How did you get here…

I had a great relationship with my sponsors as pro rider and Lib Tech was my first sponsor. Back in ’93 I got my first Lib Tech board and just became close with everybody at the company. Then I moved into GNU and they started to build up the GNU line and offer more sizes and more of an ability to develop boards for me as my pro model at the time. So, spanning from 1993 to now, it’s been a long time, I can’t believe it’s been that long. I started my pro model in ’95 and at that point there was only one women’s pro model, there was two women’s board in the Gnu line and smaller sizes in the men’s products, but that was a good time, and the industry was growing and a lot more people were getting into it.

There were definitely more women getting into snowboarding, so I had a hand in just giving my advice on the women’s boards as they started to develop more. As it happened in 2003 I kinda stopped competing and got married, and the next year in 2004 I had my son, and at that point I knew I wasn’t going to be competing or chasing full time pro snowboarder jobs, so I was fortunate enough to be able to work more on the products and advise on women’s marketing and it just sort of grew from there. I became an employee maybe like 10 years ago, but I was working on the women’s line for another five years before that as a contract consultant.

“I probably fall more into that category now that I don’t get to ride all the time, an enthusiast that wants snowboarding to be easy and fun”

So yeah, the job has grown as the line has grown. There’s a lot of product to play with. It’s fun to me and my experiences as a pro rider mean I know what the competitors need, and I know what riders like Jamie and Kaitlyn Farrington need. It’s also been really fun to work with sales and understand more of what the market needs and where we’re trying to get more people into snowboarding so obviously our whole line can’t just be for pros, so we do have a lot of options now for beginners or just enthusiasts. I probably fall more into that category now that I don’t get to ride all the time, an enthusiast that wants snowboarding to be easy and fun. I don’t necessarily have to be super aggressive and push myself these days, I just want to have fun.

That’s what it’s all about! We actually awarded the Barrett the Whitelines Choice award for the best Women’s Freeride board of the year.

I saw that, thank you! I’m stoked that you liked it, I have a lot of girls riding that board and most of them are primarily in the North West right now so they’re riding heavy, wet snow and dealing with all sorts of natural features. I assume you had a variety of girls test the boards too and that it came out on top is really validating.

One of the things we liked so much about it was the fact that’s it’s such a powerful board, it’s fast and snappy and you can be really aggressive on it, but you’ve made it unapologetically a women’s snowboard. I think some brands and companies can be quite hesitant to label things, like “this is a men’s board, this is a women’s board” for fear of alienating people, but to have such a dynamic, powerhouse snowboard to be labelled as women’s is really validating.

Yeah, we don’t really have anything else like it. Some of our boards have comparable ones in the men’s line, like Jamie’s boards we have the Riders Choice and the RCC3 on the men’s side which have similar materials and construction. Jamie works hard on her line and it is very much catered to women but the Barrett kinda stands alone and we don’t have anything like it in the men’s line. We’re actually adding more sizes for next year, I know that the sweet spot for sales tends to max out at around a 152, but I know plenty of women who ride a 155 or even bigger so I’m excited we’re gonna offer those bigger sizes next year.

“When you flex the Barrett in a shop, it doesn’t feel like an overwhelmingly stiff board, it just has the snap in all the right places”

So, when you’re designing these women’s boards, there are a lot of ways to cater it towards females, like smaller sizes, waist widths and different cores. How do you approach it at Mervin?

Our top engineer has been here for 30+ years and I work with Pete Saari and Mike Olson as well who founded the company so there’s a lot of knowledge and experience. We build our boards here in Washington so we’re able to make small tweaks along the way, even sometimes mid-construction just when we find out there’s something that needs to be changed. So, we use different strips of Paulownia in the core, and the different glass weaves as well as environmentally friendly topsheet materials made from bio beans, there’s a lot of different things that come together, but width, sidecut and construction mostly.

When people pick up a board in the store and they flex it, that doesn’t give the whole story, but it has to feel good, it has to be lightweight and it has to have that approachable flex without feeling too aggressive. Like when you flex the Barrett in a shop, it doesn’t feel like an overwhelmingly stiff board, it just has the snap in all the right places. A women’s freeride board might be a little softer in the middle so it’s easier to lift the nose but it’ll still have that stable flex in the tail so you can snap off it and it’ll hold you up if you wheelie bar and are riding out of stuff at high speeds.

You mentioned environmentally friendly topsheets, and materials and that’s one of the coolest things about Mervin. I feel like you’re a brand that doesn’t just pay lip service towards these green factors, you do it, and you do it properly. Why do you think it’s so important to address these manufacturing issues and make sure that you’re being conscious with your production?

That’s something that Mike and Pete did since the beginning, they were building boards in their garage, so they didn’t want to be breathing toxic chemicals, and then they hired all their best friends and obviously they didn’t want to poison their friends either. It’s something that’s been part of our DNA since before ‘green production’ was trending, and you walk through our factory and it doesn’t smell. I mean we’re all wearing masks now thanks to COVID, but you don’t need a mask to protect you from the toxic fumes of the factory because there are none.

Even our sublimation process uses water-based inks, you can really tell that there’s no smell, but we can still get all these bright colours and pay attention to graphic details. That’s why we love to use so many artists on our board’s graphics, because we can really get that detail.

In Washington, we’re using wind and water powered energy and we’re in a good place for that. Mike Olson’s like a mad scientist he’s always searching out the next product, and the next materials and the next advancement in eco-technologies to use in the factory. It’s great, he works like full time on finding ways to make our production more environmentally friendly.

“The way that women are presented in snowboard graphics has been kind of insulting to a lot of people”

That’s exciting! It’s cool to hear that we’ve not capped out with it, that there’s more to come to make snowboarding greener.

Yeah, there’s constant developments with that. I can’t speak as well to the surf industry because I’m not familiar with competitors processes, but I know from walking into a friend’s surf shaping room that it smells. You can’t avoid a lot of those toxic chemicals when you’re building surfboards the traditional way, but Mike has come up with a foam and a process for our surfboards that make them not just durable but environmentally friendly.

I think we could do a better job at talking about it because of how loud everybody else’s voices are getting when they’re talking about their eco efforts and how much they’re doing to protect the environment. But overall, I think it’s a great trend and as long as everyone is moving in that direction then it’s good for the industry.

That’s impressive, I mean if it’s good enough for Chloe Kim, it’s literally good enough for anyone.

When you see how much torque and pressure she puts on her boards when she’s going at that speed and amplitude it’s incredible. Those pipes are so big and so firm, and you have to be so precise to do what she’s doing, and I feel the pressure because if she falls, I don’t want it to be because her board gave out on her. We want to do everything we can do help her achieve her goals and doing it with Jamie in Big Air and Slopestyle has been very rewarding. And before that we had Kaitlyn doing Pipe on Gnu, and those are highlights for me, I love that.

“It really was a different field, and it was a lot easier to stand out among maybe 10 women who were in that competitive zone

You have a wildly successful team, I mean the men as well, but your women’s team is a dominating force at the moment. They’re pretty much unbeatable in every facet of competitive snowboarding.

Yeah, I think if I feel the pressure then Jamie probably feels the pressure more, but it’s been cool to work with these girls since they were young. I mean Chloe just got on Roxy but she’s still very young and has a long road ahead if she wants to continue, she could do another 10 years if she wanted. It’s nice because I have so many younger riders that I work with too who are on their way up, and at any point one of those girls could end up stepping up to Jamie and challenging her so it’s nice to have such a large pool of talent.

There are so many girls now, when I was doing it, it really was a different field, and it was a lot easier to stand out among maybe 10 women who were in that competitive zone, but now there’s far more than what a contest starting list can accommodate.

Absolutely, there’s so much talent in this younger generation. Who do you think we should be keeping our eyes on, is there anyone who’s really standing out for you?

There’s a girl Ellie Weiler who just won the Rev Tour in Colorado and she’s pretty awesome, she went to Ms Superpark last year and has amazing style. I mean you can see it in someone’s style, even if they’re not putting the runs together and landing everything, you know there’s potential there and I’d love to see what she does in the next 10 years, she’s still young. We have another girl Isabella Gomez who rides Roxy outerwear, but she’s been on Gnu for a long time, since she was like 11 or 12, she’s really powerful and strong.

“When I got into the park, at least for the standard we had in the 90’s, it made it seem so much easier”

Growing up in the North West, I mean I didn’t grow up here, but I know the type of terrain and you have to be strong here, and the wet pack snow gives you more stability and skill when you head into the park where everything is nice and groomed. Lotta strong riders coming from the NW. When I first started snowboarding, I was living first in Tahoe, and then Crested Butte, never rode park or pipe, but just riding round and dealing with natural terrain and obstacles made me stronger, so when I got into the park, at least for the standard we had in the 90’s, it made it seem so much easier.

Those are girls from my team but watching Zoi at Natural Selection go from winning Slope and Big Air events to being able to ride that terrain, that was pretty awesome. I’m excited to watch her progress too, the sky is the limit!

Totally, she absolutely killed it. So alongside your work with riders, you also work closely with B4BC, why is this such an important cause for you and how did you get involved with them?

As a rider I was an ambassador for the cause and always really looked up to Tina Basich and Shannon Dunne who helped found the organisation and were always very involved in making sure they were getting out there at events and educating the public. A good friend of theirs in her early 20’s was diagnosed with breast cancer and caught it too late and unfortunately didn’t survive, and it was really eye opening that this can affect young people as well. Now decades later, we see it at all ages.

It’s always been important to support those guys and I’m proud to have been able to contribute through the sale of my snowboard but more importantly my friend Megan Porcheron she was diagnosed around 7 years ago and as a young mom she was diagnosed, and she had a couple of years there of real uncertainty and a lot of personal challenges so that really hit home for me. Now she’s working directly with the organisation putting together events and marketing promotions and just trying to help build up that organisation and she’s somebody I want to support. There’s no end to the reasons why and I’m just thankful to have the ability to help through Gnu.

“There was a time when I wanted to do Big Air comps and they didn’t have women invited to them, so there was a bit of struggle

As a woman, have you ever found it difficult to be part of such a male-dominated industry?

I think that question comes up a lot but when I got into snowboarding and even now, it feels pretty inclusive. Snowboarding is open to everyone, I mean there’s Girl Squads, or boy squads, but everybody is pretty open and accepting and I’ve always kind of felt like that. There was a time when I wanted to do Big Air comps and they didn’t have women invited to them, so there was a bit of struggle then, but as soon as they realised there were women who wanted to do that and could compete at that level then it was opened up to us. That was a little bump in the road, but the challenge of being a woman didn’t come until much later.

I would say now being on the corporate end of things and I see less and less women working in the industry beyond snowboarding and there are probably many reasons for that. There’s not a lot of jobs, and especially not lucrative jobs but I’d love to see more women involved and more diversity behind the scenes, as well as on the snow. When you see women doing amazing things and holding these positions of power it makes more women want to join because you feel more included and invited.

What advice would you give to the next generation looking to get involved in the production and design side or pro riding level of snowboarding?

Just building up your network, regardless of the level you’re at is important. Like so many things, it really is all about relationships, so the more you can put yourself out there and communicate with others and set goals for yourself the better. It was important to understand the different roles in the industry and get that if you’re getting free snowboards you understand your role as an ambassador. Y’know for anything you get, there’s some expectation on you to perform, or give back in some way, so just understanding that formula and knowing what’s expected of you. I don’t think everybody always communicates all that well because people just assume that you know the ropes. It’s different for everyone but know your value and know how to communicate. If you think of this as a job you’ll go a lot further because there’s something you have to do in return for whatever you’re getting.

“When you have a room full of dudes making decisions about women’s products and what women want, you’re gonna miss the mark every time”

You’ve already kind of touched on this, but how would you like to see the industry change going forward?

I love that it may be on trend and there might be a lot of companies making big statements, but the fact that diversity and inclusion is something that people are thinking about now, I think that’s important. I’d love to see more women, I’d love to see more people of colour, I’d like to see a more inclusive environment, not just on the snow but inside the companies themselves. When you have a room full of dudes making decisions about women’s products and what women want, you’re gonna miss the mark every time. You need those voices in there and if we ever want to grow beyond the ‘boys club’ then we have to include other people at the table.