Meet the Competitors:

Name: Ron Rod School: Colorado State University Colorado transplant Ron Rod is an avid tele skier and lightweight backpacker. As a designer, Rod specializes in incorporating fine-tuned function into his garments, and personally wear-tests all prototypes as a method of working out the kinks and/or discovering areas for improvement in functionality or fit. Rod is scheduled to graduate in December 2010, and plans to work somewhere he can use the gear that he designs on his various outdoor exploits.
Name: Lucy Brooks School: Fashion Institute of Technology A self-proclaimed small town girl, Brooks grew up just hours away from the mountains in Somers, Conn. With ski enthusiasts as parents, Brooks spent most of her growing up years on the slopes, ultimately choosing snowboarding as her sport of passion. “The active outerwear industry amazes me; it’s always changing and reinventing itself with new technology in fabrics and design. It is an industry growing with no boundaries and one that I can't wait to be in the heart of.” Brooks officially declared her specialization in active sportswear during her senior year of pursuing a degree in fashion design.
Name: Stephanie Sandstrom School: California College of the Arts Stephanie Sandstrom, a Portland native, looks forward to investigating the possibility of pairing fashion and industrial fabrics while participating in Project OR. Winner of multiple design-focused awards and opportunities throughout her time at CCA, Sandstrom’s graphic design foundation drives her attention to detail and high level of aesthetics. Sandstrom is a senior on track to graduate in May 2009.
Name: Luba Lowry School: Savannah College of Art and Design Born in the city of Tsar and exiled to Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, Luba Lowry has been designing and sewing clothing since she was nine years old. Winning the city’s “Miss Beauty” contest at age 17, in which her talent was to design and sew a dress for each contestant, allowed her to travel outside her hometown, and live briefly in Turkey, Russia, Germany, Dubai and finally the United States.
Name: Curt Sousa School: The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM) Born and raised in the New England area, Curt Sousa’s interest in the creative arts and marine biology lead him to complete a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences before attending The Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (FIDM). Sousa aspires to blend science and fashion, as much of his inspiration comes from nature. His ultimate goal is to have his own design house with men’s and women’s lines.

Meet the Panel of Judges:

Neide Cooley Neide Cooley is an independent design and merchandising consultant and has worked within the outdoor industry for over twenty years in multiple leadership capacities. Her resume includes positions as an apparel designer, research director and journalist with organizations such as Salomon Sport S.A., Outdoor Retailer magazine and Skiing Trade News. Prior to her most recent entry into independent consulting, Cooley was the director of apparel design and merchandising at Marmot Mountain Ltd., where she oversaw the conceptualization, design and development of all apparel. She also previously owned an independent sales agency within the outdoor, ski and action sports industries and served as OIWC’s president from 2001-2005.
Skip Yowell Nothing says, Skip Yowell, like the great outdoors. Skip along with two other colleagues founded JanSport in 1967, forty years ago, while in search of the perfect hiking pack. What began as a passion for climbing and hiking turned into the number one selling day pack in the world. But Skip’s innovative ideas did not end there; he is also credited with creating the first dome tent, waist-suspension flexible frame pack, travel pack, and the panel-load daypack. Keeping with his drive to inform young people about the beauty of outdoors Skip currently serves on the board of the Outdoor Industry Association and the Big City Mountaineers. OIA is a trade organization that creates opportunities to promote the outdoors in a positive way and Big City Mountaineers is a non-profit organization that encourages under privileged youth to better their lives through the magnificence of nature.
Alan Yiu Creative Director / Founder, Westcomb Outerwear, Inc.
Luke Pezzimento VP Design/ Development, Ground LLC Luke Pezzimenti co-founded ground in 2003 and has been the VP of product design and development there ever since. Instrumental in conceiving brand identity and product design rules, he has designed nearly every style in the brands line including all categories of technical apparel; alpine, ski and snowboard hard and soft shells, down and synthetic insulated pieces, fleece, base layers and sportswear. In addition he executes all equipment and accessory designs including backpacks, luggage, tents and gloves. All ground designs are charaterized by being technically correct and visually unique, usually incorporating some element of asymmetry. His 16 years of experience began at The North Face designing ski and snowboard specic technical climbing packs, luggage, day packs adventure travel packs and sleeping bags. Designs were dened by functional features and the development of proprietary fabrics and trims. At TNF he led special make-up development for the US Marines and Navy Seals; packs, sleeping bags, tents and protective outerwear. He also initiated computer generated specication packages and measurement standards for all divisions of TNF RD&D. He then was the Equipment Product Manager at Sierra Designs. Over the four years that followed he did contract design work for clients including; Nike, Patagonia, Mountain Hardwear, Gregory and Converse. Other projects included scuba equipment and accessories and full body safety harnesses. He has received several design awards and accolades from a variety of publications including features in Outside Magazine’s Gear of The Year, Hooked on the Outdoors Real Deal Award, ID magaize’s Annual Design Review and two Apex Awards.
Pam Theodosakis Co-founder, prAna
Renee L’Abbe Director, Promostyl
Ted Ganio VP, Mountain Hardwear