Word: skis
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...Skiing and Harvard don't mesh real well," added Rubinowitz. "It's difficult to do both thoroughly. I feel like a weekend skier." Hopefully this weekend the women will get a chance to ski for Harvard at the nationals...
...Skis, in a way, are like vodka. Apart from the very top and bottom of the line, many brands are similar in quality; yet a special mystique makes it In to buy and use a certain one. Nowadays, from Mt. Fuji to Mt. Blanc-with many mts. in Colorado and Vermont in between-the fashionable ski is "Rossi," fond nickname for the product of Skis Rossignol, a company with headquarters in the French alpine town of Voiron. Rossignol, counting its Dynastar subsidiary, sells more than 16% of the world's skis-1.5 million of the 9 million pairs marketed...
President Laurent Boix-Vives (pronounced Bwah-veeve), now 51, started two ski-lift companies in his home region of Savoie in 1951, after serving an apprenticeship in his father's fruit and vegetable business. In 1955 he learned from a friend, Emile Allais, a former world downhill and slalom champion, of a nearly bankrupt firm, Societe Rossignol, that produced wooden spools for the textile trade and wooden skis on the side. Boix-Vives borrowed $50,000, bought the firm and laid off everyone but 27 ski makers, creating a lean, one-product shop. Allais soon devised a metal ski...
...Boix-Vives's decision to go into multinational manufacturing. Says he: "It was better to produce on location abroad so that we could become accepted. It also gave us a better knowledge of local markets." Indeed, it was the company's Vermont plant that developed a compact ski suitable for New England's thickly wooded hills; the ski has also become a hit in parts of France, Austria and Germany...
...Rossignol's 3,000 employees, 100 work full time in research and development, a proportion unique among ski makers. In their search for the "ultimate ski," the designers, together with West Germany's Bayer AG, are exploring the properties of polyurethane and compressed air. Boix-Vives is also planning a whole new product line. A dedicated schusser, he was inspired by an American study showing that 80% of his fellow skiers also play tennis. So he plans to spend $1.3 million to get Rossignol racquets into production. The racquets will be a molded mix of metal and plastic...