Shaggy's finds niche in northern Michigan with customized skis

The Thompson family — Jeff, John, and Shari — live for Michigan winters, when they “eat, sleep, and breathe” skiing. As founders of Shaggy’s Copper Country Skis, the Thompson family launched their love of skiing into a small manufacturing company, releasing their first line of handcrafted skis in 2008.

Now operating out of a factory in Boyne City, they design, prototype and manufacture skis using hardwood from northern Michigan. The Thompsons call their close-knit employees, customers and followers their “family” (they even close up shop and invite them on a Shaggy “Family Vacation” each year to rejuvenate). Their focus is on things big ski makers cannot do, such as customization, which poises them for healthy growth. 

The story behind Shaggy’s: “Our great-grand-uncle Sulo ‘Shaggy’ Lehto hand-carved wooden skis for his family — including his niece, our grandmother — and neighbors in the village of Kearsarge in the Keweenaw Peninsula [historically copper mining country],” Jeff Thompson says.  When Shaggy was carving skis, there were more utilitarian, “but you can’t think of the name Shaggy’s without getting a smile on your face and thinking ‘this is going to be fun,’” notes John Thompson. The brothers founded Shaggy’s with the simple goal to make skiers happier on snow. “We are on a never-ending mission, using engineering and real-world testing on the snow to refine and improve our skis,” Jeff says.

How the company got started: Jeff and John started building skis as a hobby in their family barn in 2005 while they were still in high school. “And then we roped my dad in,” Jeff says, laughing. “I was at Michigan Tech when my parents sold their house and moved up to Boyne City. We needed to find a new place to make skis, so I drove down from Hancock and started calling around, driving around. We found the old Knights of Columbus hall in Boyne City was vacant, got the power reconnected and that summer, we were off.”

What are the resources you tapped to get the company off the ground: “Mom and Dad,” Jeff says, laughing. “Really, it’s been organic, and it’s been quite an adventure. Until the summer of 2011 when we moved into the actual shop in Boyne City, we were very patient. It was a slow, slow, slow roll. There wasn’t anybody building skis in small shops — maybe a few small snowboard companies — so there was nowhere to find out how to build skis. You couldn’t go online and ask, so we would come up with the engineering ideas and then say, ‘How the heck are we going to do all these things?’” When something they were trying didn’t work, “something else always came of it,” John adds. 

What product launched Shaggy’s: A line of skis called Ahmeek [named for a copper mine in Mohawk] is the one that set the company off. “It’s an all-mountain ski for getting off the beaten path, and that became kind of the core of our business, doing something a little different, off the beaten path,” Jeff recalls. In the process of testing the skis -- always striving to improve it, John says -- it turned into their flagship ski. The Ahmeek 105 has been the company’s best-selling ski for seven consecutive years.

What’s next: “The biggest thing for us as we push into doing more and more custom work for people, is that we are not focused on volume and pumping out masses of skis,” Jeff says. “Every time we have pulled back, and focused on serving our customers, we have grown from the inside out. It’s worked well and is sustainable. We are doing lower volumes of the best skis, with more options and more personalization for each of those skiers. And all of our employees are so much more involved with that process now.” With material cost increases, they’ve had to raise prices. “So do we raise value?” Jeff asks, adding, “It’s with asking, ‘Have you always wanted to design your own graphic?’ We can do that. Need a custom flex to your ski? We can do it.” The company can do that at a cost that is affordable to customers, John says. 

Is artwork a big part of customization: “Recently an employee who has been a ski builder is taking over as art director,” Jeff says. “She has been doing custom graphics for the last seven years, and now she will be working directly with customers — taking somebody’s napkin sketch and turning it into a piece of art for skis.”

Favorite place to ski in Michigan: John and Shari enjoy The Highlands near Harbor Springs. Jeff prefers Mount Bohemia in the Upper Peninsula. “To go there we go past our grandfather’s old house where my mom grew up. It brings back a lot of memories. It’s a creative place all about having fun and challenging yourself — it’s one of the more challenging in the Midwest for runs. And the view is incredible over the lakes [Lac La Belle and Superior].” Jeff says.