If you asked my brother Jeremy and me when we were kids what we wanted to do when we grew up, I don't think either of us would have said, "spend our lives talking about ski wax."
But somehow, that is pretty much what happened. We grew up in a skiing family. Our dad, Mike, worked in the ski industry, so weekends often meant loading up the car and heading to a ski race, ski show, or Nordic center. We were on skis from a very young age, and before long, racing became a huge part of our lives.
Neither of us probably realized at the time how much those early years would shape our careers. Today, both Jeremy and I have spent years working at the highest levels of cross-country skiing. We've coached, raced, tested skis, worked in wax rooms, and traveled around the world with athletes. And now, we're taking on what feels like a pretty exciting next step: building Rex Ski Wax across the United States and Canada.
We Took Different Paths, But They Always Came Back to Wax
Jeremy is my older brother, so naturally I spent a lot of my early years trying to keep up with him.
He went on to ski at St. Scholastica and eventually found his way into coaching and race service. His coaching career started as an intern at the Alberta World Cup Academy in Canmore, Alberta, where he got his first taste of truly elite-level ski training. After graduating, Jeremy also coached at several other clubs and programs, including Stratton Mountain School, where he coached and supported junior athletes like Ben Ogden, Jessie Diggins, Julia Kern and several other former Olympic cross country skiers. He eventually became the Race Service Manager at Pioneer Midwest, one of the country's premier Nordic ski shops.
Along the way, Jeremy also spent time waxing on the World Cup circuit for Rex and supporting U.S. Ski Team athletes like Zak Ketterson and Alayna Sonnesyn.Â
I took a slightly different route. After skiing at St. Scholastica, I started working more heavily on the technical side of the sport. I spent three seasons with Rex Ski Wax, including time working on the World Cup circuit with Rex's racing service and research and development. That meant testing products, working with teams, and trying to understand what athletes and service teams actually needed from a wax company.
Eventually, that experience led me to the U.S. Ski Team. I spent the next several seasons traveling the World Cup circuit as part of the U.S. Ski Team service staff. I was fortunate enough to be part of two Olympic cycles and three World Championships, working with some of the best skiers and technicians in the world. I also had the opportunity to serve as the head of glide and tech for Gus Schumacher and to work closely with the rest of the service team to ensure our athletes had the fastest and most consistent skis possible on race day.
Across those years, our service team was fortunate enough to contribute to World Championship medals, World Cup globes, and Olympic medals. But beyond the results, the most rewarding part was helping athletes build trust and confidence in their equipment when it mattered most.
At that level, ski waxing gets pretty obsessive. You aren't just looking at the temperature anymore. You're looking at snow age, humidity, crystal structure, base structure, ski flex, weather changes, and how all of those things interact. Sometimes you're making a decision based on something that seems incredibly small, but those small details can make a big difference on race day.
And Yes, We Still Talk About Wax
One of the funny things about having a brother in the same industry is that we never really stop talking about skiing.
Jeremy and I talk multiple times a week, and our conversations can get pretty deep into the weeds.
What's the snow doing?
What did you test?
What worked?
What didn't?
What should we try next?
When I'm traveling with the U.S. Ski Team, Jeremy is often the guy I can bounce ideas off of. And when he's testing domestically, he'll sometimes ask me for something completely random to try.
His favorite request is basically, "Give me something weird."
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it absolutely does not.
But that's how you learn.
That back-and-forth has been one of the most valuable parts of our careers. We've been able to see the sport from different perspectives and bring those experiences back to each other.
Why Rex?
For us, taking over Rex distribution in the U.S. and Canada feels less like starting something completely new and more like the next chapter of something we've been doing our entire lives.
We've been athletes.
We've been coaches.
We've been ski technicians.
We've been wax technicians.
We've stood in World Cup wax rooms and worked with athletes chasing podiums. We've also stood in local ski shops, helping someone figure out which wax to put on their skis for Saturday's race.
And honestly, we enjoy both sides of it. At the end of the day, we're still just two brothers who love skiing and love talking about skis.
Now we get the opportunity to take everything we've learned over the years and build something around it. Our goal with Rex is pretty simple: make great ski wax available to more North American skiers, share the knowledge we've picked up along the way, and continue supporting the sport that has given our family so much.
Because after all these years, it turns out we really did find a way to make a living talking about ski wax. And we're pretty lucky to be able to do it together.