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   Mark Heingartner first tried a snowboard at Sugarbush in 1978, long before making Southern Vermont his home. The Heingartner family, with Chuck and Keith. at the helm, operated Kinney Motors in Rutland which sponsored several of the first US Opens. Mark Heingartner first visited the Londonderry factory with a gift certificate for Carpenter’s Safari program. "Jake would bring you out back hill riding,” Mark Heingartner recalled in 2017,” that was one of his angles of getting people out on the snow. Shortly thereafter, I started hanging out with him ... I was kind of like the little brother and he started bringing me out riding." [i] Heingartner brought a love of skateboarding and surfing to the snow, "so I took to it straight away and really liked it early on, I was one of his go-to guy to go riding with."[ii] Jason Ford was skiing at Stratton and remembered "sitting on a chair lift on Suntanner and seeing Mark Heingartner, didn't know him at the time, riding down on Suntanner, hitting those rollers and doing airs, I thought it was the coolest thing ever."[iii]


[i] Heingartner

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Interview with Jason Ford August 2017