The Maine-schooled skier who has won more races than any U.S. male is apologizing to investors for a major business crash.
Bode Miller, who learned to ski like a champ at Carrabassett Valley Academy, is taking a second stab at manufacturing skis.
Miller and a partner have relaunched Peak Ski Co.
Though athletes and creditors remain wary while awaiting signs that the revival will settle debt, Miller is asking them to please give him a second chance.
“We have an amazing group of investors and advisers but we never used that roster of experts to help us,” Miller tells The Colorado Sun. “That was a grave error.
“By the time I saw where we were, we were already in a death spiral,” Miller, a 48-year-old father of seven, told The Sun. “It was just mismanagement. The way the money was spent and how much, it was not sustainable.”
Peak Ski Co. launched in 2021 with one of the most successful ski debuts ever.
The skis were lauded by ski magazines.
The skis have a patented “keyhole technology” that helped fuel Peak’s astronomical rise two years ago.
That keyhole feature – created by Miller – is a cut-out in the front of the ski to make it easier to flex, “allowing easier and quicker-turn initiation and short-radius turns,” the patent says.
The skis are great but the company’s management, Miller acknowledges, was second rate.
The Montana-based company collapsed suddenly last fall, leaving creditors and employees unpaid as it shuttered an extravagant showroom.
“What I didn’t fully appreciate – and what I deeply regret – is how much responsibility comes with asking people to believe in you, invest in you, and trust you,” Miller says.
“Some of you may have lost confidence in me and in Peak,” he recently told investors in an email. “That’s on me. No excuses.”
Miller has joined forces with two business leaders and new investors to revive Peak Skis.
He is the most successful male American alpine ski racer in history, having won more World Cup races (33) than any other U.S. male.
Miller, who was born in Easton, New Hampshire and grew up in Franconia, New Hampshire, got a scholarship to the Carrabassett Valley Academy, a ski-racing school in western Maine that has trained some of the world’s most successful skiers.
The academy, established in 1982, is at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain.
Since its founding, the school has produced twelve Olympians, winners of 92 U.S. national titles, eleven X-Games competitors, 26 NCAA and USCSA All-Americans, 39 U.S. national team members and six world champions.
Besides Miller, another of its most-accomplished alumni include Seth Wescott, 2006 and 2010 Olympic Gold Medalist in snowboard cross.
Miller, arguably the school’s best-known graduate, is a two-time overall World Cup champion and the only U.S. male to win races in all five major disciplines.
He also holds the record for most Olympic medals for a U.S. male skier – six – including gold in the super combined.
