Snowboard East
A Shop, a Team, and a Movement
By the fall of 1980, my wife Denise and I had relocated to the green mountains of Woodstock, Vermont—a quintessential village with a rich history in skiing and outdoor sports.
The area was surrounded by ski areas like Suicide Six, Killington, Pico, Okemo and many others, which was highly motivating to me. None of them allowed snowboarding and I intended to change that.
Denise and I rented a second floor office space consisting of three separate rooms. Denise opened her jewelry studio, Mint Jewel-Ups, in the largest room and I filled the other two: one with California redwood furniture and the other, with the first shop dedicated to the young sport of snowboarding. I called it, “Snowboard East.”
Original bulletin board poster promoting Snowboard East
Due to zoning and sign restrictions in the village of Woodstock, I wasn’t allowed to have a sign on the street promoting Snowboard East.
However, I learned that there were no restrictions on a bulletin board at the bottom of the stairs. So, I cut up a Burton brochure with some newspaper clippings and a couple of business cards.
And just like that—along with a state registration and $22 in fees—I was in business.
The original state registration for Snowboard East
The Snowboard East shop was small, hard to find and there wasn’t much inventory. We sold and rented Burton boards, Snurfers, Wintersticks and other early A-team boards. We arranged demos and gave lessons at Mt. Tom, the recently closed ski hill in town.
Local advertising and word of mouth started to bring young customers into the shop as we expanded demos and exhibitions.
With this expanded visibility and a desire to unite local and regional talent, I formed the Snowboard East Team. I secured sponsorship from Dunham boots (Brattleboro, Vermont) and Profile Skiwear (Lebanon, New Hampshire), which was extremely rare this early on.
Two local 12-year-old customers, Will Peabody and Todd Shove, joined the amateur team after purchasing their first snowboards. Within a year, both would go on to win in the amateur downhill and slalom categories of the 1982 National Snow Surfing Championship.
The pro division included a young Chris Karol, who would go on to capture both national and world titles.
OG Snowboard East team member David Alert
David Alert, a transplant from Indiana who moved to Woodstock to train with our team, was a top ten contender in all of the early contests.
“I was so excited and proud to be selected as a rider for the hometown Snowboard East team,” Alert says. “We made history. It is a great honor to be among an elite group of individuals who went forth and transformed the world with a winter activity, later all the way to a world class Olympic sport.”
Early local advertising for the sport and product available at Snowboard East
Most importantly, Snowboard East began to attract media who wanted to share stories about this new winter sport and its early pioneers. Peter Ross, a local television personality with an infectious smile, helped represent snowboarding to new demographics in the early 80’s.
“It was such an exciting time,” Ross reflects. “I had been a snurfer, growing up in Massachusetts (as well as a skier). When I landed in Vermont and stumbled across Paul and the snowboards, I was amazed. I was working as the News Director of the local TV station and it was a great story! A new, visual sport that was blossoming right down the road. We had no idea it would grow into a global phenomenon, but Paul and his hard work is a major reason why. I was so thrilled to be a part of those early days. They will always be among my fondest memories.”
Eventually, the likes of Vermont Life magazine, National Geographic’s World Magazine, CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated, ESPN and the XGames, PM Magazine TV and NBC’s Today Show caught on and took notice of what we were doing. All came to Woodstock both to document and to feature this new sport encroaching on skiing’s stronghold on the mountains.
The building fervor coincided with the Labatt’s television commercial featuring snurfing (if you missed that story, you can read it here→) that was being aired, showing off the fun factor of snowboarding.
The pieces were falling into place for what I was planning next.
I, along with my team at Snowboard East, made the decision and commitment to create and host the first national championship. One that would represent an open attitude and—after the difficulty I had advocating for Burton at the 1979 contest in Michigan—welcome any and everyone to compete.
By this time, the industry was beginning to embrace newcomers like Tom Sims, Jake Burton (Carpenter), Winterstick and others who were entering the product marketplace. My plan was to involve all of them.
But first, I needed a mountain who would be willing to take a chance and allow snowboarders the same opportunity as downhill skiers. But how? When? And, where?
We’ll dive into that next.
