DaleBoot is a ski and snowboard brand founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1969.
The first DaleBoot had a hinged shell made of magnesium. It went into production in Salt Lake City in 1969, two years after Mel Dalebout poured liquid latex into a fiberglass shell to take a cast of his own foot. He was a University of Utah football player whose friends took him up Alta's Peruvian Ridge in 1947. In 1975 a patent infringement judgment against Italian boot factories paid for molds for a plastic boot.
Rob Graham, a former pro skier DaleBoot once sponsored, bought the company in 2007. Every boot still starts with a foot measurement. If one foot is longer or wider, sales manager Michael Sheets told CompanyWeek, that shell gets made longer or wider. Anything plastic is made in Utah, and the liners come from Intuition in Vancouver.
It is a small shop, with 15 employees in 2021 by CompanyWeek's count, and Sheets put the return rate at about 3 percent.
Skiing is seasonal, and the plastic work is not. Zions Bank reports that DaleBoot's North Salt Lake plant makes plastic devices for knee and hip replacement surgeries year round. Between the two product lines, the company has most of a skier's lower body covered.
During the initial COVID-19 outbreak DaleBoot made thousands of face shields for hospitals and school systems, which let it keep 100 percent of its staff employed.
Everyone I ski with who wears DaleBoots raves about them. Fun that they're right here in Millcreek.
Alex
