FOR THOSE THAT HAVEN’T READ YOUR PREVIOUS INTERVIEW WITH US, CAN YOU BRIEFLY TAKE US THROUGH YOUR JOURNEY IN THE INDUSTRY?
I started flying paragliders at the age of 14. Prior to this I built radio-controlled planes, and have always been motivated with every aspect of flying and aerodynamics. Being quite pedantic, I wanted to know everything about paragliders and therefore started sewing my first scaled down models using my mum’s sewing machine, to really understand every detail of flexible wings. I decided to progress with my wing designs and scraped together all my money to buy a computer and CAD software, which allowed me to design all essential parts of the gliders digitally. At the age of 16, the designs reached a point where I decided to showcase my drawings and a scale model at a trade show, where I got my first job as a test pilot within the industry.
In 2000 a colleague showed me the kite video ‘High’ by Tronelone Productions, and literally that same evening we decided to found our own kite brand, which would later become Flysurfer, as we felt that kiting was the future. From there we had a very intense journey; I developed the entire product portfolio at Flysurfer and we grew very fast. We merged into a bigger company
