Our head designer, co-founder and all-round legend Rob Whittall sits down with Brendan from The Kiteboarder Magazine to reminisce the old days and reveal how the early beginnings of Ozone came about. Through hard work, a ton of testing, a fair amount of fun, mixed with sheer perseverance, Ozone continues to flourish and innovate the sport.
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As designer Rob Whittall jokingly points out, new companies are often formed by a pissed-off band of disgruntled employees or more specifically in Ozone’s case, a team of semi-disgruntled employees who passionately believe they have a better vision for the sport.
Quitting their paragliding jobs in 1998, Rob along with David Pilkington and Mike Cavanagh started Ozone Paragliding and quickly became one of the most innovative brands in that industry. Like all the other Ozone founders, Rob got his start in paragliding at an early age. Having grown up in Leeds in the UK, he recalls his dad purchasing him hang gliding lessons to keep him away from the dangers of dirt bikes. Rob gravitated towards hang gliding competition, eventually nabbing British titles and then a world championship. In air sports, competing, testing and product development are tied hand in hand. As Rob likes to say,
“If you put a monkey on the shoulders of a computer designer for long enough he will eventually pick it up.”
Check out the full article by subscribing to The Kiteboarder Magazine and find out how it all began.
