The man who succeeded his father at the helm of Salomon and had to be credited for the firm's meteoric rise just passed away this past Tuesday in Annecy, France; he was 85. Georges Salomon was a passionate visionary who constantly reinvented himself and his company. To me he was the Steve Jobs of the ski business and had no competition. Most essentially, he know before anyone how to step into his customers' boots; he was the quintessential product marketeer and what never fails to impress me is that, during his lifetime, he optimized his outcome to the max with the cards he'd been dealt with. All through my ski industry career he always was my number one competitor and I had a lot of respect for everything he did.
Over the years, I remember applying three times to get a job with the Annecy based company and got three rejections. I probably wasn't good enough for the brand and I've learned to respect that too. Of all the ski industry “giants” Mr. Salomon made the best out of his life-long efforts when he sold his company in 1997 to Adidas. Too bad, the new owners didn't keep up with his genius and when the sport shoe company sold Salomon to Amer Sports in 2004, what was once the number one company in the snow business went from bad to worst. Salomon had sold his company, but not his creative leadership.
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Yes, George Salomon completely sparked my interest in the ski-industry starting when I was in high school - when I worked with him to develop the 555. And in exactly the same way you note, Salomon became a competitor of mine too (as were you at Look) but he was the quintessential competitor. He was sly and effective with his complete range of tactics to grow his company. His generals (especially Gilbert Delouche) was of the same genre. Bless him - as he made all of us stronger, faster, tougher and more wise.
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