Zach Caldwell of Engineered Tuning moving to Canada
Tue, May 15, 2007 - By Zack Caldwell
To Everybody, from Zach Caldwell
The Caldwell family (our one small branch of it) is heading west. After twelve years at Stratton Mountain School, my wife, Amy Caldwell has accepted a position as the head coach of the Callaghan Valley Training Center, based at the 2010 Olympic venue near Whistler, British Columbia. So, after six years of unanticipated success and growth based out of Southern Vermont, my ski service business is looking at some changes.
In September I will be packing up the shop and moving the operation out to British Columbia. The opportunity to be based out of the 2010 Olympic area is an exciting one, and has been no small part of the decision making process that Amy and I have gone through in the past several weeks. My involvement in the ski racing world has always been motivated by the desire to do the best work I can at the highest possible levels. This move opens the doors to some exciting new R&D projects, and it will make me much better at my job.
In the short term I will continue to operate out of my current location through August. I will continue to accept skis for grinding for the 2007-08 season through August 17th. I will accept a limited number of orders through June 30th for Fischer race skis to be selected and processed in my current location. By the end of the day on August 31st I will have all skis finished and shipped. I hope to be operating in my new location by October 1st.
Last Fall Nathan Schultz launched Boulder Nordic Sport and Engineered Tuning West. Nathan bought the Tazzari RP-13 grinder that I started my business with, and we agreed to operate as a nominal partnership in the best interest of a nation-wide customer base. We have shared ideas, trade secrets, and business model components with great success for the past 9 months. We've worked hard to reinvent cross country racing retail and service at a new level of excellence. Now we're working on combining our available resources to provide continuity, and even improvement in service to our customer base (we hope that's pretty much everybody).
The exact form of our new partnership is not finalized, but here's what we know:
- I will be involved with Boulder Nordic Sport in a hands-on way. I will continue to consult with my established customers, I will travel to make ski-selection trips, and I will push the boundaries of sanity on grind testing and development at the Callaghan Valley Olympic venue.
- For at least one year Boulder Nordic Sport will be our only US fulfillment center.
- Customers who want to order skis from me will be able to order skis from me. I will specify the desired flex characteristics as I always have, and I will select those skis, and many others, along with Nathan. All orders will be processed through Boulder Nordic Sport, and shipped from Boulder.
- We will continue to provide a level of expertise and quality assurance that you can't find anywhere else.
To make a long story short, my entire involvement in the US ski world will be folded into Nathan's operation. Boulder Nordic Sport will be the full and only US based beneficiary of my continued work in the industry. If and when I return to the US market and set-up shop, it will be as an expansion of the BNS operation. We will be excellent.
Thanks for your outstanding support over the past six years. As an Easterner who has never lived outside of Vermont, I'm scared to death. But I'm excited for the future because I believe that the plan we're hatching will lead to great things, and because I know that cross country racing community is comprised of the best people on the planet.