The Exchanges

Q Did you at that point also, I guess, start to identify people who are really good snowboarders and, and, and sponsor them?

A Yeah, well, for a minute there, these kids that had worked for me just happened to be the best, and then there was a rider, Craig Kelly, who actually rode for this company, Sims, who started making snowboards after we did, but they were a pretty well-known skateboard company, and this guy, Craig Kelly, rode for them, but we were good friends, and I'd always told Craig if he ever had the opportunity, we would love for him to ride for us, and then Sims ultimately sold his company to, uh, Bigger skateboard company. And so we cut a deal, and he rode for me, and I paid him 17,000 bucks a year. And, uh, this guy was, um, Craig Kelly was a godsend.

AI assessment note: “we cut a deal, and he rode for me, and I paid him 17,000”

Q Did you at that point also, I guess, start to identify people who are really good snowboarders and, and, and sponsor them?

A Yeah, well, for a minute there, these kids that had worked for me just happened to be the best, and then there was a rider, Craig Kelly, who actually rode for this company, Sims, who started making snowboards after we did, but they were a pretty well-known skateboard company, and this guy, Craig Kelly, rode for them, but we were good friends, and I'd always told Craig if he ever had the opportunity, we would love for him to ride for us, and then Sims ultimately sold his company to, uh, Bigger skateboard company. And so we cut a deal, and he rode for me, and I paid him 17,000 bucks a year. And, uh, this guy was, um, Craig Kelly was a godsend.

AI assessment note: “we cut a deal, and he rode for me, and I paid him 17,000 bucks”

Q Let me ask you about Miller-Fisher, because probably not a lot of people know about this, but it's, I guess it's an autoimmune disease that can make you temporarily paralyzed, so Like, what was that, what was going on? Like, how did you even discover what was going on?

A Well, I'd gotten the knee replacement, and then I got home, and I was with the doctor the next day, and I started seeing double, and, and, um, and I told him about it, and he's like, well, check it out, see if it's, if it might just go away, and the next day I was seeing double, and, uh, I felt really lousy, and I waited until Donna went to work. I didn't, she'd been through so much with me, and I was just like, and so I went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and they Uh, very quickly analyzed what was going on, and within 24 hours of me being there, they said, if you have what we think you have, tomorrow you won't be able to swallow. The next day you won't be able to open your eyes, and the next day you won't be able to breathe.

AI assessment note: “I went to Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and they Uh, very quickly analyzed what was going on”

Q and at the same time trying to build the whole sport of snowboarding was sometimes lonely. But because he stuck with it, and because the sport caught on, the big ski companies, as you can imagine, started to notice. And all of a sudden, the market for snowboards wasn't so lonely anymore. Ok, so when, when the big ski companies started to, to make snowboards, what happened to you guys?

A Well, by the time they started making them, we were maybe on a third of the resorts, and they, um, they didn't want the sport to happen, right? I mean, these ski companies did not want snowboarding to succeed, so snowboarders didn't like ski companies. I mean, people did perceive them as not being the real deal, and we didn't Keep that a secret. I mean, we made it pretty damn clear that we were the real deal, and, but they did have manufacturing ability, and some of those French and Austrian companies were subsidized by their governments to keep their factories going. So, from a cost perspective, they were lower cost producers for a minute there, but it was just, they were too late. They missed the boat.

AI assessment note: “we made it pretty damn clear that we were the real deal”

Q and at the same time trying to build the whole sport of snowboarding was sometimes lonely. But because he stuck with it, and because the sport caught on, the big ski companies, as you can imagine, started to notice. And all of a sudden, the market for snowboards wasn't so lonely anymore. Ok, so when, when the big ski companies started to, to make snowboards, what happened to you guys?

A Well, by the time they started making them, we were maybe on a third of the resorts, and they, um, they didn't want the sport to happen, right? I mean, these ski companies did not want snowboarding to succeed, so snowboarders didn't like ski companies. I mean, people did perceive them as not being the real deal, and we didn't, Keep that a secret. I mean, we made it pretty damn clear that we were the real deal. And, but they did have manufacturing ability, and some of those French and Austrian companies were subsidized by their governments to keep their factories going. So, from a cost perspective, they were lower cost producers for a minute there. But it was just, they were too late. They missed the boat.

AI assessment note: “we made it pretty damn clear that we were the real deal”

Q Wow, I was not expecting that answer at all. That was not the answer I was expecting. What happened?

A Well, FIS, which is a International Ski Federation, it's a Swiss, you know, whatever, governmental body, and they, um, controlled the scene, and then they started having snowboard competitions when they just had, aside from their ski races, and we were wondering what they were up to. And then they just arbitrarily decided, ok, snowboarding's gonna be in the Olympics. I mean, they didn't even give me a phone call. They never told us anything. I, We'll take credit for pioneering a sport, and you would think that you might pick up the phone and tell that person what you're up to, or how do you think we should do this? None of that. They just arbitrarily, it's like the baseball player that finds out he's traded when he reads in the newspaper, and then I go to the Olympics, we've got our team there, and I get to the venue, and they've got snowboarding misspelled at the venue.

AI assessment note: “they just arbitrarily decided, ok, snowboarding's gonna be in the Olympics.”

Q And you needed the money, you needed the money for marketing and for what?

A We needed the money to make the snowboards, because in this industry, in skiing, we didn't start this, but you, you ship them the stuff in whatever, August, September, and then you don't get paid until December or January. So it was always working capital. We've never needed long-term debt. But we've always had this need for working capital, and so we would work with these Vermont banks, and we'd get up to a certain level, this happened like three times, and then we'd get to a certain level, and they'd say, you know, this, this is maybe a fad, we're gonna bail, and never because we were late on a payment, or, I mean, we were religious about paying people money that we owed them, but they just sort of figured, you know, this has been a good ride, we're gonna bail, and then we go to a bigger bank, and then a bigger bank, and then we borrow, we still borrow some working capital, but it has become less and less.

AI assessment note: “We needed the money to make the snowboards, because in this industry”

Q Do you think that, that you have a hard time with criticism? And I ask that because, you know, it, it can be really problematic, right? If you're unwilling to, to listen to somebody that says, listen, I know you built this thing, but I'm trying to make it better. Listen to me.

A You know, that's, couldn't be more true, but less and less and less every year. I mean, I did every job in that company. I mean, I made the first board and for a while there, I mean, we might've had 50 employees, and I was convinced, not in a, in a bragging way, but I could do anybody's job better than they could, but that's not the case anymore. You know, we've got engineers now that I don't even have a hard time having a conversation with them, but, uh, I got better at it, and I had the sense to, um, surround myself with people that were better at things than I am, that I'm not good at. That's been good, and I've learned to delegate. That's not an easy thing to learn how to do, especially when you're detail-oriented, to learn to let go like that.

AI assessment note: “couldn't be more true, but less and less and less every year.”