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Show Page 3 Wednesday, April 19, 1978 d Begins Productive PUMA The Like the first dollar made in a new business, Bob Burns plans to proudly display the first The Ski produced in his "dream factory" that began operation in Park City on Tuesday morning. "I've saved all the 'firsts' from our different moves," Burns said, recounting his solo beginning in a Sun Valley garage to his 45-person 45-person operation in Ogden, and now to Park City. The new facility on Highway High-way 224 is the culmination of five years of designing and refining his operation. The building is long and narrow and is arranged such that raw materials can come in one end and the ready-to-be-shipped product leaves from the other end. "There is a lot of difference in the skis made on a snowy or rainy day than on a hot and dry day," Burns said. He has gone to great lengths to design the building to carefully care-fully control both humidity and temperature. The huge compressor that powers the ventilation system has to be kept in a closed room so it doesn't disrupt the temperature temper-ature balance. Great amounts of air must be vented outside to clear the factory of resin fumes and an expensive system was needed need-ed to heat the incoming air to a proper temperature. The Ski is unique in many ways but most noteworthy, it is the only completely handmade hand-made ski on the market. The company produces 6,000 racing, ballet and The Skis every year. "That's as many as Rossignol produces in an eight hour shift," Burns chuckled. "They're the largest lar-gest and we're probably the smallest." "It is financially difficult to stay small," Burns commented. com-mented. "But I've been at this for seven years. Our goal is to make high per-formance, per-formance, handmade alpine; research and development so that we can." Part of the reason for moving to Park City was to facilitate that research. "Here in Park City we can make a prototype in the morning, ski it, come back to the shop and make changes, and try it again by 1:00," Burns said. "In Ogden we Voting Districts Changed By County Commissioners The Summit County Board of Commissioners has informed in-formed local city and school officials that it has reapportioned re-apportioned voting districts and school representative precincts. In a letter dated April 12, the county commissioners said the action was taken "due to the growth in the Park City School District." The new alignment is as follows: Voting District no. 1 will be the same as ' School at the golf course Reopening for Lunch with Opening of Golf Course Sunday Brunch 11 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. Open 7 Days a Week for Dinner 6 -10 p.m. 649-7177 Bob Burns is the man behind The Ski. His Tuesday morning. would have to make time-consuming time-consuming trips back and forth to the hill." "We moved from Sun Valley because we needed a big city and an airport," Burns noted. "Our goal was to move to Park City, but financially we had to go to Ogden first." He said Utah is 'Our goal is to make high performance, handmade Alpine skis and we do tons of research and development develop-ment so that we can.' fast becoming the western hub of skiing, and Park City isasily. accessible from the, big city hjs ' manufacturing QorfipcU5y;;Deeds.ii .M..;.,'i, ! Burns brought 11 workers from his Ogden factory, most of whom have worked for him at least four years. "Jerry Mills (chief engineer) and the rest of the guys are the magic behind this whole operation," Burns said, pointing out the various operations that will eventually event-ually be performed by 19 key Representative Precinct no. 1 and includes from 4th Street south. Voting District no. 2 will be the same as School Representative Precinct no. 2 and includes 4th Street to 8th Street. Voting District no. 3 will be the same as School Representative Precinct no. 3 and includes 8th Street to 15th Street. Voting District no. 4 runs from 15th Street to the junction junc-tion of Hwys. 248 and 224, 'tim vwmmivmg. - - " MmMmim : uses . a., . -i.il i iim n I . workers. The factory theoretically operates four ten hour days per week but Burns said each person is responsible for completing his operation on a certain number of skis. Most of his workers are so fast, he said, that few work ten hours a day. A prototype can be finished in two and a half hours, but it is a diamond in the rough compared , ,to , the ; finished product that takes 21 working work-ing days to manufacture. There are 94 different operations oper-ations to make one ski, including cutting bases and cores, bending steel, cutting fiberglass, molding, chemically chem-ically melting in tops, interweaving inter-weaving tops and bottoms, flat filing, sanding, painting, cleaning and, finally, hot waxing. including me resort condominiums. con-dominiums. School Representative Precinct no. 4 includes 15th Street to Kimball Junction. Voting District no. 9 will remain the same and includes in-cludes Thaynes Canyon and Holiday Ranch areas. Voting District no. 10 lies outside the city limits and is the same as School Representative Precinct no. 5. It includes the area from Kimball Junction to Summit Park. E- Park City 'dream factory' Each ski spends one day on the camber table and seven days curing in a heated room. Each pair of skis receives 32 applications of paint, including the familiar . silk screened multi-colored The Ski logo. Nearly all the equipment used in the building was built by Burns and a friend, a reminder of less successful days. Th&deaign of The, Ski.skis.is a product of trial and error; . "We have never, and will never, bring another product into our factory," Burns said emphatically. "I don't believe in engineering as much as theory. I'm very young to be a ski manufacturer manufac-turer and my skiing ability is probably way above most manufacturers. I know what a ski should be." The district changes will necessitate re-election of all school board members. Current members will serve until Jan. 1, 1979 and will continue to represent the precincts in which they were elected but each board member must file for reelection re-election on or before June 28. Representatives from Precincts no. 1, no. 2 and no. 3 will be running for two-year two-year terms. Representatives from Precincts no. 4 and no. 5 will run for four-year terms. ter-ms. if 3 went into operation Burns said he has a fairly extensive background in engineering. "But I never would have made a ski if I'd gone through the conventional convention-al engineering process." He said several professional skiers test his skis as well as some of his workers. "Any new or seemingly crazy idea we come up with, we try out. Imagination is the strongest force behind us." The unique cosmetics of The Ski was a product of aiming to please. "I hate to say it, but women control the world. The first ski I made was red, white and blue, and the women complained that it didn't go with their outfits." He then designed his skis around tne.colors of boots on . the "market atj that time-1 ' reef, sgreeri 'arid' orange'." "As boot colors change, he incorporates incor-porates them into new Old Park City in a New Subdivision "Prospector Park 4Q5Mrin Street 649-9304 Real 'Estate Sale designs. "Our design changes a little every year, but no one ever notices!" On the market this year will be a red racing ski, but Burns said it was a year before he was satisfied with the logo colors. And then there was the black ski. "I thought a black ski would be great, but I had nightmares for two years until finally I put a pinstripe around the outside and liked it." That red racing ski, which uses a new technique of interweaving fiberglass and steel, is sold out for next year, as are the other 5,999 skis that will be produced this year. Burns said he has designed Continued On Page 10 J coLonzer ooionzef THi 556 Main Street William Henry Harrison Fun oSd-stylt: living with modern convi.'iincos. FirnpUic.c, 2 bedrooms, 2 full bofhs. kilchon ()lu.s u bi bonus room upsluirs to finish os you desire In lie si vie you'd expect from good ol' VVilliom. Co abend, live in the post with every modern umeiiily in the William Henry Harrison. running shoes DOLFIN running shorts will get you in shape. "Trails ki VM i t OFF All gloves, T necks, windshirts & hats Visit our gift department for candles, mugs, ceramics, onyx carvings, puzzles & macrame Art Supplies Complete Home Decorating Center Wall Coverings Carpet Woven Wood ' Paint Closed Sunday & Monday J Commercial, Condominiums, ResidentialLots P.S. OV VO BENNETT'S PAINTS |