Klaus F. Obermeyer was only three years old when he created his first pair of skis out of chestnut slats from an orange crate at his boyhood home in the German Alps. It was the 1920s, and he nailed his house shoes to the makeshift skis and was off to create history in the skiing world.

Born on December 2, 1919, the life of Obermeyer has been a storied one. It’s included watching Aspen turn into the world-class resort it is today and revolutionizing the ski clothing industry – but long before that, it meant fleeing Nazi soldiers on skis.

Throughout the early days of World War II, Obermeyer had witnessed Nazi troops protecting an alpine border between Switzerland and Austria. One day, however, they were nowhere to be seen. Klaus took the opportunity to cross the border to ski a route he wanted to try. His plans changed, however, when he turned a corner of the route to encounter German soldiers protecting the Austrian border. Klaus said that he jumped around them, skiing straight down the steep mountain as gunshots rang out behind him. A bullet flew into his backpack, hitting the metal pipe frame.

Fortunately, Obermeyer was able to make it to a hospital, checking in under a different name out of fear the Nazis were looking for him. A nurse helped him get treatment from a non-Nazi physician and, luckily for the ski industry, Klaus survived the frightening encounter.

RELATED SOURCE: Check out Obermeyer’s full account of the scary incident on The Powell Movement podcast here.

Born in Oberstaufen, Germany at a remote farm in the small Bavarian village, Obermeyer traveled to the United States in 1947. He ended up in Aspen and became a ski school instructor. He taught ski school with his good friend Friedl Pfeifer, one of the founders of Aspen Ski Resort, for $10 a day.

It was this job that inspired Obermeyer to create innovative improvements to ski gear with the goal of making “skiing safer and more fun.”

When Klaus discovered the lack of warm apparel skiers had to wear on the mountains, he crafted a down ski parka out of a comforter his mom had given him for his trip to the United States. One of Klaus’s students saw the jacket and asked if he could try it. He took a run with the jacket and paid Klaus $250 for it – Klaus’s first sale and quite a bit of money at the time, the equivalent of more than $3,500.

Obermeyer went back to Germany and worked with a friend employed at a bedding factory to make parkas. According to the Aspen Hall of Fame, he returned to the U.S. to patent the first ski boot with a plastic outer shell.

Another invention of Obermeyer’s is the ski brake, responsible for keeping your skis where you leave them and stopping them from sliding down the mountain without you – now required at nearly every resort. According to the Obermeyer website, the first prototype of the invention is still sitting on Klaus’s desk in his Aspen office. Obermeyer also created Sportan Sunscreen, a sunscreen to protect skiers from the harsh UV rays found at the altitudes of Aspen Ski Resort.

Klaus recently celebrated his 106th birthday on Dec. 2, 2025. With an impressive list of product innovations and industry awards, he lives at his ranch on the Roaring Fork River, still coming into the office, swimming a half mile every day, and skiing on occasion.

Thanks to his list of influential contributions to the ski industry and continued passion and optimism, Klaus remains a prominent figure in skiing history today.

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