TPM Episode 301: Bruce Edgerly, BCA Founder, Writer
The Powell Movement
Mike Powell
4.9 • 860 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2022
⏱️ 81 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bruce Edgerly or "Edge" as he's fondly known is one of the only ski entrepreneurs I know to sell his company, get rich, and still be involved in the day-to-day of the business. I haven't had anyone on the podcast with that type of story and Edge is also the only Ivy League guy I've had on the show. But Edge is just a dirtbag kayaker and skier who parlayed the contacts he made while writing for Powder Magazine and Larry Flint into a guerilla marketing machine that would drive the company he and his partner started, BCA, to the forefront of the industry. This is the ski version of the Steve Jobs story…but with a lot more personality. Steve Christie asks Inappropriate Questions, and they are awesome.
Bruce Edgerly Show Notes:
3:30: Moving to Miami, Holderness Academy, Hockey at Brown University, and then moving to Utah
8:00: Graduating from Brown, getting a real job in Basalt, getting fired from that job, and then delivering the newspaper
12:00: Miami Vice in Aspen, kayaking, Dean Cummings, the AK Heli Wars, and Powder Magazine
20:00: Stanley: Get 30% off site wide with the code drinkfast
Peter Glenn Ski and Sports: Over 60 years of getting you out there
Outdoor Research: The best outerwear ever built just got better
22:30: Larry Flint, forerunning extreme comps in AK, and the birthday party that changes his life
31:00: Creating the BCA market through connections, being a Peruvian hat-wearing Tele skier, road-tripping the Alpine Trekker, financing, and what production look like
35:00: The idea for the digital transceiver, who built the Tracker, the avalanche that kickstarted the Tracker
41:00: 10 Barrel Brewery: Buy their beers; they support action sports more than anyone
Elan Skis: Over 75 years of innovation that makes you better
43:00: The Beacon Wars, making bold claims that made people angry, Steve Conger's advice, winning over Canada and Europe, and validation in the States
54:00: First live recovery, airbags, putting his house and assets on the line in the name of BCA, and selling to K2
67:00: Inappropriate Questions with Steve Christie
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Have a seat on your porcelain throne. |
| 0:02.3 | It's time to talk some shit on the Powell Movement. |
| 0:13.6 | Welcome to the Powell Movement. |
| 0:16.9 | I'm your host Mike Powell, |
| 0:18.1 | and I'm going to start this one off by saying thank you to all the people who reached out sending positive vibes, messages, and love my way. |
| 0:24.9 | I was really hoping they would help influence some test results my wife and I were waiting on, but that shit didn't work. |
| 0:30.6 | Fuck! |
| 0:31.5 | I still appreciate the hell out of all the messages. |
| 0:34.0 | Thank you. |
| 0:35.1 | I did and I do feel the love from my village of friends and family and from a lot of you, people I don't even know, and that's so amazing. While I would be happy to tell you exactly what's going on, I'm not ready to talk about all of this without breaking down, unfortunately. So my sharing will come over the next weeks and months. And while all of this is not happening to me personally, |
| 0:59.8 | I wish it was, as it is so difficult to see my partner in life in so much pain. So right now, |
| 1:04.2 | all I really want to share is that last week we went to the ER a couple of nights and we were admitted for a surgery that seemed like a total bad dream. And one week later, that bad dream |
| 1:09.2 | has turned into a total fucking nightmare. |
| 1:11.6 | We just learned our diagnosis yesterday and we were processing everything as I record this intro. |
| 1:16.8 | So while I don't want to share any more right now, as it'll make me lose my shit, I do have a |
| 1:21.2 | disturbing story from the ER that I'll share. |
| 1:23.6 | So while we're in our little area in the ER, and there's a dude next to us who's violently kicking his hospital bed. |
| 1:29.3 | The nurses keep coming in to try and stop him, and the guy is yelling at them to give him some opiates. |
| 1:34.3 | The nurse is like, nope, we can't do that, and then the kicking starts all over again. |
| 1:38.3 | A few minutes later, we overhear a doctor say to this guy, we've treated you for all the STDs, |
| 1:45.8 | you tested negative for HIV, |
| 1:48.1 | but we're going to need you to come back in three days and test you for HIV again |
... |
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