History Head

After his first skiing disaster, a tumble down the Stowe slopes in 1947, aeronautical engineer Howard Head cursed loudly and blamed the wooden skis, not himself, a complete novice. What did he dislike most? If wood was so good, he wondered, why weren't more airplanes made from it?

With $6,000 in poker winnings and a part-time job as an engineer at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company, the skinny, bearded man worked nights to create a new kind of ski. It was a "sandwich" of metal, plywood, and plastic that was lighter than wood, grippier, more maneuverable, and lasted much longer than traditional skis. It was revolutionary - the world's first metal-reinforced ski.

Six people assembled 300 pairs of skis of an unprecedented design almost by hand in the first year. In the process of inventing and testing, Head broke countless test models, issued “I owe you” notes to all his workers, and was loudly ridiculed more than once when he appeared on the ski slopes...

But by 1968, it was Head skis that were on the feet of three of the top ten winners at the World Cup. And the number of Americans inspired by these maneuverable, one-year-warranty, black Head Standard skis increased from several hundred thousand to more than 4 million.

By 1969, when Head sold his company to an aircraft manufacturer for $16 million, it employed 500 employees, and Head himself was the world's largest ski manufacturer, selling more than 300,000 pairs a year.

Several decades have passed since Head International GmbH moved to Europe and is now part of the transnational corporation HTM, specializing in sports equipment, but the tireless design assets of the company constantly replenish the world ski industry with new products from the aircraft and helicopter industries.

Several years ago, Head introduced a system into the production of skis that can control stability at high speed. This unique technology based on piezoelectric fibers was called intelligence - smart technology. The flagship skis of the collection are equipped with a microchip that constantly monitors the descent and is able to make adjustments to the behavior of the ski in just 7 milliseconds depending on the slope and speed at which you find yourself.

And last year, a unique Liquidmetal metal appeared in the design, which does not have a crystal lattice and is much more elastic than its predecessors.
Now Head is one of the most dynamic and innovative companies in the ski world. The leading skiers of the planet perform on its skis. Jon Olsson is a multiple world champion of Big Air. And since this year, the team has been joined by such a famous, outrageous and scandalous figure in the ski world as Bodie Miller – also a world champion.
During the period when Howard Head was resting after intense work in the ski industry, he decided to take up tennis, but failed in this sport as well, not finding mutual understanding with the tennis racket. Therefore, he bought a controlling stake in the Prince company, where he introduced larger tennis rackets, replacing wood with aluminum alloy, which was lighter and more convenient to use.