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What Happened to the EP Ski Company?


bsmith
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In the thread about inversion tables, @Horton mentioned that Roger Teeter was the founder and owner of EP skis. Before I took a 35 year hiatus from water skiing in the early 80's, EP was a major player in 3 event skis and was especially dominant in jumping skis. When I returned to water skiing, EP was long gone and despite doing extensive internet searches I could never figure out whether EP was sold to another company or just died quietly. Can someone tell me what happened to EP?
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@bsmith I am fuzzy on the details. The company changed hands a few times and lost it's contact with tournament skiers. Eventually it was part of Wellington I think. The long and the short of it the brand was allowed to die a slow and painful death.
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That's sad to hear. They had such a good foundation to build on in the late 70's and early 80's that I had thought for sure that they were bought up and folded into some current successful company like D3.
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I do not know if I have seen Roger as an adult but I do remember him being at my dads lake and telling me stories when I was grade school age ( Late 1970s or early 1980s ). He told me a story about all Aluminum jump skis that cracks me up to this day.
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The last (or close to the last) ski produced by EP, the Stiletto, was a classic that often makes people’s list of “10 best skis of all time.” I always thought it was odd that EP would disappear right after producing such a great ski.

Lpskier

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ERO Industries owned EP and Cypress Garden Brands and then Wellington Puritan bought them out. Deena and many other top pros skied on EP skis. The story I heard was the old guy who hand laid up the black Stiletto didn’t want to move so they were made by someone else and they lost their magic when they were changed to purple.

 

They went from a full range ski company to recreational in a few years under the WP leadership. Just my recollection.

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I was an EP dealer from the mid 70s until early 80s. Hart, (the snow ski company), purchased EP during this time. Later Mark Crone was running EP under the next owner. I know Mark was living in the Chicago-area, then later in Georgia, when employed by Wellington, which had purchased EP sometime in there. I know the EP brand continued as strictly a recreational line for a time.

 

I’m certain Duvall skis were built by Kidder.

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Just happened to catch a commercial with Roger Teeter selling his Fit Spine inversion table. Interesting coincidence.

 

Had an EP Super 2 as one of my first skis and used it for almost 25 years.

The worst slalom equipment I own is between my ears.

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ERO was based in Chicago. Wonder what the Hart/ERO connection was? The article I found said ERO bought EP when it was privately held. Maybe Hart was a sub of ERO? I remember hearing both names with EP though. I was an EP guy.

 

First and second skis were a Comp X2. Then a Pro Stock. Then Stiletto. Jumped to HO for many years after that.

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I had a Comp 2, a FX-200, a GX3, and a Stiletto. Was an EP guy til got to college and got a team deal with KD who first got me "EP" rated skier pricing then extended it to the college ski team. We bought a lot of skis n bags. Was fun to be recieving 15 skis at a time!
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@Horton Bryan Hero (Camille’s husband) did fund Duvall skis. It was later purchased by Wellington Sports. I am unclear if he actually purchased Kidder but Sammy did collaborate with Denny on the Venture. I helped Sammy in this area as a Rep, the mold of the slalom was an EP Stiletto. I think Denny retained the rights of the 7000 and ownership of Kidder past that era. I am not sure about the Kidder brand connection but Sammy and Denny had a long history. Maybe Sammy, Paul Crawford, or Denny will read this thread and clarify all the facts. The Duvall Brand was all about quality construction and performance, not necessarily new shapes.
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@horton Another Kidder fun fact according to Sammy. In the Redline Era, many pros were skiing on Kidder Redlines with tops made to look like their sponsors brands to remain nameless. Denny’s shapes were very popular and proven winners so it is possible that the Duvall Slalom also had some hidden Kidder shape influence. I was simply told that it was an EP Stilleto mold.
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Interesting outline of the early days. They say 80% of skis were made in Seattle back in the day. There was a Waterski magazine article on it. This shows EP went bankrupt a few years after Roger Teeter left. I always wondered what happened. Back in the 70's EP slaloms were pretty dominant.

 

w4bzd76clmsh.jpg

 

 

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Hmmm, I'm a little fuzzy on this, but have a few details. EP and Hart went into a marketing agreement in the late '70s and moved the EP operation to the Hart manufacturing plant in St. Paul in '78 or '79. Roger kept his boat two doors from my parents' cabin just north of St. Paul where I kept my boat, so we talked quite a bit- we had the only two Nautiques on a medium-sized suburban lake and I was the water ski buyer for a small chain of ski shops. In 1980 or '81, Hart was going bankrupt and Roger moved the operation back to Seattle. I remember talking to him at the nationals the following year and asking him how glad he was to be back home in Seattle. He said that the business was getting tough and shortly afterward it was sold. Shortly after that Mark Crone was running it and from what I was told, the Stilletto was either his design or Lucky's- with input from a bunch of the day's top skiers. I was cleaning out old junk recently and found the inversion boots I bought from Roger- couldn't bring myself to toss them.
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@Alvin_Neff there is no question that Duvall skis were made at Kidder. Byron purchased some % of Kidder and according to Denny that is when things went south. Denny walked away and started KD. Oddly Denny's exit from KD was also at the hands of other investor. He claims to have have never run a company into the ground but sold his first 2 companies to people who quickly ran them into the ground.
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KD lived on for a while..the ill-fated balsa wood core in the Platinum. Paredes repped 'em for a while, and the gal who gave me cheap skis stayed with them and continued to feed me skis at the old "EP" skier rate. Jeanna...can't remember her last name, but she was great.
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@Horton it was a clip it I took of a WSM article preview online. I know it wasn’t high quality. The original could be enlarged and the documentation was highly interesting and easy to read.

 

The article indicates that EP and Hart had issues in a back and forth manner and the. ERO purchased from Roger. As an EP skier at the time I was upset when that happened as WP was a recreational ski company and I thought that would be the death of my devotion to EP skis. It went downhill in my opinion after that transaction.

 

If someone has the WSM article on the Seattle impact on the ski industry and can scan it, that might be better. It’s the one with Camille in the cover with her hair all curly in a glam shot. March 1987 page 102

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