Featured Image: Carson Meyer
Pep Fujas is synonymous with freeskiing and, now, he’s the latest to join the bio-friendly ski movement. The Salt Lake City, Utah-based pro announced earlier this week that he’d be joining Matt Sterbenz at WNDR Alpine as the company’s first athlete and the VP of Marketing and Product development.
Just a few weeks prior, Fujas announced he was leaving K2, the brand he’d represented for the past 17 years, which was big news across the industry. “Why would you drop K2 skis, a powerful brand in the industry, that has great skis, marketing power, branding power…?” Fujas asked rhetorically in a blog post on his website. For Fujas, it was aligning personal interests and motivations with WNDR’s focus on redefining how skis are manufactured. Using algae-based materials derived from processes developed by biotech company, Checkerspot, WNDR is turning the ski world on its head.
“When Matt told me he was starting a new brand, I thought, oh great, just what the industry needs, another ski brand,” wrote Fujas. “But I knew Matt was working for Checkerspot, a materials innovation company who derived their material components from microalgae. In short, Checkerspot gives WNDR the ability to innovate material components of a ski to have better performance characteristics while simultaneously deriving those materials from a bio based material that is not a byproduct of the oil and gas industry.”
WNDR Alpine, which only launched earlier this summer, is already creating waves with its completely new approach to building skis. Now, by adding industry staple, Fujas, to the team—as an athlete, designer and front office consultant—the start-up is already gaining ground on what could be considered the green ski revolution.
