Matt Manser

​.I grew up in central New York state and fell in love with skiing at a very young age. Despite wearing out multiple VHS copies of The Blizzard of Ahhhhs, my dreams of becomming a pro skier never quite materialized. When I went off to college, I decided to hang up the skis and I immersed myself in the world of philosophy. While in graduate school, I found a part-time job at a specialty ski shop (Bob Smith’s Wilderness House), and it was there where I rekindled my love for skiing. Through this part time job, I learned many dark arts of shell modification, stance alignment, and footbed fabrication and really enjoyed the challenge of fitting boots and solving skier’s fit-related issues. As I rose through the ranks of the shop, I began fitting boots for professional athletes, including a hero of mine, Doug Coombs. After finishing grad school, and much to the chagrin of my professors, I decided to “take a year off” from academia to further pursue this interest in boot fitting. I moved to northern Vermont where I became the lead boot fitter and alpine category manager of a fantastic, customer service-oriented shop (Skirack). While there, I formed partnerships with Matchstick Productions and Ski The East, working with athletes like Sarah Burke, Ingrid Backstrom, JP Auclair, and Tom Wallisch. This in turn led to forming relationships with boot brands where I often consulted on the direction of future developments. It was in one such meeting with Atomic where I was introduced to Jason Roe, who is still responsible for Atomic’s boot program. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was on the hunt for a new product manager. Apparently, he liked what I had to say about the current state of ski boots and where they needed to go from there.

A little about my role at Atomic:
Ultimately, I manage the full range of alpine and touring boots for Atomic. My primary job involves gathering information from athletes, boot fitters, buyers, and end users and creating the product brief for our R&D team, the design brief for the designers, and the marketing brief for the marketing team. I need to keep steering each of these teams in the correct direction so that we come to market with the best ski boots possible. Given my retail and boot fitting background, it’s my hope that when you hold an Atomic boot that you ultimately see an innovative and advantageous solution that addresses your needs as a boot fitter and your customer’s needs as a skier.