How a passion for snowboarding and Summit County led to a thriving business
Michael Walsh/Courtesy photo
The first time Michael Walsh emerged from the Eisenhower Tunnel and looked out at the crop of mountains that make up the Summit County area, he knew that he had found his new home.
Originally born in Florida, Walsh grew up speaking French due to his mother originally being from the country. It was in Florida, where Walsh fell in love with the sport of skateboarding, but as he grew older it became apparent that his mother missed the mountains that are present in parts of France.
“She missed having seasons and the mountains,” Walsh said. “Our family moved to East Tennessee and there are some ski resorts there, so being a skateboarding kid, I naturally got into snowboarding. I fell in love with it.”
Walsh got so hooked on snowboarding that he marched over to the only ski shop in his town and begged if he could work there. The pleading worked and soon Walsh was in the ski shop, learning the craft of how to properly tune skis.
Walsh continued to enjoy all things snowboarding through his late adolescence, but it was a vacation to Summit County that would change his life forever.
“I came out here once on a vacation and when I came out of the Eisenhower Tunnel and saw Summit County, I knew I was moving here,” Walsh said. “It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.”
After living in East Tennessee for 10 years, Walsh made the move to Summit County at the age of 20 where he continued to become enamored with all things snowsports. However, like many people who move to Summit County for the outdoor recreation opportunities, Walsh struggled to find a job that could fully support him living in the High Country.
With no college degree, Walsh’s mother suggested he learn a trade like plumbing, but did not want to spend several years learning the skill if he did not know if he was going to enjoy it.
Then one day it dawned on him.
With so much love for snowboarding and after enjoying working at a tune shop at Copper Mountain Resort, Walsh came up with the idea to start a mobile ski-tuning business aptly named The Ski Doctor.
“It was an idea that just popped into my head and I was immediately hooked,” Walsh said. “I had to do this. I jumped right on it.”
Walsh hit the ground running in 2017, buying a Sprinter van and making house calls across the county for mobile ski tunes. However, as he soon found out, starting a business from scratch is not for the faint of heart.
With his business not really picking up speed like he envisioned, Walsh was forced to work a second job in order to support himself. Walsh split his time between his two jobs until an entrepreneur he met advised him to leave his second job.
“He told me if I wanted to take this seriously then I needed to quit my job,” Walsh said. “I was immediately like, ‘What do you mean quit my job? I need to pay rent.'”
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Not sure how it would work out in the end, Walsh took a leap of faith and went all in on The Ski Doctor. Although business was slow to start off, Walsh’s drive and the connections he was steadily able to make throughout the community put his business on an upward trajectory.
“The Summit Daily (article) was the first thing that made me think that this thing could work,” Walsh said. “Business was not going too well the first two years and then I met this guy — Johnathan Buckhouse — who was just starting his YouTube channel.”
The YouTuber quickly rose in popularity and Buckhouse promoted The Ski Doctor in his videos. As a result, Walsh’s clientele grew exponentially, truly jumpstarting the business.
Since then, Walsh has continued to grow The Ski Doctor over the last several years, with this past season being his best yet.
One of the biggest reasons for the influx in business over the last few years is because of his willingness to go to Denver for house calls and booking events with corporations. Walsh has even conveniently renamed Tuesday to “Tunesday” in order to promote him traveling to the Denver area for a day of tunes.
“This is a luxury for a lot of folks,” Walsh said. “I can’t tell you the amount of times people tell me it’s a lifesaver. … The convenience aspect of it has really helped serve people. I love serving. Bringing convenience, joy and time to people.”
Besides serving people conveniently within their homes or their place of work, Walsh is also an artist when it comes to his craft of tuning snowboards and skis. With instruments to properly do the job, Walsh tunes with a keen eye and an attention to detail.
“I have done a lot of tunes in my life and I have served thousands of people,” Walsh said. “…I haven’t changed too many things, I just make sure that I am never lazy with it. Every customer that comes to me, I serve them the same. I focus on one job at a time and I keep my head down.”
Following his best season yet, Walsh is now looking to expand The Ski Doctor even further. One of the biggest things Walsh would like to accomplish in the next year or so is finding someone who would be willing to mentor him through the next steps of his business.
“I am getting to the point where I can’t do this by myself,” Walsh said. “This business can scale a lot more than what it is today. I just got married three weeks ago and I am starting to see the natural pressures of that. I really would love to have some type of mentorship or investment to take it to the next level. It is a good business model. It does really well, but I know it can do a lot better.”
Once Walsh feels stable in his business plan, he says his next agenda item would be to continue to grow the business by branching out beyond the Interstate 70 corridor.
“I have always wanted to be an entrepreneur,” Walsh said. “I am 29 now and I am not an entrepreneur until I build systems. … I want to build a system that can do a lot of volume, serve a lot of people, still continue house calls and scale that. Whether I franchise the idea or I have a fleet of vans in different regions where it would work.”
Based on his expertise in the snowsports industry, Walsh thinks a mobile ski tuning business would do well in cities like Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs and at ski areas like Aspen.
“I really want to build up in the region because Colorado is where I live and where I call home,” Walsh said. “Eventually I want to team up with others or build this system that works and provides a good lifestyle. I don’t know how it will play out, but I really want a cool culture with the company that I end up building,” Walsh said.
To book a ski tune session, visit TheSkiDr.com. To learn more about Walsh, visit his Instagram page at Instagram.com/the_ski_doctor/.
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