Industry News
The Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame recently announced its Class of 2026, inducting five influential figures from Colorado’s snowboarding community: Trent Bush, Jeffrey Grell, Tim and Tracey Canaday, and Chris Pappas. The 2026 Class marks the first time in Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame history that five snowboarders will be inducted in a single year, recognizing the pioneers, innovators, and advocates who helped shape snowboarding in Colorado and beyond.
“Snowboarding has never been just about the person standing on the board,” writes the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame. “It is the product of innovators who built the equipment, entrepreneurs who created an industry, advocates who fought for access, competitors who pushed its boundaries, and mentors who inspired the next generation.”
Each inductee from this year’s class has left a lasting impact on the Colorado snowboarding community. Whether through owning a snowboard shop, designing boards, creating programs to grow the sport, mentoring athletes, organizing competitions, or convincing ski areas to let snowboarders ride, these snowboarders helped create an environment where the sport could grow.
And now, their tireless work in building snowboarding is being recognized with one of Colorado snowsports’ highest honors.
Trent Bush
Throughout the entirety of his career, Trent Bush had been involved in shaping the identity, culture, and history of snowboarding. Growing up in Boulder, Colorado, he began snowboarding in its earliest days before entering the industry as a teenager as an employee at University Hill’s Wave Rave — one of the world’s first snowboard shops. In 1989, he co-founded Twist, whose skateboard-driven approach defined the new school movement snowboarding reflects today. Twist also created Tuesday, the pioneering brand driving access and progression in women’s snowboarding. As the youngest board director at Snowsports Industries America, Bush worked alongside Jake Burton Carpenter to retain snowboarding’s singular culture as it entered the Olympics. He co-created Analog at Burton, then co-founded Section Clothing and Brandbase, home to Technine Nomis and SOUND. He drove apparel innovation at Oakley, Mountain Hardwear, Black Diamond, Spyder, Dakine, his own brand ARTILECT, and YETI, including leading the team behind the 2022 Beijing Olympic uniforms. Bush founded the Colorado Snowboard Archive, serves on the board of the Colorado Snowsports Museum, and champions the pioneers who built snow sports.
Jeffrey Grell
Born in 1958 in New Milford, Connecticut, Jeffrey Grell is a snowboard pioneer, inventor, event producer, and general contractor. After graduating with honors from the University of Massachusetts with a B.S. in Environmental Design, Jeffrey returned to Aspen, Colorado, where he helped gain mountain access for snowboarding and developed his high-back snowboard binding concept. He worked with Sims Snowboards, built snowboard factories in France and Colorado, and became Director of Snowboarding at Aspen Highlands and later Aspen Skiing Company’s first Director of Snowboarding. Jeffrey helped create the Aspen Grand Prix and developed and directed national events including the Professional Snowboard Tour of America, American Pro Snowboard Series, ESPN Freeride Snowboard Tour, and Vans Triple Crown. He later created the Professional Surfing Tour of America. Since moving to South Lake Tahoe in 2016, Jeffrey has continued contracting and snowboarding, sharing more than 700 days on the mountain with Elizabeth Maxcy.
Tim and Tracey Canaday
Tim and Tracey Canaday helped shape Colorado’s snowboarding identity. After discovering the emerging sport in 1982, Tracey and friend Scott Rolfs would go on to found Swift Snowboards in 1983 in Fort Collins, testing their creations in the powder of Berthoud Pass. Tim would build his first snowboard in his high school woodshop class, establishing the Canadays among Colorado’s earliest snowboard manufacturers. In 1991, the brothers launched Never Summer Industries, building on those early lessons to create one of the world’s most respected independent snowboard brands. From their Denver factory, the Canadays championed hand-built craftsmanship, domestic manufacturing, and rider-focused innovation. Never Summer pioneered technologies including a patented rocker-camber profile and helped popularize P-Tex sidewalls. The company also supported other independent Colorado manufacturers, strengthening the state’s snow sports industry.
Chris Pappas
Chris Pappas has helped shape modern snowboarding through more than 45 years of innovation, leadership, and dedication to the sport. One of Colorado’s earliest snowboard pioneers, he embraced snowboarding in its infancy, hiking Berthoud and Loveland passes in the early 1980s in search of powder when riders were still prohibited from using ski lifts. As a competitor, instructor, and ambassador, Pappas helped expand opportunities for snowboarders by establishing instruction programs, competitions, and organized teams while advocating for acceptance at ski areas throughout Colorado and beyond. Pappas was the first snowboard instructor at Jackson Hole, founding the program for future generations. His groundbreaking riding, including the first documented snowboard descent of Jackson Hole’s Corbet’s Couloir and the world’s first to land an inverted aerial in a halfpipe, helped redefine what was possible on a snowboard. His greatest legacy may be the riders he has mentored, including Olympic medalists J.J. Thomas and Red Gerard, as well as countless others. Through coaching and inspiration, Pappas continues to shape the future of snowboarding.
Boulder Roots
With four of the five inductees holding connections to Boulder, the city’s impact on the snowsports industry has been immense. While it may sit in Colorado’s foothills rather than the high peaks, Boulder’s culture, academics, and proximity to major ski resorts have bred some of skiing and snowboarding’s leading figures.
The inductees with connections to Boulder include Bush,
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One More Inductee
In addition to the five snowboarders, the Colorado Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame is inducting another key figure in the Colorado snowsports scene: Alan Henceroth, the longtime leader of Arapahoe Basin Ski Area. Henceroth has been working at Arapahoe Basin for nearly 40 years, beginning in 1988 as the director of ski patrol. In 1998, he became the resort’s director of operations before being promoted to chief operating officer in 2005. Since becoming COO, Henceroth has overseen dozens of major projects at A-Basin, including massive terrain expansions with the Montezuma Bowl and Steep Gullies, as well as infrastructure upgrades like the high-speed six-seater Lenawee Mountain lift.
Celebrating the Class of 2026
It would not be a proper Hall of Fame induction without celebrating the new members. The 2026 Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame Celebration will take place Saturday, October 10, 2026, at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek. The evening will honor the six Hall of Fame inductees and the recipients of the Hall of Fame’s annual awards.
The Hall of Fame’s annual awards include:
- Top of the Hill Award: Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Ron Mooney
- Adaptive Athlete of the Year: Noah Elliott
- Mikaela Shiffrin Colorado Competitor of the Year: Alex Ferreira
- Collegiate Athletes of the Year: Louison Accambray and Fabio Allasina of the University of Colorado
“Congratulations to the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame Class of 2026,” said Colorado Snowsports Museum Board of Directors member Marty Carrigan. “It’s a legendary group, and it’s a great reflection of the people who have shaped Colorado snow sports.”
With the induction of the Class of 2026, the Colorado Snowsports Hall of Fame gains five legends in the Colorado snowboarding community, as well as a leader of one of North America’s most famous ski resorts. From Grell’s Hybak binding to the Canadays’ handcrafted boards, from Pappas’ fight to open ski areas to snowboarders to Bush’s work building the culture and industry around the sport, the history represented by this year’s honorees is a reminder that snowboarding’s evolution has always been bigger than any one athlete. And now, their legacies will forever be cemented in Colorado’s snowsports.
Tickets for the ceremony begin at $75, with proceeds supporting the Colorado Snowsports Museum, Colorado’s official snow sports museum.
