On the heels of a taking over ownership of the US-based Alpina Sports Corp, Frank Thibodeau, ASC’s president & CEO, told BOSS that his company has expanded its distribution into Canada. Heading the Canadian sales team will be Mike Doble, national sales manager who joined Alpina Sports Canada from a similar position at Roces just three months ago.

Thibodeau told BOSS he is expecting sales at ASC to increase by about one-third with the new distribution. ASC currently distributes several brands in the U.S., including Alpina, Rottefella, Crispi, and Madshus. ASC-Canada will distribute many of the same brands north of the border, but Madshus will remain under K2 Sports – Canada.

Globally, the three brands-Madshus, Alpina, and Rottefella-are collaborating through a combination of joint distribution agreements, marketing partnerships, and brand and product development initiatives.

“After I took over ASC, we planned on keeping the helm steady, and not changing much,” Thibodeau told BOSS. “Then, the Slovenian owners came to me expressing interest in consolidating their North American distribution. ‘We want you to be our broom,’ they said.”

According to Thibodeau, assembling the sales force was a lot of work, but hiring Doble as the Canadian NSM was a key step. “I ran into Doble at ISPO literally 20-minutes after I finalized everything with the owners-so it was just a great streak of luck,” Thibodeau said.

“Mike’s first duty was to pull together a team that really knows about cross country and Nordic. Previously, there were a lot of Alpine reps that jus didn’t have the passion for these niche sports,” said Thibodeau. “Now we can put the focus on the Nordic sports, where the brands’ histories originate.”

In his short tenure with the company to date, Doble has already assembled a full sales team and managed to convince the entire Canadian national team to use ASC products for the season.

All personnel, except for Doble and the Canadian sales reps, will remain at ASC’s U.S. headquarters and all dealer support and customer service will be directed to the same location. There will be no changes for ASC’s U.S. customers.

On a separate note, Thibodeau said that ASC will be launching a new program for their dealers, called ‘Summit Dealer.’ The initiative is designed to reward the retailers who choose to partner with ASC and buy-in to the company’s brands. In return, Thibodeau said that ASC offers “extraordinary terms.”