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 Ascent
of Descente
Ski gear maker blazes the trail to Ogden
By Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune
OGDEN - The Olympics brought Curt Geiger home.
An Ogden boy who had gotten into the sporting goods business
as a ski salesman at the old Perkins Ltd. store at 24th Street
and Lincoln Avenue, Geiger was running Descente Ltd.'s North
American operations out of a Denver suburb back in 2002. Read
more about Ogden, Utah
He was looking to move the high-end apparel business out of largely
industrial Englewood, which held little appeal for most of his
clients and was more than an hour away from the nearest skiing.
But all of the ski communities he investigated - Telluride, Sun
Valley, Jackson - were more expensive than his employees could
afford and too far off the beaten path.
So Geiger had one of those "Voila!" moments when he
came to watch the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Mightily impressed by the magnificence of the changes Earl Holding
had made at Snowbasin, the once-sleepy little resort he had grown
up skiing, Geiger looked at downtown Ogden's stylish but sparsely
occupied buildings and knew that rent would be cheap.
Affordable employee housing would not be hard to find, either,
and the city was less than 40 minutes from Salt Lake City International
Airport and serviced directly by Interstate 15.
"I was ecstatic," said the enthusiastic, 59-year-old vice president
for Descente (pronounced day-sont). "If I hadn't come home in 2002 and
looked at what they'd done at Snowbasin, I might never have come back."
For Ogden Mayor Matthew Godfrey, Geiger's revelation was a godsend.
Godfrey's notion of promoting Ogden as a center of outdoor recreation
was in its infancy when "Curt just showed up in my office.
He told me what he needed in looking for a new location for Descente.
That was in perfect alignment with what we were trying to do,
a perfect blending of needs and vision."
And Geiger was precisely the kind of ebullient private-sector
personality Godfrey needed to give impetus to a government-driven
economic development program - even if Geiger might rub some
people wrong by coming on too strong (more on that later).
"Curt has been unbelievably helpful," said Godfrey. "Curt is
just very engaging. He's passionate, and I think people enjoy listening to
his perspective. He has spent an enormous amount of his time trying to recruit
companies and trying to help Ogden revitalize."
Influential figure
When Amer Sports Corp. decided last fall to move the headquarters
of its consolidated winter and outdoor sports operations to Ogden
- encompassing the Salomon, Atomic and Suunto brands - city officials
applauded Geiger as a particularly influential figure in the
courtship.
Landing Amer, with its 230 high-paying jobs and $3 million investment
in Ogden's historic American Can buildings, was a landmark in
Ogden's ongoing goal of becoming what Godfrey calls "the
country's high-adventure recreation capital."
So far, that effort has prompted a half-dozen other skiing-related
companies - Scott USA, Rossignol, Goode, Kahuna Creations, Nidecker
and Snowsports Interactive - to locate some of their units in
Ogden.
Kahuna Creations' owner Steve McBride established the headquarters
and distribution center of his snowboard, longboard and surfboard-making
company in Ogden before Geiger arrived on the scene. But he credits
him with propelling the campaign forward.
"He's well known in the industry and has been able to use his influence
and networking ability to open a lot of doors to help the mayor and his counterparts
make some good headway," said McBride. "He gave them a lot of credibility.
Curt's been nothing but good for the city."
Added Mayor Godfrey: "The ski industry is pretty tightly
knit. Curt is somebody that [other companies] can talk to about
their concerns about moving to Ogden. He can answer questions
like, 'What was the experience for you? How has it been, good
or bad?' It's been very positive for his business. They've done
very well, and he can tell them why his business has prospered."
Message resonates
Geiger's message resonates well locally and at the state level.
At Powder Mountain Resort above Ogden, marketing director Marc
Paulson spent a couple of days last month skiing with Salomon
executives from the East and West coasts, some of whom will relocate
to Ogden as part of Amer's move.
"That helps us a lot," said Paulson. "Descente brings people
from all over the world here to test their products, and they come to Powder
Mountain to do that. It puts the eyes of knowledge worldwide on Powder Mountain.
We've educated a lot of the Salomon people about us, and they will be an asset
for Powder Mountain."
"Having an eloquent industry spokesman such as Geiger certainly enhances
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s push to emphasize outdoor products as one of the state's
'economic clusters,' " said Jason Perry, executive director of the Governor's
Office of Economic Development.
"In recruiting Amer Sports, he was right there at the table, helping us
do that. He's found that there is a great benefit in 'coopetition,' which is
what you're seeing in Ogden," said Perry, referring to the concept of
competing companies in the same industry all deriving benefits from the extra
business they attract by being close together. "That's what you're seeing
in Ogden. His business is growing and is more robust when he has those other
groups around him."
To Perry, "getting those groups together, that's economic
development rightly understood. It requires a community to build
an industry. That's how you build successful, long-term economic
development."
Geiger is convinced that Ogden's long-term well-being is linked
to developer Chris Peterson's idea, not yet submitted in writing
to city officials, to develop a pair of gondolas, one connecting
downtown to Weber State University, the second running from there
up into Malan's Basin, a canyon on the west side of the Wasatch
Range where Peterson is contemplating developing a ski resort.
That concept would require Peterson to buy Mount Ogden Golf Course
from the city and a stretch of East Bench hillside from Weber
State. But the notion of parting with those public lands has
sparked a vocal outcry in the community, and Geiger has been
criticized for being such an outspoken advocate of the project.
His support was there even before Descente North America and
its 15 employees moved to Ogden.
After learning that office space in Ogden cost $4,500 a month,
compared with $30,000 in Englewood, Geiger said he was certain
Descente's board in Japan would approve the move. But the board
said no.
"They said, 'Where's Ogden? It has no image, no story.' Understand, image
is huge.We spend millions of dollars on branding," said Geiger, noting
that the board chairman ran in prominent circles, counting former International
Olympics Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch as a friend. "It's
important for him to say Ogden is a dynamic, known community."
Only when Geiger took Descente's international district manager
to see Godfrey, and the mayor showed off conceptual plans for
a gondola system from downtown Ogden to the mountains, did the
board's resistance wane.
"That changed the whole vision of Ogden in the minds of the board of directors
in Osaka," said Geiger, contending that directors then pictured Ogden
in the same light as European cities that had gondolas. "They figured
it would make Ogden known worldwide, not obscure. So it wasn't the price [of
property]. It was the image that was needed. It would be strong once Ogden
completed the project."
Gondola cheerleader
So Geiger touts the gondola plan to anyone who will listen, even
in the face of staunch opposition.
"If the Geigers [Curt and his son, Bob] can bring in ski companies, fine
with me. I have no objection to that. I would encourage it," said longtime
Ogden conservationist Jock Glidden. "But if the price is to sell our golf
course and open space to run this gondola, then I'm absolutely opposed to it.
. . . We can have a ski hub without having that."
Added Dan Schroeder, a Sierra Club advocate and Weber State physics
professor: "Most outdoor equipment companies recognize that
their customers value environmental protection and try to share
those values. . . . It saddens me that Descente, while it's an
asset to Ogden's economy, doesn't seem to recognize that environmental
protection is something most of their customers believe in."
Geiger disputes the perception that a gondola is anti-environmental.
"It's the environment that makes the ski industry survive. If we destroy
the aesthetics of the mountains, the ski industry is gone,"
he said. "Some say Chris Peterson will destroy that. How
foolish. Why would he destroy it? He has to enhance it. And so
do we - or nobody will come visit us."
How the gondola debate will come out is anybody's guess, Geiger
said, adding, "I am an optimistic person. The wonderful
thing about the ski industry is that it's fun, exciting. Your
personality doesn't fit well into it if you're not optimistic."
mikeg@sltrib.com
Descente Ltd.
* Founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1935 by Takeo Ishimoto
* Established first U.S. sales and distribution center in New
York in 1979
* Merged U.S. and Canadian operations in 1996 to form Descente
North America
* Move to Ogden announced in June 2004
* Annual sales approaching $700 million
* Product lines include Descente and DNA, high-performance sports
apparel for skiers, snowboarders, cyclists, volleyball players,
swimmers, speedskaters and freeriders
* Notable wearers include speedskater Eric Heiden, when he won
his five Olympic gold medals; Michael Jordan, when he won Olympic
gold in 1984; the 1978 7-Eleven cycling team that won the Tour
de France; and Olympic medalist skiers Phil Mahre, Bill Johnson,
Debbie Armstrong and Tamara McKinney
Curt Geiger
* Age 59
* Born and raised in Ogden
* Graduate of Bonneville High School
* Worked for Roffe, Serac Sports Ltd. and Sun Ice International
before joining Descente as national sales manager in 1997
* Became Descente North America vice president 1 1/2 years later
* BYU fan, first and foremost
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