Giving credit where it’s due

Lives are not built in a vacuum and events as well as people have a crucial impact on their courses. Mine certainly did, and my current stage in life is the sum of all the circumstances, accidents and before all, individuals that crossed my sometimes tortuous path and brought me where I am today. In my case, all for the better.

In retrospect, I must say that more folks have helped me than have hindered me in that life-building process. So I will forget the few that have erected some hurdles across my way and salute the ones that have helped me create or bring out the greatest opportunities I’ve ever seized.

It began with my primary school teacher who saw potential in me, his son who motivated me to go attend the Cluses boarding school, a dear friend at that school that validated my passion for skiing, my own brother who urged me to ask the Avoriaz ski school director for a job, a Chamonix ENSA professor who took me with his Australia-bound team.

Also, a colleague from that same team that facilitated my transition from ski instructor into the industry, an American ski industry executive who thought it’d be great to have me come to the USA, the Lange CEO that gave me a job on a flight between New York and Munich, that same previous American ski exec that handed me a great business opportunity that would cap my little career.

Of course, on top of it all, there’s my wife that always got me going and kept me under control. That’s it. You might be able to read some of these exciting details down the road... Bottom line: I wasn’t self-made, the others took care of that for me!