CMC Ski & Snowboard Business students get hands-on experience
Mike Martin is director of Colorado Mountain College’s respected Ski and Snowboard Business program in Steamboat Springs. He also moonlights as a professional athlete and product tester for Nordica. Martin and his Nordica cohorts were recently in a new video release for the Sidecountry line that features enough tantalizing ski footage to get anyone excited to sharpen their skis:
Due to Martin’s relationship with the ski company, students in his program at CMC enjoy a unique opportunity: the chance to partner with a major ski manufacturer to design new skis. Using CMC’s state of the art facilities, students have the chance to apply their growing knowledge of design to Nordica’s new Sidecountry line. They also work on different aspects of Sidecountry’s marketing campaign. And now that Colorado Mountain College offers a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with Ski & Snowboard Business as an academic emphasis option, they can fine tune their knowledge for four years. Best of all, they get to test their designs in some of the best snow in the U.S.
More and more skiers are chomping at the bit to ski sidecountry, terrain that’s just outside the boundary ropes of ski areas. Nordica is keen to design products that give them the gear they need to do so. When Martin approached the company’s President, Willy Booker, in 2010 with the idea that they launch a new boot in the line-up as a partnership with CMC, Booker loved the idea. “The rest,” says Martin, “is history.”
“Students are the future of the sport, and they bring information and insight on what is to come,” says Martin about the value of the partnership. “They take a fresh approach to design and marketing, and our partners are in need of this information to stay current with trends of the incoming participants.”
The program was also highlighted in a The Denver Post feature article yesterday.