Jacques Thomas, 1945-2026

It’s in Nevers, at the Look factory in 1974, that I met Jacques Thomas for the first time. In those days he worked under Eric Chevasson, and was doing promotional work for Look Bindings in the Pacific Northwest region that encompassed Oregon, Washington and Idaho. 

His job was a mixture of shop employee education and on-snow promotions aimed at the skiing public. 

Prior to that, as a kid born in Paris and an avid skier, he first become a ski instructor at Club Med in Switzerland, prior to teaching at Woodstock Suicide Six in Vermont and then moving to Mammoth Mountain in California. 

When Look cut all of its international promotional programs, he went to work for Rossignol skis, in Europe first before ending up on the World Cup circuit and eventually returning to the US where he serviced the World Pro Tour and found a friend in Otto Tschudi. 

That’s how he branched out to become a ski tuner when he settled in Winter Park, Colorado and his tuning and rental ski shop eventually became “Le Feet Lab” in 1998, a boot fitting place where Jacques built a fine reputation as a premier boot-fitter. 

Since I met him, I kept on running into Jacques at ski shows or even in Park City. I also have met him often at Winter Park during my Colorado years from 1999 to 2006. 

More recently he passed the baton to his daughter Jacqueline and began to spend more time fishing in San Carlos, Mexico. The last time we talked on the phone was about one month ago when he turned 81. 

He passed away in Denver following surgery for a pair of aneurysms he had in both knees. He will leave a huge empty and irreplaceable footprint in the ski world in general, and the art of boot fitting in particular.