Seth Wescott, one of the most accomplished riders in snowboarding history, is working with Winterstick Snowboards to develop a custom snowboard workshop at Sugarloaf.
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Seth Wescott is one of the most accomplished riders in snowboarding history — a three-time U.S. National Champion, nine-time Winter X Games medalist, four-time World Championships medalist and two-time Olympic gold medalist.
The Farmington native, who is now based in the Carrabassett Valley, is working with Winterstick Snowboards to develop a custom snowboard workshop at Sugarloaf.
Winterstick, founded in 1972, has been owned by Bigelow Mountain Partners since 1999. Last year, it added Wescott to its ownership group. It is now converting an old barn at Sugarloaf into a custom snowboard shop, which will open in spring 2016. Winterstick expects to build 1,000 boards a year by 2019 and generate $3 million in sales.
Mainebiz caught up with Wescott recently, on his swing back to Maine from the U.S. training camp in Argentina, to get his take on this new venture. Below is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: What's your role with Winterstick?
Seth Wescott: They brought me on to take over board design. I spent time in Colorado last summer with Pete Wagner, who is currently building our products, coming up with new board shapes. The further [Bigelow co-owners Tom Fremont-Smith and Christopher Lorenz] went down the road, and once I got more of an understanding of how they were running the business, it made sense to transition things back to Maine. So I went to Sugarloaf and was able to get us a lease for a space we thought would work. I also have a great friend in Portland, Greg Johnston, who makes boards as Team Eight Snowboards. For five or six years, I made all my powder boards with him and really liked the product. He was ready to make a professional transition, so I bought his manufacturing equipment. So we thought this was a perfect opportunity to move manufacturing to Maine. This coming winter, and getting ready for next summer, we'll be working to get our production facility going. Wagner builds a great product, but it only worked for us as a direct-to-customer product.
MB: What distinguishes your designs?
SW: Winterstick is the oldest continual snowboard maker in the world. When Tom and Chris took over the brand in 1999, they were doing so because they respected the heritage of the company. When Dimitrijie Milovich started it, he was an engineer in the Salt Lake City area and what he was doing was — well, his quote is, “Sometimes it's better to be late to a trend than too early.” In the 1970s, snowboarders weren't using the backcountry. He was near a canyon with prolific snowfall, and that influenced his ideas on designs and shapes. What he created in the '70s didn't work well on 'hardpack,' but the boards he made then — you can still go to a deep backcountry powder situation and they will still perform at a cutting-edge level. He was too far ahead of where the snowboard industry was then, but I had always admired what he originally did. So my direction is to continue in line with what Dimitrijie was doing. We'll be modernizing shapes a bit so they'll work for people in ski areas, but ultimately we're trying to create a high-end product for someone's dream days on a powder trip.
MB: What does it mean for you to be doing this in Maine?
SW: I've always looked at Maine as home. For me, that was a big part of saying we should do this here. I'm old enough to have watched the state of Maine lose manufacturing jobs as a kid. Every day when I was young, we would drive by the Hathaway plant in Waterville. There are plants like that all over the state. It was impactful for me as a young person to see the state losing jobs in those places. I know this workshop won't be on the same level, but it's the way that I know how to do something with my specialties and my experience and maybe employ 10 people in Franklin County 10 years from now. It would feel good to be doing that, especially now that the majority of snowboards come out of China. This is one area that I can try to do something to help my local community. My competitive years are drawing to a close, so to be able to look at that next stage of life is going to be really fun.
