For the better part of a decade, Josh Bennett was a tech working on skis made by other people. Then, in 2007, he decided to make a pair for himself.

“I’ve always been interested in how skis are made,” Bennett says. “I knew that if things went well [building my own] I wanted to start a ski company.”

Bennett crafted a pair of all-mountain twin tips to ride the vast and varied terrain in his Tahoe backyard. That pair led to Slant Skis, Bennett’s Truckee-based boutique ski company with an environmental conscience.