says Tanya.
Tanya notes a memorable quote from her mum, who often said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” as a very appropriate description of all the world has weathered over recent years.
As the problems presented by the global pandemic seem to be waning, the couple intends to continue pushing full steam ahead, taking Tanya’s mother’s wise words to heart.
“ [We plan] to keep our heads down work extra hard to make sure we make things happen and keep the spirits as high as the skydives!” she says.
