The Lindarets petting zoo

Long before tourists were flocking in mass to the Alpine hamlet of Lindarets, near the French Avoriaz ski resort, and even though I was three and a half years old, I wasn’t afraid of petting goats much bigger than me.

Even though the herd was a fraction of what it is today, I was, unbeknownst to me, ushering “goat marketing” a creative novelty that would make the place so famous a couple of decades later.

So, was I ahead of the curve or simply at the right place, at the right time? Since I tend to be humble, I’d go for the later for the later but still kind of still believe that I was already a trendsetter...

The end of a long ski season

This July 4th, Snowbird was open to skiing for the last time this season, after 190 days of winter operations.

I didn’t make it, because my wife didn’t let me. She was sick of my excessive skiing and I can’t blame her one bit for it.

I was eager to go though, because I would have broken my recent record of ski days in one full season and this would have also put me over the 2 million feet vertical skied, but it didn’t happen and that’s the way it is.

God willing, I’ll try to reach and beat these records next year and get my act together in order to get there. In the meantime, I’m now officially switched to summer mode...

Too affluent to fly the flag?

On Holidays like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July, it’s quite customary for Americans to fly the American flag on their homes.

Since yesterday was one of these Holidays, we conducted an informal and totally unscientific study, as we walked around and tried to count how many homeowners were flying the flag in our area. To our surprise, only a measly 20 to 30% had their flag or some kind of patriotic decoration out.

What was even more surprising was that the more upscale a house was, the less likely it was to exhibit a flag, which would mean that patriotism is not necessarily the “well-to-do’s” cup of tea, and is relegated to the lower classes, that are, it’s true, often more gullible and far less cynical.

Whether you live in the United States or in Saudi Arabia, how patriotic are your neighbors?

Macron’s big blunder

Today is our National Holiday. This is great, except that Trump has promised us that this year's Independence Day celebration will be "one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington D.C." but his extravaganza is likely to cost, us, the taxpayers, millions of dollars.

Who should bear responsibility for Trump’s demented idea? French president Macron of course, who had the lousy idea to show Donald his own Bastille day military parade in 2017. I feel it would only be right that we should pass the tab for our festivities to France so Macron can pay for it...

Happy 4th of July!

The Look job. Mission impossible?

Early September 1974, I started my job at Look as their new director of racing services. First, I underwent the traditional training about Look bindings and what made them superior to the rest, like their high elastic travel, their anatomically located turntable and their unique protection from the elements.

The next logical step would have been to get acquainted with my department’s records, but there was absolutely nothing for me to see. A total void: No files, no rolodex, no memos, no budget, no correspondence with the various ski federations; strictly nothing. Plancherel, the man previously in charge, was an independent contractor living in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, who probably parted ways with Look in less than cordial terms. It is to be noted that Mrs. Beyl had expressly asked me that I do not contact René Plancherel, which didn’t help either.

The only element that I found, related to the racing activity was a few recent copies of Ski Racing, an American publication that the export department had a subscription for. I couldn’t understand it and I figured that it was the way Look was doing business, which quickly to prove to be true. Unbeknownst to me, I had just walked into a pathetic situation in which I was truly set up to fail miserably, had I not survived through my staunch determination, a great dose of common sense, quite a bit of good luck, as wall as my unending energy and creativity.

That’s how I immediately began to acquaint myself with the various tech reps we had in France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, United States and Canada. Except for France and North America, all the reps had been hired and put in place by Plancherel, my predecessor, while he was in charge of the program. Each had his particular view of what his mission should be, something that was all over the map, wasn’t clear or necessarily supportive of the company’s marketing goals. In addition, these folks were fearful of the headquarters, had a lot to lose and didn’t want me on their back. This was just a recipe for failure.

What I was soon to find out was that under Plancherel, Look’s racing budget had mushroomed into unsustainable levels. In these days dollars, racing was costing the company $1 million out of $12 millions in sales, not counting normal marketing costs. At the same time, Look was feeling pressure from Salomon as the other French company was making some serious in-road with mid priced, more convenient products that soon would capture the much larger market of entry level to intermediate skiers.

Keeping racers like Thöni or Moser-Pröll on the binding was expensive and under a tighter competitive environment, that money would have been better allocated to Look’s R&D that was woefully lagging behind. Of course, I was never made aware of the dichotomy between the cost of maintaining a full-fledged racing program and the company dire financial situation. I was simply given a budget and asked to watch it by keeping a heavy lid on it.

That was until, Blime, the new General Manager hired away from McKinsey, tried to find every which way to reduce expenses in order to keep the company afloat. He began with some value analysis in an attempt to make our products cheaper, but the element that stuck out the most, the low-hanging fruit, if you will, was the huge financial involvement into racing, that showed no clear short term benefit or direct promotional effect.

I was asked to make an analysis of that entire department and my only recommendation was to pool our field support services with another equipment manufacturer like, say Rossignol. This wasn’t to the liking of Mr. Beyl who fiercely treasured his brand’s independence and preferred instead to decapitate the whole racing program, with the exception of Italy and France.

I survived the purge as Look offered me a product manager position in Nevers – a place that I hated and didn’t want to move to - that would providentially extend my career with the ski binding manufacturer.

How I got the Look job

Getting a job with Look ski bindings has been a big deal for me back in 1974, for it ushered me into what would be a wonderful career in the sport and leisure business.

For a long time, I had been looking for a year-round gig inside the ski industry, and following the advice of my good friend Chatellard, I applied for several jobs that he told me were open.

One was with Salomon, another with Rossignol and there was another one with Look. I applied at Salomon, but got rejected and immediately thereafter tempted my luck with Look. 

I wrote a nice job application letter, touting my “deep understanding of the ski industry” and my fluency in English, German and Italian, in addition, of course, to French. My resumé must have so impressed Mrs. Beyl, wife of Look’s owner and founder, that she invited me to interview for the position.

Late July of that year, I put on my nice green corduroy suit, drove to Nevers, a small town smack in the center of France, and managed to locate the old Look factory that was soon to be moved into a brand new facility.

Mrs. Beyl asked me a bunch of questions that I had forgotten since, told me that their World Cup Racing Service Manager, a Swiss fellow called Plancherel had quit and needed to be replaced.

She briefly described the position, I said I liked the job and the pay, plus the company car Look provided. That was a giant improvement over my current situation. Then Madame Beyl asked me what was my zodiac sign. Good think I remembered it; I answered: “Capricorn!”

She said: “You’ve got the job, you start on September 2nd!”

Donald Trump, the new Neil Armstrong?

This weekend, at the DMZ between South and North Korea, a New Yorker’s ego took a small step  into North Korea, just for the show.

This was in fact a giant leap in stupidity as the American media almost equated our President exploit to Neil Armstrong’s walking on the moon some 50 years ago…

The real hero in that story remains Kim Jung-un who plays with Trump like a cat plays with a mouse...