Words: Julie Brown 2018-12-10 15:45:09
Annelise Loevlie is a 35-year-old ski CEO. Four years ago, she took the reins of Icelantic Skis, an indie ski company in Golden, CO, and the news was rightly celebrated. In an industry that’s top-to-bottom pretty much all men, here was a woman stepping into a position of leadership, taking control of a company her best friend from high school had founded. Her mission: stop the financial bleeding and whip the company into shape with some tough love. She was a woman in a boys club, whose time had come to shine, and it was celebrated across the internet and media spheres. Meanwhile, Loevlie was falling apart. “I was acting like all the people I was around, who were all dudes,” she says. She was working strict hours in a structured, industrial lifestyle. “I went into the deepest, darkest depression I’ve had,” she says. Like many women who ski with dudes and work in the ski industry, Loevlie approached her new role according to cultural norms established by the majority. And that nearly destroyed her. “That was the beginning of this feminine re-awakening,” she says. The real success story of Loevlie and Icelantic is about the culture of emotional fluidity and self care she has created in a male-dominated environment—on the chairlift and in the office. Not only is she much happier—“I just feel so much more comfortable in my own skin,” she says—but the skiing is better and business is doing good, too. I had just seen Loevlie at a campout in July with 18 other women in the ski industry. We sat around a long table for real talk about emotions, babies, boyfriends, business partners and what it’s like to work with a bunch of male skiers. There were tears, affirmations and rosè, and then, after all the talk of feelings, we gelande quaffed—a game where mugs of beer slide down tables and are caught and chugged. It is perhaps the most aggressive binge-drinking game ever invented—by men. Loevlie, in a white one-piece outfit, her long blonde hair wild and waving, chugged gluten-free beer like a champ. Icelantic started during Loevlie’s high school days, when founder Ben Anderson, also a teenager, began making skis in his garage. Loevlie had already started building her resume as an entrepreneur by selling candy out of her locker. Anderson was her best customer. When she graduated from college with a degree in business, he asked her to work at Icelantic. Fitting in became harder when she became the CEO. She had written a letter to the company’s investors, outlining the problems she saw and the steps she wanted to take to clean them up. The company was losing money and Loevlie had to fire people and shut down an office in Switzerland to turn the course of the business. Those were necessary tasks, but in hindsight, Loevlie regrets her approach. “The way I acted was really not sympathetic and kind of harsh,” she says. Her thinking was, ‘This is business. This is what we need to do.’ It’s so funny to even say that right now because it’s so not me.” Loevlie says her head was disconnected from her body and soul. By denying who she really was, by trying to be one of the boys and acting out of character, Loevlie says her body went “haywire.” Along with depression, Loevlie had physical symptoms that snowballed into thyroid dysfunction. She got melanoma. She also got pregnant and had an abortion. “The abortion thing was huge. It was a really big thing on the feminine side, just being conscious of my ability to create,” she says. “That was a little seed planted in me that was like, ‘Holy fuck, I am a creator.’ But in a different way than men are.” I stopped and asked Loevlie if she wanted to talk about her abortion in a ski magazine, where such uncomfortable and controversial topics are left largely unacknowledged. However, women often talk about children and abortion. We see women who stop attending ski industry events as soon as they have children, and how there’s a double standard for dads, who get a kid-free week to attend ski tests for work. “I think the more [abortion] is talked about, the better it is for the world,” Loevlie says. It a dark time in Loevlie’s life, and it crested when she admitted herself to a Zen Buddhist retreat in the mountains of Colorado and took a vow of silence for 10 days. “For 10 days I sat in silence and meditated for 13 hours a day,” Loevlie says. “I had a really huge release on day seven, a realization that I was nowhere near living from my center. I was way off.” It’s mid-August and Loevlie is in Toledo, OH, of all places, giving a presentation to Icelantic’s original investors. “We’re healthy,” she says. This year was the fourth year in a row that Icelantic had turned a profit and growth was happening quickly. The company had just revealed a new line of skis and launched a new collection of clothing. But when Loevlie said “healthy,” she doesn’t just mean profits. “I feel like everyone I work with right now is owning their roles and taking complete accountability for what they’re supposed to be doing. Everyone is just really open and the culture is so healthy,” Loevlie says. “People are talking about their feelings and just being real. It’s a real nourishing place to be. I can just be me.” That’s not to say it’s all calm and Zen and powder turns. Things go wrong regularly. Loevlie has to react quickly and she’s extremely busy. Not only is she in the middle of reorganizing the company’s structure, but she’s also working with the Colorado state government to bring the outdoor industry into conversations about health. She sits on the advisory council for the state’s Outdoor Recreation Industry Office, a department launched by Governor John Hickenlooper in 2015. “It doesn’t mean that shit isn’t changing or going wrong—that still happens every single day—but I feel like I’m very grounded,” Loevlie says. When she came back to work after the Buddhist retreat, change was not immediate, but rather happened in small steps to recalibrate the course. “Self care is honestly the most feminine quality that I’ve brought back into my life and the lives of everybody I was around,” Loevlie says. Meditation, therapy, exercise, eating well, acupuncture, yoga, energy healing, slow walks, gardening—Loevlie does it all. Dancing is her best form of self care. Skiing also took on new meaning. “I do really feel like I love the sport more than I ever have. It’s just getting into my body for-real, for-real. Now, more than ever, [skiing] is a real authentic expression,” she says. “I’m skiing the way I want to ski.” At the company, Loevlie’s feminine approach is percolating through the ranks. Icelantic’s slogan, “Return To Nature,” is as much about going outside as it is about developing emotional intelligence. When challenges arise between coworkers, Loevlie wants employees to feel they can express their anger, frustration and sadness. “I have definitely seen people open up about way more shit,” she says. “I’ve learned that the quicker you process emotions, the quicker they leave.” Recently, Loevlie hired a new customer service rep. During training, she explained to him the company culture. “Basically, I want everyone who comes into contact with Icelantic to feel loved,” she told him. He responded, “I got you, girl.” Photo Caption: “It didn’t stop snowing for days, but thanks to hordes of humans, the fresh snow didn’t last long. Luckily, a local guide showed us his secret zone at Niseko United in Japan.” Photo: Crystal Sagan
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