Why I'm doing this.

I've loved everything about skiing and the mountain world since I first clicked into a pair of skis at an awesome 25-acre hill called Snow Creek in Weston, Missouri. Then life happened — a bad back, a house in Kansas, a young family — and 13 years went by without the mountains. Eventually my wife Nicole and I realized that if we didn't follow the dream now, we'd talk ourselves out of it forever with one excuse after another. So we moved to Colorado while the kids were still young.

We were barely settled when we started hearing about Shredder — first from one parent, then another. I wanted nothing to do with it. My dumb ego figured I'd teach my own kids to ski. I didn't need some indoor place to do it for me.

Luckily, my much smarter, better looking, and more amazing better half ignored me and signed the kids up anyway. I'll never forget pulling open that heavy metal door at the Boulder location and seeing Shredder in action. It was as if the clouds parted and the heavens shined down and the angels began to sing. I'd love to tell you I'm joking, but that's how I remember it. I understood the whole concept the moment I saw it — and this was long before the YouTube and Instagram videos of kids loving the sport that you've probably already seen.

I met Brooks, the founder and original “Shred King,” Max, the first employee, and Pete, my kids' favorite instructor. Within minutes I was hooked. All those high school feelings of obsessing over anything to do with skiing came flooding back. It was, and still is, an amazing feeling.

Over the next three sessions my kids were enrolled in, I got to know the team well enough to finally convince them to let me join. The system they were building was still in its infancy, but it was genius. Some families were driving 90 minutes for a 45-minute session. The answer wasn't to cram more kids into each class — it was to bring Shredder closer to them. And that's how the first expansion happened. Around then we recruited Rachel (Max's sister) to take our organized chaos and turn it into something that could be duplicated in other cities.

I'll save the full history for later, but the short version: we opened four Colorado locations, paused everything during the Covid shutdown, realized families in places like Kansas City, Dallas, and Atlanta would probably want this in their own hometowns, and started franchising. Chicago opened first, then Livonia, then Dallas.

We've always believed demand might actually be higher in non-mountain towns — you can't just drive up for a half-day private lesson the way we can in Colorado. It's still early, but the response at every expansion location has us optimistic.

As one of the owners — and someone who can talk about mountains all day — I promoted myself to all things franchising. That's not a throwaway line: when you inquire, you're not getting handed to a sales rep. You'll be talking directly with me.

I don't know why some of us are wired this way. It's not normal to willingly get up before dawn to chase a snowstorm just to be first in line. But if that itch resonates with you, you already get it — and it's ok to be different. It's absolutely worth it when you win.

We'll never be the world's biggest or most profitable business; there's a hard cap on how many kids and families we can teach in a week. But I'm convinced we're in the most fun industry there is, and a bad day here beats the heck out of a dead-end career.

I love what we do. I say it all the time: I don't have to sell Shredder. You either love the concept and want to bring it to your town, or you don't. If you love it like we do, you probably just want a few questions answered to be sure it's the right fit. And if it's not for you, maybe you know exactly the person who needs to hear about us. Either way, Shredder is coming to a town near you. The only question is whether it'll be because of you — or someone else.