JohnShoemaker

I noticed someone mentioned Great American. That was actually built by Cypress Gardens. It was their strategy to create a new name and brand that was more contemporary...and disassociate from the Gardens name. Still keep the traditional name and skis...but open up new markets.

This brought back some older memories...I was in the middle of the water ski world for a couple of years...1977- 1980...was original partner in World Waterskiing Magazine...so I knew a lot of these people...the companies, the salesman, some of the skiers. a lot of "behind the scenes" experiences. One of the posts mentioned Ski Master. They had their own skis. But they were more of an afterthought to round out the rest of their product line...Ski Vests,etc. They actually manufactured a lot of things. And ski equipment was just part of it. But the interesting thing was they had the Ski Press / Production Equipment and would hire it out to people developing skis. They could bring in their designs or molds and SkiMaster would produce the ski as a one off to test. You could walk into their office and they had a waiting room where "ski names" and others could be sitting waiting their turn.