333 Skis Interview
Michael Lish’s website says “We build skis for a working person’s wage.” That’s the tip of the iceberg. His ski factory is actually a small trailer built of recycled materials running on solar power off the grid. He pulls the factory behind his truck to wherever he decides to setup shop that day. The factory, tools, process and reason behind it all is as unique and creative as the guy with the mohawk driving it.We met up with him in the California desert to get his perspective.
What’s up with living in the desert?
I live on the fringe, it’s just in my nature, I just don’t run mainstream. I’ve lived my life driven by philosophy and designing things. Right now I live with my wife and daughter in Olancha, California. It’s between Los Angeles and Mammoth with a population of only 300. We were looking for property we could buy outright to raise our daughter.
What’s the facts on this place?
It’s a wide open desert space, with a beautiful view of high altitude deserts. It’s a real vulnerable environment with high winds, and is over 100 degrees in the summer. We’ve got 40 acres with water under us for the well and we’re totally off the grid, all our power comes from a small solar panel. I built the house highly efficient and we actually do have cell service. We live in a house I built entirely of recycled materials, plus there’s four 40’ long corrugated steel cargo containers converted into other buildings for storage and working on things. My wife has a whole fabrication metal art sculpture studio. I collect anything people are throwing out that could be used in the future to make something else. The stuff is spread all over the property so it looks like a military transport plane crashed and spilled all over, haha.
What do you gain living this way?
The way the brain works the more experiences a person has, the more connected that brain is. We thought about what we would like our child’s brain to connect with; nature, creativity and business. So we started thinking about all the environments our child would get the greatest amount of connectivity. Initially it was a family thing, me making skis in half the shop, my wife making sculptures and daughter doing home schooling. I’m just so different, for better or worst, we could approach life different and be effective and good at it.
Why did you build a portable ski factory?
The whole thing started by education, we wanted our daughter to be educated in a community. Even with the small population here, we did have an amazing school & teacher, but then the town decided to close it. We fought to keep the school open but lost. So we’ve been home schooling. It’s worked out great but we needed to supplement her education with her being part of a community. I knew the community at Mammoth and thought, gosh if I could drive up my trailer to Mammoth with her and find a place to park it, hang out in the trailer and make enough money to feed us while she can hang out there to gain the community aspect. I figured I’d make 3 skis a week and that’s all we need.
Why not just rent a space in Mammoth?
We couldn’t afford the rent in Mammoth, I have no credit, I’m from the underground. I said to myself, I’m going to figure out how to do this thing in a trailer. You wouldn’t think you can make skis in a trailer, but thought, maybe I can, and maybe I can make the whole thing out of recycled stuff.
Why build skis in the first place?
I’ve been making snowboards forever so figured I could learn how to make and sell skis. Once I learned how and got good at it, I realized I could sell a lot of skis so we notched it up and ended up selling a lot of skis. We have an apprenticeship program too. People from all over the world can learn how to do this. It’s all been about education, for my daughter initially and now other people. You can come in for a 6 week, 60 hour/week intensive program and learn the process and go back home and setup your own portable factory.
What did you do prior to all this?
Mid 80’s I had a karate studio, and one of my students owned Ski Tote and Shark Freestyle Watches. He went to Europe one time and came back with a bunch of monoskis telling me I’ve got to try this thing. I was like, what the hell is this??! I never saw a monoski before that. This was years before snowboarding was ever heard of. So me and my buddy skied them at Jackson falling all over, slamming & crashing on our hips, but loving it.
How did that lead to building skis?
My mom was asking me one day, “what are you doing?” And I said I don’t know and she asked what do you think of this monoski thing. So we call this guy Bill Bhane who makes Bhane monoskis and for $8,000 he said he’d teach us everything about how to make them. I spent like 3 months with him. It was deep in presses, resins, it took time to explain everything. Then we come across this guy in Sun Valley, Idaho with a brand, Black Smoke Skis and is failing making monoskis. My mom goes there with me and starts chiseling him down to the lowest price to buy his whole factory. We bought the equipment, stuffed it in the biggest U-Haul you can get, and drove it home.
Seriously?!
We brought it all back to Canoga Park, California. We didn’t know anything and unpacked it and slowly figured out how to make monoskis. So we start Yama Monoskis, named after my mom’s mother’s maiden name Yamaguchi and yama means mountain in Japanese.
Why build monoskis?
We’re making monoskis because it was getting huge in France and Europe, it was like nothing else at the time. This was before snowboarding made any type of entrance. I can do shit on a monoski that people in this world still can’t do, I could drag my shoulder and ride it like you’ve never seen. It was just too intense though which made it great, but people didn’t want them and around that time snowboarding was picking up so I began building custom snowboards for people too.
What snowboards were you building?
Lots of people wanted to make snowboards so I started training crews to build them and they started companies like 5150, Joyride, Arbor, and tons of other small companies. But as they emerged the big companies got bigger and some smaller companies died off, snowboarding just couldn’t sustain them. Eventually I had gone to China twice and helped setup factories there too, I actually had to cut my mohawk off because they thought the communist government wouldn’t let me in.
Why did you stop making snowboards?
I just didn’t think I could compete in snowboarding anymore, prices were dropping and spending too much time outside family and inside of a factory was a problem. For so many years all I knew was making snowboards so I was thinking is there a way to make this work with the family. I thought maybe I could afford to buy some land in Olancha. We could move there, living in a trailer in the desert. I was able to afford to buy the land outright and eventually built the house. I gave the whole factory away to a guy named Chad who is still making Coda monoboards.
Holy backstory!
Getting back to today, what drives people to buy your skis?
People are interested in looking for alternatives, they’re just interested. At the end of day what drives people to us is design, people being able to sit down and design something they are going to own. When we as human beings design things its very compelling. In stores you know what you’re going to get, but to design things involves risk, education and a lot more. People come to us and say, “I want to try this, I want to design my skis”. So at the end of day if the skis work well and they had wonderful experience and the price is good, then hey, that’s good! Not everyone is interested but certainly enough people are saying that’s cool.
Where did the 333 name come from?
I didn’t want to name it “custom” because custom sounds high priced. I read a book about keeping it simple, so originally I figured I’d ask the customer 3 questions, put in about 3 hrs of work and needed to sell them for around $300. So a guy said why not $333 and there’s the name. We build skis for a working person’s wage.
Why live off the grid?
When you live on the grid, you have to be close enough to plug in. When I wake up and I look out, I’m in the forest or the desert, and I’m excited there is no plug there. When we’re hanging out parked by a river and people pull up, they say, “what is this thing?” They’re not going to drive up to an industrial factory at all. It’s pretty cool, we’re hanging out in some bitching real estate. A hill side, a beautiful countryside, wherever we park our trailer I’m always saying man, there’s no way anyone would setup a factory here. We drive this trailer to some really beautiful places. I was in a factory for years previously, florescent lights, dark places, I know the other option. So when I wake up and see the sun & nature it’s incredible.
Is this lifestyle for the challenge or because of a lack of money?
There is the challenge but most importantly and of course we’re trying to not spend money. If I buy a door it just looks like a door. If I’ve got to make a door, then it naturally looks so cool. You end up thinking differently. My daughter finds a horseshoe and brings it home and I say, hey we can use that as a door knob. That wonderful experience of making a door knob, for a door that you also made of something else, and have it actually look cool is priceless. Now your mind is in a different frame, you’re not thinking about Obama, you’re thinking about a door knob.
Why is it all worth it?
Why? I don’t know, I didn’t design human beings. I do know that it’s a cool day at the end of my day, it’s a bitchin day! We do live like this because it’s interesting and engaging and compelling. We’re all like wow this is a great experience. Whatever energy we expend people are stoked to give it back. It translates into orders and business but also translates into support. People step up and say we want to see you succeed, and someone comes up and says hey thanks man! And people thinking gosh I might want to do that. This whole thing is predicated on education and our love to help others learn from what we’ve learned. We’re living a pretty cool life. We’re living a life that satisfies.
Order yourself a pair. . . 333skis.com
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