Othello Clark
SELF-MADE MAN

When you're a six-foot-one, dreadlocked black man hucking cliffs, backflipping off kickers, and generally spreading snowboard sickness in the rarefied atmosphere of that country club known as Aspen, Colorado, you get noticed. And if you're Othello Clark, 33, you've staked your livelihood on just that. It was your looks and skills that prompted Good Morning America to handpick you for "A Day in the Life of a Snowboarder" in 1996. Which made the industry types swoon and landed you sponsorships from Arbor and Smith, among others. And it was your gregarious personality that led a local couple to pay you to teach their son "how to skate and be cool." Which gave you the idea to open a skateboarding camp and make other kids cool. Which led you to open Othello's Sk8 Shop in 2000. Which inspired Aspen Skiing Company to give you your own rail park on top of Ajax Mountain; they knew you'd pump life into the snowboard scene. And then there's the fact that you're an X Games host. And you live in Maui part of the year. What do you think about all this? "I am truly blessed. But I'm still your average Joe. When I've got ten bucks, I put six-forty in the gas tank."

ADVICE? "I've tried my whole life to make my career something I love. Don't give up. Anything is possible."
—GORDY MEGROZ

Dana Williams
MOUNTAIN-TOWN MAYOR

Former SoCal skate rat Williams took office as the mayor of skitopian Park City, Utah, in January 2002, three weeks before the Winter Olympics. He was soon rubbing elbows with international ambassadors. "I used to work in bars, and here I was having dinner with the king of Norway," says the 52-year-old. "I still get up every morning and go, I'm the frickin' mayor. How cool is this?" Williams, who grew up skating in drained pools and hanging in the same circles as Stacey Peralta and the kids you know from Dogtown and Z-Boys, moved to Park City in 1978. There, he farmed alfalfa for years and got involved in local politics, working on projects like Utah's first land trust. In 2000, Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson encouraged him to run for office. In '02, he won. In '06, he was reelected, unopposed. During his five-year tenure, he's built a 35,000-square-foot outdoor skate park, helped Park City earn a green-power award from the EPA, and established conservation easements on 7,000 acres around the city limits. Yet he never misses Wednesday-night practice with the Motherlode Canyon Band, with whom he plays roughly 65 concerts a year. One caveat: With a salary of only $21,000, His Honor still moonlights as a real estate broker: "Just being a mayor is a good way to stay broke," he says.

ADVICE? "Try to maintain an open mind. And have the support of your family."
—MEGAN MICHELSON

Chris Davenport
PRO FREESKIER

Some people collect rocks; Davenport collects mountains. The first person to ski all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-plus peaks in one year (see skithe14ers.com) and winner of numerous extreme-skiing championships and events, Davenport has managed to turn questionably sane snow antics into a very lucrative vocation. "I'm really lucky," says the 35-year-old, who supplements his alpine gig by commentating at the X Games and World Cup events and even doing a little motivational speaking. Next on the agenda is knocking out California's 15 fourteeners, plus Washington's Mount Rainier, in short order. A childhood spent banging gates in New Hampshire made him a top racer at the University of Colorado in the mid-nineties, but the burgeoning freeskiing scene lured him away. Today, he lives in Aspen with his ski-patroller wife and their two groms/sons. "Not letting my career blow up has been one of my greatest achievements," he says. You mean implode, bro. Believe us, you're definitely blowing up.

ADVICE? "It takes hard work and good timing. This means dedicating a good part of your life to the sport, both as a lifestyle and as an activity. Only the most dedicated go on to success."
—PHILIP ARMOUR

Rob DesLauriers
SKI-VILLAGE REALTOR

Last October, before becoming one of the first Americans to ski from the summit of Everest, Rob DesLauriers, owner of Jackson, Wyoming–based Teton Village Realty, sold two pieces of property on a satellite phone at Base Camp. "Dealing with clients, you have to be available anytime, all the time," he says, "but you can certainly answer your cell phone on a chairlift." DesLauriers, 42, used to live out of his van in Tahoe; now he owns a two-million-dollar home at the base of Jackson Hole with his wife, Kit, a professional skier. How'd he make the leap from mogul skier to real estate mogul? In 1994, as a ski-camp coach at Grand Targhee, he was asked by a client to help develop a condominium hotel, the Teton Mountain Lodge. Around nine years later, armed with a real estate license and a degree from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration, he started his company. But the job isn't all powder days and honking paychecks. "There's no job security, and there are no benefits except your free time," he says. "You could have no deals for six months, then sell a $5 million house and make $50,000. But you might be eating ramen noodles for three months before that."

ADVICE? "Don't expect it to be easy. It's a lot of follow-up and outreach. Sometimes it'll take two years working with a client to make a deal."
—MEGAN MICHELSON