Bozeman company creates new line of skis

By DANIEL PERSON Chronicle Staff Writer

The Anton Glider looks like a parabolic ski mounted with a compound bow, with a Rossignol binding where the bow’s sight should be.

SEAN SPERRY/CHRONCILE Damon Peary, president of Summit Corporate Services, Inc., holds an Anton Glider ski in his Bozeman office. The ski built by Anton Dynamics, Inc., is designed to allow skiers to turn easier. Unorthodox, yes, but creator Anton Wilson is convinced he has “invented what the shaped ski should have been.”

Agree or disagree, Bozeman will be the hub for the new brand of ski that at very least will cause a double take on mountains across the country.

Summit Corporate Services in Bozeman will handle the assembly and distribution of the ski, rendering this hub for ski adventures also a hub for adventurous skis.

Summit CEO Damon Peary said assembly of the skis n the first model of which will cost $3,390 a pop n should begin within weeks, and will initially create between six and 10 new jobs in Bozeman.

More, less expensive models are planned to be released by the end of the 2008-09 season, Peary said, which will expand his operation further.

David Smith, president and CEO of the Bozeman Area Chamber of Commerce, said the partnership between Anton Dynamics and Summit Corporate Service is a good one for the Bozeman economy.

“First of all, if you’re going to do something with skiing, Bozeman is a pretty darn good place to do it,” he said. “And anybody adding jobs right now is a good news story.”

While none of the parts of the complex ski will be made in the state, Summit will be responsible for slapping together more than a dozen pieces of equipment to make the final product.

To sell people on his unusual ski, Wilson appeals to history, stretching back to 3,000 B.C., when he said the first skis were invented. Like powder-hounds today, those ancient people sought out soft snow that acted more like a fluid than solid.

But fast forward to 1953, when Winter Park, a resort in Colorado, began using rollers to create the country’s first groomed runs, he said. While the nature of the snow changed, the ski didn’t.

“What happened 50 years ago, instead of saying we need a new piece of equipment, they said, let’s make a new technique,” he said.

That decision, he says, has condemned generations of skiers to being perpetually stuck on blue square runs and never skiing the way they are supposed to ski.

“Terminal intermediates,” he calls them.

His answer was a ski that would keep weight on the tips of the skis constantly, regardless of where the skier’s center of gravity is. Weight on a ski’s tip is what makes it turn, so Wilson hopes his invention makes the troublesome act of carving much easier.

Wilson said he came by the design because of his own trials with the ski trails.

“I was in the break mode all the time,” he said of his attempts to ride conventional skis. “I looked around at all the other recreational skiers on the blue run and said, ‘I don’t want to do this. This is no fun.’”

An engineer who designed a camera battery now used world-wide, Wilson began to tinker with the ski, and arrived at his conclusion that it was the wrong tool for skiing groomed snow. Eventually, he came up with the design that became the Anton Glider.

“We’re not talking nuances here,” he said. “It’s the right device for groomed snow.”

Wilson is not the first person to try to transform how skis look. There is even a term among ski-bums for radical new designs: “Franken-skis.” But Wilson’s “Franken-ski” has scored kind reviews from the former editor of SKI Magazine and Men’s Journal, and according to one account a woman dropped $5,000 on the spot in Colorado for a pair after trying them.

Peary said his company’s partnership with Anton Dynamics Inc. breaks new ground for the company.

“This is a new area for us n to expand into the snow sport industry,” Peary said.

But he felt Bozeman would be the perfect place to headquarter the launch of a ski that is sure to attract skepticism along with excitement.

“Part of it is building excitement,” he said. “Having it come from New York is one thing, but having it come from a Mecca of skiing is another.”

Daniel Person can be reached at dperson@dailychronicle.com or 582-2665.

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