Things I've Learned: Mike Gutt bleeds K2 and has for almost 16 years

Things I’ve Learned is a regular freeskier.com column that gives ski industry veterans the spotlight to share personal experiences and insight gained while working in the sport. We pick the brains of athletes, brand reps and executives, cinematographers, photographers, mountain guides, product gurus, local legends and more.

Mike Gutt has been with K2 Skis since the beginning of the freeskiing movement. Since starting his career as a brand ambassador in southern California in 1999, Gutt has worked his way up to become K2’s global marketing director. In that time he’s had the privilege to work with some of the most influential skiers in the world, including the likes of Shane McConkey, Seth Morrison, Doug Coombs, Pep Fujas, Sean Pettit and Andy Mahre, to name a few. In this edition of Things I’ve Learned, Gutt gives us an inside look at his more than 15-year career in the ski industry.

Gutt says:

My job is a dream job for any diehard skier. I get to work for a brand that was personally responsible for getting me into the sport and later found a way to keep it cool when all my friends gave it up for snowboarding. Being able to create a career out of a passion is an amazing way to make a living. It is probably as close as you can get to the lifestyle of an athlete for all of us mere mortals who don’t actually have that much [athletic] talent.

My career at K2 has been one hell of a ride. I’m going on my 16th year with the brand. I started in southern California as a regional brand ambassador way back in 1999. In that role I got to meet a bunch of the K2 athletes at the Parkasaurus and Superpark events as well as the Vegas SIA show. Then I somehow weaseled my way up to High North Ski Camp in Whistler as a tech for the summer. I met the entire team at those events and that pretty much paved the way for an in-house position as the team manager. I still remember my first day in the offices at K2, my first call was to Glen Plake. I could not believe I got to “manage” an athlete who was actually responsible for making me a K2 fanatic. I later moved into a marketing manager position and for the past four years have taken on the K2 Skis’ global marketing director role.

An illustration of K2’s VP of global marketing Jeff Mechura and Mike Gutt from the 2015 FREESKIER Trend Book.

Being a brand director is a juggling act. There are so many things in the air at any given time and so many factors that weigh on each and every detail. It can be overwhelming. It is easy to get caught up in the chaos, but as a group we try to boil it down and remain focused on the fun nature of the brand and keep the stoke for the sport alive. This approach is not new to K2, it is what created the unique vibe for the brand back in the 70’s that’s still alive today. It really is a simple approach based around “serious fun” and the spirit of the sport that we take to marketing the brand, athletes and products.

Getting into ski boot manufacturing was a totally new experience and huge learning process for our crew. There are so many technical aspects to boots and the K2 boots are no exception. We got to start with a blank slate and were able to build a boot from the ground up to work with the modern advancements in ski design. There are so many details that we wanted to communicate about the design, but we launched ski boots in a way that was true of the brand. We had fun with it and hopefully made people smile when they opened FREESKIER magazine and saw DJ Mullet in a skin tight green suit rocking our boots.

A successful marketing campaign, for us, is one that people talk about, smirk and laugh over years after it launched. It’s the goal of every campaign to leave a lasting impression, some are more successful than others.

Keeping a brand image fresh is easy because we know who we are and stay true to our roots. That might sound odd to reference our past as a way of keeping the brand image fresh. But we are not searching to define who we are or rethink our brand identity year after year. We are proud of what has made K2 strange and mysterious, and attracts people to the brand.

The K2 Rotor Lodge is the coolest partnership I have ever been a part of—PBR and Iron Maiden being a close second and third. CMH had been selling a demo session where guests got to test K2 prototypes with our staff at one of their exclusive, high-end lodges. That program gave their guests the unique opportunity to test and help develop skis. The crew at CMH liked what was happening and approached us, half joking, about re-branding their Kootenay lodge as a motel and co-branded, K2-inspired lodge. The lodge, the town and the staff were a perfect fit for K2, so we built a retro motel sign, decorated the place, lined up some unique athlete trips and hit the ground running. It’s in its fourth year and builds every season.

Keeping skiing fun is natural. Skiing is fun. It gives you a sense of freedom the minute you step into your bindings and slide across the snow. It puts a smile on your face and that is the most important element that we try to embrace in everything we create.

Balancing the fun with the serious is what K2 does best. We create and promote products with serious technology and innovation, but all for making skiing more fun and enjoyable to a wide variety of skiers.

Thinking outside the box is the basis for the K2 brand. It started with the founders who decided that they could build a fiberglass ski with knowledge gained from building fiberglass animal cages and splints. That transitioned into the approach Terry Heckler took with marketing that was unique in K2’s own odd, humorous way. That same out of the box thinking allows us to create products that help reinvent skiing, like freestyle skis, twin tips, fat skis, women’s skis and rockered skis.

One of the hardest things are our steel edges. They are durable, just ask Clayton Vila or Sean Jordan.

Climate change is a scary thing for an industry that is entirely dependent on snowfall. You could have the best, most innovative products in the world, but without snow, nobody is going to want them.

The Washington ski community is bred to be tough. The weather in the Pacific Northwest doesn’t hold anyone back from getting outside and being active and skiing is no exception. We get our fair share of powder days, mixed in with a handful of rainy days each year. Anyone who suits up knowing the forecast is calling for 100-percent chance of rain is about as hardcore as they get.

The coolest place my job has taken me is Valdez, Alaska with Doug Coombs and Seth Morrison on a film trip when I first started as the team manager. I had to lug around camera gear—film not digital—and watch Seth and Coombs ski AK with two totally different approaches and styles.

I’ll never forget the Back 9 Invitational K2 put together in and around the Whistler backcountry. That was an exhausting project with a ton of coordination but truly one of most rewarding experiences I’ve had. The roster of athletes that showed up was impressive from a legend like Mike Douglas to up-and-comers Chris Benchetler and Sammy Carlson. And the skiing that went down far exceeded the expectations. It would be great to recreate, but was just a little too ahead of its time back then.

“[Shane] was always on, whether it was as simple as making people laugh or the complex and innovative way we look at sports or the products used in those sports.”

Ski technology will continue to evolve as long as we keep challenging ourselves and listening to our athletes’ ideas and needs. Our athletes help us innovate products and create new ways to get down the mountain.

Long-standing K2 athletes are an integral part of the K2 family. The people on the team are the foundation of the brand and collectively give the brand its personality. It’s skiers like Seth, who has been a K2 athlete for over two decades and still crushing it; Pep Fujas and Andy Mahre who have both taken on development roles on a variety of K2 products; and Sean Pettit, who was born into the family and pretty much raised by the team. It’s scary to think that he has been with the program for more than a decade and he is only 22.

Shane McConkey taught me how to make everyday fun. He was hunting for ways to maximize the experience in everything he did. He was a person who didn’t have an “off switch.” He was always on, whether it was as simple as making people laugh or the complex and innovative way we look at sports or the products used in those sports. He had the limitless energy level that reminded me of a little kid combined with a creative adult mind. It is crazy how much of an impact he had on my personal life and I reference the things he did much more than I ever thought I would.

Ten years ago, I would have never imagined that Sean Pettit would turn 21. He just seemed too young to ever grow up, and look at him now.

Freeskiing today is progressing faster than ever because content is being shared as soon as something goes down. Things get posted and shared instantaneously. Everyone is in the know immediately rather than waiting until a video segment or photos are posted in the fall like when I first started. This is building the following and inspiring the next generation of skiers and athletes, so they can push the boundaries of the sport, style and culture so this sport lives on.

The future of skiing is totally dependent on encouraging more people to get out on snow to experience how much fun sliding around with two sticks attached to your feet can really be. For all of us involved with the sport, it is a lifestyle we were either privileged to be introduced to at a young age or discovered on our own and is an experience unlike any other and needs to be shared with more people.

Something that scares me is complacency. Change only happens if you make it happen.

It’s important to live each day as if it is your last. Within the industry we have seen way too many important people pass away before their time. You never know when it is going to end, so live it up and have fun.

Related: Things I’ve Learned: Following his departure from Orage, Mike Nick reflects on the past 20 years