Ann-Elise Emerson and her husband, Daniel, enjoy snowshoeing, and they’re always looking for fun ways to ride down the hills they climb. Three years ago in Switzerland, they found more than they could have wished for: the Airboard, a new sled that “makes me whoop and holler,” says Ann-Elise.
Life hasn’t been the same since the couple, both Class of 1990, whooshed down a slope on their first exhilarating run. On leave from Oracle Consulting at the time, Emerson seized the chance to start her own company, Emo Gear, based in Berkeley. As the sole licensed North American distributor of the Swiss invention, she has become the chief cheerleader for the new sport: snow bodyboarding—often described as boogie-boarding for the snow. Daniel remains general manager of the Atlas Show-shoe Company, where Ann-Elise was CFO for a time.
The Airboard is a distant cousin of the traditional sled: in both cases, enthusiasts lie on their chests and go downhill. But the resemblance stops there. Extreme riders have been known to reach speeds in excess of 70 mph on the inflatable Airboard, which is constructed like a whitewater raft out of urethane-coated nylon fabric with side hand-grips and ribbed runners underneath. To steer, and stop, riders shift their body weight. Folded up, the six-pound board and its hand-pump fit into a 12x16x3-inch knapsack.
One ride, Emerson says, and she was hooked. She brought some Airboards back to the States and took friends out. “We had so much fun we had tears running down our eyes. I just felt like I was 9 again.” Next, Emerson called an acquaintance at a Colorado resort and went there the following week to introduce the product. The resort operators were keen, so she returned to Europe and negotiated the license agreement.
With several hundred thousand dollars gathered from extended family, Emerson spent part of her new venture’s first year figuring out everything from storage and distribution to risk management for liability. Then, from November 2003 to April 2004, she spent three weeks a month traveling around North America talking up the sport.
Part of the hurdle in promoting airboarding is getting public access at ski resorts for people who don’t snowshoe and want to ride lifts to the hills, Emerson says. “This is the same challenge the snowboard community had 20 years ago.”
Emerson has gone about her business like a bodyboarder—head-on. In Emo Gear’s first year, she convinced five resorts from New Hampshire to Lake Tahoe to give Airboard riders access to the slopes, and her company posted six-figure revenues. This winter, two more resorts opened their slopes to the sport, and Emerson is thinking of new ways to market the activity. Although North American enthusiasts number only in the low thousands, Emerson set up five duathlon races combining snowshoeing and snow bodyboarding in Canada and the States this year. Europe has tens of thousands of riders and a number of competitions; at one of them, the current world speed record of nearly 80 mph was set.
Her new venture suits Emerson’s twin interests: outdoor adventure and entrepreneurship. “I loved working in Silicon Valley, but there was a part of me that always wanted to have my own business and to be in the outdoor industry,” she says.
There’s a long way to go before snow bodyboarding approaches the popularity of snowboarding, but Emerson is undaunted. “I love being on the road,” she says. “When I set out on a trip, I may have only seven appointments over a weeklong period set up, but I typically turn those seven into 20 just by dropping in and creating opportunities. That approach fills me with adrenaline.”
Another tactic: taking people out for their first Airboard ride. Their whoops and hollers, she figures, are better than advertising.
LAURA SHIN, '97, is a freelance writer based in New York.
