Photo: @steven_kornreich // @usskiteam

After taking a COVID hiatus, NorAms returned earlier this season. From their November kickoff in Colorado, the competitions headed north to Canada and will return to the States in February. With the series comes the return of the highest level of competition on this continent, to both showcase talent and provide a path for North Americans to step up to the big leagues.

Missing the NorAms last year made it extremely difficult for athletes hoping to move forward, either by gaining competitive experience or by lowering their world rank domestically. As Chip Knight, Alpine Development Director at US Ski and Snowboard explains, “We didn’t have that layer of competition that provides the integrity of head-to-head competition.”

This season, the NorAm tour is back in full swing, complete with the first-ever title sponsor for the U.S. events. HomeLight is expanding their partnership with U.S. Ski and Snowboard, sponsoring the HomeLight Foundation Series aimed at creating opportunities for emerging athletes. The Foundation Series events include the U.S. leg of the FIS Alpine and Freestyle NorAms as well as the three events of U.S. Revolution “Rev” Tour for freeski and snowboard halfpipe, slopestyle, and big air.

Bringing the competition home

Anyone who tuned into the domestic World Cup races is no doubt familiar with HomeLight. Since 2019, the real estate technology platform — founded in San Francisco, Calif. — has been the title sponsor of the HomeLight Killington Cup Women’s World Cup event on Thanksgiving weekend.

This season, in addition to sponsoring the ten events that comprise The Foundation Series, USSS athletes Paula Moltzan, 2018 Olympic gold medalist Red Gerard, and retired 2006 and 2014 gold medalist Ted Ligety, will wear the HomeLight logo as their headgear sponsors. By infusing support throughout the ski racing ecosystem, the company, whose aim is to make the process of buying and selling a home “simple, certain and satisfying,” is also becoming instrumental in building American ski racers.

The skiing connection

HomeLight has ski racing in its DNA. Several of its principals grew up ski racing, and its avid-skier employees vote to name their conference rooms — in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and New York — after favorite ski runs and resorts. John Van Slyke, III, HomeLight’s Senior Vice President of Growth, notes many natural connections between their company and their support of ski racing, specifically through The Foundation Series. 

“When you’re looking at a home, you buy one with a great foundation, with great bones,“ says Van Slyke. Similarly, NorAm level competitions are the solid foundation on which a ski racer’s athletic career is built. “That experience, that passion, that commitment, that dedication—it should lay the foundation for what they build the rest of their lives upon.”

While HomeLight’s business model focuses on building and supporting world-class teams in real estate, its NorAm-through-World Cup level support also aligns the company’s values with the individual journeys of athletes like Moltzan. For her, the connection is profound. Moltzan’s early exposure to the higher level racing at NorAms led to her becoming 2015 World Junior Champion. Later, as a college racer, and 2017 NCAA slalom champion, NorAms helped her keep her FIS points competitive so she could qualify for a World Cup spot at Killington. That one event, only accessible to her because of the extra start spots available to the host country, served as her springboard to the World Cup tour, a spectacular return to the US Ski Team, and to becoming a top contender in both tech events.  

Of her comeback, Moltzan says simply, “I don’t think it would have been possible actually, without the HomeLight Killington Cup.” Moltzan’s unconventional path illustrates the critical role Foundation Series events play for athletes at multiple stages of development: First, as young athletes getting their first taste of peer level national competition; then as established juniors vying for spots at the World Junior Championships and competing against national team athletes; and finally, for national team level athletes earning World Cup starts and better start numbers.

Moltzan calls NorAm competitions a pivotal point in every ski racer’s career. “Without those, a lot of American skiers wouldn’t be in any European races.” The extra starting spots and the accessibility of a domestic World Cup create opportunities that facilitate comebacks, like Moltzan’s, and also offer exposure that ushers in emerging talent.

Van Slyke sees Moltzan’s spirit reflected in HomeLight’s company values. “I love that Paula never gave up,” says Van Slyke. “She had a dream, had a passion that stayed with her. She walked away from it and then came back.” The struggle is a familiar one in business. “Startups are hard work and they’re a labor of love,” says Van Slyke. “Some days you feel like you’re on top of the world and some days you feel like you’re under it, and you have to keep that same level of commitment and vision going.”

A corporate culture that works and plays

HomeLight’s in-house motto is “Work hard, ski hard,” which, as Van Slyke explains, translates into a holistic, healthy work ethic. “We want our team to have a passion beyond just work or beyond the mundane day-to-day, things that they really dive into, that bring them joy and peace and pleasure.”

Moltzan, recently engaged to Ryan Mooney, who travels with her full-time as her tech, thrives on that work/life balance. While on the road all season training and competing, the two are planning a wedding, and on buying their first home. Moltzan plans to explore using HomeLight when they’re ready to embark on the process. 

Her approach echoes the message about aiming high while staying grounded. “I’m just in awe of how Paula was able to marry those two things together,” says Van Slyke.

Boots on the ground

In tangible terms. HomeLight’s sponsorship helps USSS pay for the effort and materials it takes to create the high-level competitions that are standard at US NorAm venues. That includes everything from rock-hard injected surfaces that are challenging and fair, to the highest level of safety equipment and timing, to premium gates and bibs. USSS snow surfaces savant Trevor Wagner and technical advisers on site work together to bring the NorAm venues as close as possible to World Cup quality in terms of slope, safety and surface preparation.  

In February, the HomeLight Foundation Series will return to the states in Burke, Vt., for the men, and in Lake Placid, NY, for the women, before wrapping up in March, in Sugarloaf, ME. As Knight says simply, “This year it is so awesome to have them back!”