Silent and soft, a newly fallen snow has blanketed the mountains in a pristine, unbroken expanse of glittery white. It’s a “powder day” in the Colorado Rockies and Travis Halverson is celebrating.
An avid skier since the age of three, Halverson calls powder skiing a “truly pure and wholesome form of skiing—just nice soft turns and enjoying time in the mountains.”
“The thing that makes powder skiing so special is the fact that there is nothing artificial about it,” Halverson said. “It can’t be manufactured or re-created.”
A 2009 graduate from the University of Minnesota and currently an intern at Rocky Mountain Underground Skis in Summit County, Colorado, Halverson has found materials science and engineering to be an effective conduit for turning his life’s passion into his life’s work. He said he first made the connection between skiing and materials science in high school, when he was dissatisfied with the performance and durability of his skis.
“I had several experiences of skis falling apart and a company’s not changing anything about its manufacturing process to correct for the problem. That’s when I began to become interested in ski construction,” he recalled. When looking through a book of college majors, he said materials science caught his eye because “part of the description included work with ski design and construction.”
“I have always been fascinated by how and why things work the way they do,” Halverson continued. “I felt that an education in materials science would allow me to better understand what makes a ski perform the way it does.”
Halverson recounted his professional journey from the lift to the laboratory in his “TMS, MSE & Me” video contest entry and ended up winning first place for his story.
Read more in the April issue of JOM.