How do i get myself started in the ski industry?

troublemaker3

troublemaker3

Active member
Ive done a good amount of research into different schools and courses that i think would help launch a career in the one thing i am truly passionate about. but im still a unsure of some things. i understand cmc has a ski industry program but is this considered legit to company's ? it would be a good start/stepping stone im sure. would i be better off going to another school not ski orientated getting a degree and then find my way in ? If someone here on NS could steer me in the right direction it would be very helpfull. thanks, Jesse
 
Are you looking at making skis yourself? If you are you could try and do some research on a company called kingswood from New Zealand. The guy who started this companyis doing pretty well now and they are great quality skis. From memory i think the website might be www.kingswoodskis.com but if not just search google.
 
well my brother keeg-love.. it hnk that still his name on this site... anyway his name is keegan and he goes to selkirk college in nelson bc.. he is 18 and he does the ski hill manigment course at school.. it a programe totally design to run and operat ski hills and such.. talk to him for more.. just another school way to get into the industry.
 
Well it depends what part of the ski industry you'd like to break into. If you wanna design skis and shit, maybe a degree in engineering (there are millions of courses out there). Management, you could do a whole lotta courses too.

And ski pro? Well... get skiing.

Keep in mind this is coming from a teen , so I don't know jack shit.
 
im mainly interested in what goes into design / production of specific products like skis, outerwear, and such. i spend a lot of time reading about new products, what new features they have, what type of skier they pertain to and consumer reviews on them.
 
I would just go to a good school, and get a degree in whatever interests you. If it's the engineering and manufacturing aspect of the ski industry that you're into, go to school for that. For me it's the Marketing aspect, thus I go to U of U for marketing.. and work at Backcountry.com, a company that relies heavily on marketing. There's always internships and opportunities to grow within the company, so if I eventually graduate with a degree in Marketing I could probably work my way up.

It's not going to be easy, but if you're really stoked on it you can make it happen.
 
nice, i buy stuff from backcountry.com all the time. waiting for my orage noho cords right now haha. but thanks for the input, ill look into U of U.
 
I'm sort of in the same boat, just a few years ahead of where you're at... I'm actually taking a pretty unique program at my school, Clarkson Univeristy, called engineering and management. It's basically a 50-50 mix of engineering and business, until your senior year when you can choose to focus on a certain aspect within business or engineering. From what I've found, if you are interested in ski design, a very important aspect of engineering to have under your belt is materials science. This is definitely one of the more difficult fields of engineering (having taken a number of engineering classes at a renowned engineering school), but it's certainly one of, if not the most, important fields that a ski designer will use. Also, another thing I've found is that the engineering side of the industry is considerably harder to get into than say the marketing side. For this reason, among others, I'm persuing a marketing career, but at the same time leaving my options wide open by giving myself a background in engineerings. As of now, in my junior year, I'm looking to secure an internship for next summer and I think that would be the best way for me to get my foot in the door. If you have any sort of connections, pump them for all they're worth, I know a guy who worked for K2 for a number of years and he's putting me in contact with the right people. So more or less, that's how I've approached things so far and hopefully I will know within the next couple months if I'm doing a good job with it. Not sure if that helped any, but I figured I'd share my experience thus far. Good luck.
 
cmc is good, but you shuold try and become an intern at a ski company. you learn a ton about the industry, thats what i am and i love it.
 
Internship will be key AFTER you have the degree. But you will need that degree for most places to take you seriously.

Since your interest lies in the design and production, get into engineering and work from there.
 
not always true, im a freshman in college and an intern. most companies just want you to be in school in order to be an intern there.
 
best advice i can give you
is meet people that are already in the industry and talk to them
thats how i got myself in it more and more each week.
 
That's the approach I would take (and probably will) to get into the industry. I wouldn't go into a specific ski program like nomensteven is talking about unless you are sure that's the area you want to stay in. The way I'm going to approach a future job in the ski industry is to keep an open mind. I work at a ski eqipment shop right now getting experience. I plan to go to college to get a business degree and to hopefully get a out of college through all the networking I've done and plan to do.

I really believe that's the way most people get into the ski industry or any industry really, networking.
 
From my experience so far working in a shop, we get lots of reps from all the companies...if you work at a ski place then talk to one of the reps...just a thought
 
theres a ski resort operations course at Georgian College in Barrie Ontario. also, look up a relatively recent issue of outdoor magazine, it has "39 of teh best outdoor jobs" and one of them is a guy who designs and test new equipment. he said his proudest moment was seeing someone shred on gear he designed at some random mountain. I think that would be sick. and yeah Im pretty sure he had an eng/design degree.
 
dude the market in this industry to get into is advertising and marketting just do that at any school and make some contacts at a ski company but companies will pay shitloads for advertising man
 
Advertising is a really cut throat industry though, isn't it? You'd really have to want to suceed and not give a s**t about ayone else, otherwise the next guy over would get the job, or that's what i've heard anyway...

 
from my experience of uni, it is not so much the degree that counts, it is the fact that you can prove that you have worked hard enough and have enough drive to be successful in business, obviously medicine, dentistry and the specific courses are different.

get some work experience or be an aprentice first, then you will gain some contacts, and it will lead you to higher places. its how i got my job once i leave uni, although not in the ski industry
 
i am also in the same boat. im currently a sophomore at santa clara university and i just switched into the business school, major still undecided (leaning towards marketing). Basically my dream would be to set up a shop in a location like vancouver or SLC or seattle, etc. that would be a mix of a ski shop, camping store, skate shop, mountaib bike, maybe even sell golf clubs.. it would be like a mix of REI, Jibij, your local skate shop/bike shop. id want to have a really good webpage too so that customers would be gained that way. OK so id want to have that going on year round. Meanwhile, i want to get my chopper license and either set up or be a part of a heli- skiing operation somewhere around pemberton most likely. so id have a shop year round to help me get by and a heli ski operation also to help bring in coin. obviously this is a very large dream but it is attainable because i have the mindset to accomplish my goals. in terms of getting my foot in the door, i emailed ryan at windells in an effort to get an internship there next summer but i havent heard back from him. ill send him another email this week. basically if i cant get enough insider connections, ill try to rely on a degree from the us and world report's second best "Universities-Master's (West): Top Schools" and use my honors college and deans scholar standing to try to raise eyebrows and show people that i am (will be) qualified to work for top companies.
 
Thanks man! I also thought it would be bomb if both the shop and the heli-skiing service had the same name or were at least related.. then everytime someone goes into this shop, theyd see some kind of advertising for the associated heli ski operation and theyd probably have that warren miller quote go off in their head (..."you'll be one year older when you do"). id also try to set a low price for the heli ski trips because we all know the biggest detriment to convincing someone to go heli-skiing is always the price tag. id probably also try to do good group discounts. furthermore, if possible, id want the customer to be filmed either from the chopper or maybe just from a different ridge.... and then be able to sell the customers footage of the best runs of their lives. anyone have any more advice (besides using knee pads) on how to get a foot in the door/????
 
I would definitly go into a marketing/business aspect over a manufacturing/engineering aspect

first of all there are more jobs in this field and in the skiing industry as well, theres more money, less hours/travel, its a lot easier, meet more people, less math, more ski time. If you can get a business degree from a pretty good college then you have a lot of options from ski manufacturers to hotels or resorts or stores. If you do wish to work with manufacturing a product your work a lot with finding out what consumers want and then designing the product that the engineers will actually build and produce while you make all the money
 
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