History of The Red Dawn
Matt Connelly:
Matt Connelly’s story of starting the Red Dawn can be traced back to the late 80’s. If you’re an old school BMX head, you might remember the old Burton advertisements, (1/3 page, vertical) in BMX Plus. Prior to those ads, Matt’s only interest in winter sports was sledding. Those ads led to the purchase of a Burton Elite 150 and school ski trip to Stratton, VT. That trip led to great friends and future business opportunities.
Circa 1991 Team Burst Snowboard Posse L-R: ?, Scott Bowden, Brig McCutchen, J. Levinthal, Jaime Laughridge, Matt Connelly. Photo Credit ?
Fast forward to 1997 – Matt has finished college and moves to NYC, spends 8 months as a union security guard, then goes to Colorado to catch the last 3 months of the season.
Matt Connelly, Security Guard in NYC. Photo Credit: Matt Connelly
He returns to Albany in the early summer with no money, no job, and a marginal college degree. He stops by the house of high school friend Jason Levinthal, who happens to be in the process of inventing a new winter sport called, “Ski Boarding”.
At the time, Jason’s dad and brother are working for him, but are leaving in the fall to continue their real careers, (J’s dad in an art teacher, his brother is pursuing a degree in design). J asks Matt if he wants to help make some skis. Matt accepts, spends his last $300 on a scooter to get from his parents to the factory, and begins his “industry” job.
Matt’s first job is hellish to say the least. He spends 9 hours a day standing in front of a ski press, (basically an oven with hydraulic hoses, high voltage and exploding air bags), where it’s 110+ degrees, no windows and hot as hell. He’s making sandwich construction skis, (base, fiberglass, wood, fiberglass, top sheets, steel edges, etc.) in a facility that OSHA has no idea exists. The worked sucked, but they build a ramp out back and spend their lunch breaks riding the W.A.V.E, (West Albany’s Vert Experience).
Line’s Ramp, Circa 1999. Photo Credit: Matt Connelly
One of the best pizza spots in Albany was just down the way too. After a few months of factory work, Matt begins spending the 2nd half of the day cold calling shops around the country. After some limited success, he devises a sales plan something like this:
1 – Map out all ski resorts in the country
2 – Call friend that lives in each area and ask him what the best ski shop is.
3 – Call the shop, and ask if they have “Line Skis”
4 – Repeat step 3 once a week for 3 weeks, using different voices.
5 – Call ski shop, introduce self as the Line Rep, and tell them you are looking for a shop in their area to carry Line.
6 – Ship skis, hope they sell, and most importantly, hope that they will pay you. (No credit checks just yet. Not sure we knew what they were)
Over the next few years, Matt accompanies J to the Las Vegas SIA trade show and various on-snow demos.
Skiing is at its highpoint for lameness, as anyone creative is now snowboarding. Not that skiboarding is much cooler, but its the beginning of a revolution.
Even though Matt has opened 50 retailers, most dealers at the national shows laugh at Line, having no idea that Line would become the most influential ski company in history. One of the high points the show season is meeting an account from West Virginia that had ordered around 100 units that year, and insists Matt share some illegal moonshine.
Around 2001, Line partners with Karhu, (at the time, a manufacturer of around 70,000 Burton Snowboards, + they build, market and sell their own cross country and tele skis) Matt is offered the title of, “Sales Manager”. With no background besides passion for Line and a marginal ability to talk, he accepts. Matt has some success at selling, “The Future of skiing” and locks in reps for every territory in the US, (including the southeast!) Matt’s new position allows him to travel the country and further develop Line’s distribution, + learn that trips to California have some nice benefits.
Matt spends the next 4 years as Sales Manager for Line, developing some of the most creative and successful sales programs in the industry, as well as gaining a solid understanding for the US market.
In 2003, Line’s Nor Cal Rep resigns and Matt decides to spend Jan – April in Tahoe, acting as Sales Manager and Rep. He triples sales and decides the East Coast isn’t his calling. That summer, he resigns, loads up his Pathfinder and drives west, 3,000 miles to Lake Tahoe.
After spending the last 7 years with Line, meeting all types of reps, seeing some succeed, some fail, some disappear, etc; he begins to plan the master sales agency. The plan is something like this:
1 – Brand the Agency as a Sales and Marketing Agency with cool name and website.
(Side note- Matt claims to have the first wintersport rep agency website ever)
2 – Work from the inside out
3 – Hire a tech rep, (even with no sales, all real reps have a tech rep)
4 – Get more brands that compliment Line, as well as pay some money. (At this time, Line is still extremely small, and will barely pay gas money)
Step 1
Matt founds The Red Dawn in August of 2003. Has a friend make a website and a few stickers with The Red Dawn logo.
Step 2
Plant some seeds and nurture their growth. In the Red Dawn’s first season, they launch 2 events, (now both on their 4th season): The Red Dawn Film Fiesta and The Red Dawn Shop Battle.
Film Fiesta Intermission Antics, Photo Credit: Matt Connelly
Shop Battle, the Original, 2005. Photo Credit: Peter Benedicto
Step 3
Matt hires Romolo Marcucci. Unpaid interns make for great unpaid tech reps. (See Rom’s history below)
Step 4
Line isn’t big enough to pay the bills. Through hard work and a successful brand building history, The Red Dawn is the proud representative of: Line, Orage, Icer, Joystick and Full Tilt.
To be continued…
Rom Marcucci:
Rom’s ski career began in the early 80’s at about the age of two. Though he still spent most of his time in a stroller, his dad decided it was time to pick up skiing.
Fast forward about 12 years, and he was well into the rebellious teenage years. Skiing was beginning to come out of the dark ages. Resorts began building things called snowboard parks, and Rom began poaching them. Salomon came out with the 1080 and although he lived and skied in the state right next door, Rom had no idea LINE existed and wanted the 1080 desperately.
Rom’s parents interpreted this to mean he wanted an orange ski, and since they didn’t have the money to buy the 1080, purchased a pair of 195 straight, foam core Dynamics from Sports Authority. This ski was mounted with the worst binding known to man. They had no twin tip and due to the mounting point, had about 185 cm of tip and 10 cm of tail. Needless to say, Rom’s park career did not get off to an illustrious start.
The following season friend and ski buddy Finley managed to find a pair of used 1260s. Rom bought a pair of Volant Machetes because McConkey was king and they carved well when demoed. He quickly found out it is hard to spin when your metal skis weigh 20 pounds each. He still managed to learn 360s off a snowmaking mound and boost in the Waterville pipe.
That summer, he found the holy grail. Line was selling blemished skis on their website for $150 dollars (something dealers at the time probably weren’t too happy with.) Here was an affordable twin tip on a six-dollar hourly grocery store wage.
As a freshman at the University of Vermont he bought the original Skogen’s with the Viking ship on the tail. Mounted in downtown Burlington, everyone looked at Rom like a mad man when he walked back uphill to the dorm with skis strapped to his backpack in the middle of September.
For the next 3 seasons, Rom frequented the LINE office in Burlington. He hucked myself with reckless abandon in the Stowe Park, got to know the ER nurses on a first name basis, and broke countless pairs of skis. Stowe and Burlington were a mini hot spot at the time, with kids like Tanner Rainville and Ben Grunow skiing the park daily, Freedle Coty filming, and guest appearances by Mike Nick and Jason Levinthal. Rom went to summer camp in Whistler and bought his first pair of fat skis off Mike Douglas (90 waisted pocket rockets).
His senior year, Rom got an internship with LINE. No pay? College credit? Menial labor? Totally sweet!
In reality, it turned out to be an excellent experience. As the first intern in the history of LINE with a grasp of the English language, and most importantly, the ability to show up reliably, Rom got assigned to some pretty cool projects. He produced a rail jam in downtown Burlington, ran the binding test team, made videos about the factory and the invader among other less exciting responsibilities. He was an intern for an entire year.
During graduation, a position opened up as tech rep in California. Rom already had purchased a Mammoth pass and asked Jason Levinthal to put in a good word. J sent out an email that said, “You need to hire this guy” with Rom’s email address attached. He got the job.
Rom packed his bags, road tripped it to Mammoth, and lived in a tent in the woods for all of June skiing every day until close on the 4th. The next fall, he began tech repping for the Red Dawn and has slowly furthered his skills and taken on more responsibility as time has gone on.