Brad Vancour

Brad Vancour (born Magog, Quebec) grew up skiing and competing with the legendary Quebec Air Force and Acrobatic Freestyle Team, (with Lloyd Langlois and Jean-Marc Rozon), who won multiple World Championships and Olympic Medals in the 1970's and 80's. After many years of success and podiums in Freestyle and Ski Racing, the confines of competition didn’t suit Brad’s real passion: that of the extreme challenge of Big Mountain skiing, on the world’s most demanding terrain. In 1986, after graduating from Bishop's University (BA Economics), Brad moved west to Whistler, BC and quickly became a principal lead skier and poster boy for Warren Miller Entertainment [WME] Ski Films.

‘Rad’ Brad starred in over 10 Warren Miller Films, starting in 1987 with the release of White Magic, establishing himself as one of the original pioneering New Schoolers of Extreme - fast becoming a well known Canadian Ski Ambassador around the globe. As the 1st Canadian freeskier to be sponsored by US companies (North Face, Scott USA and Salomon’s featured rep in introducing their revolutionary Monocoque Force9 skis), he also conceived and designed his own successful signature Natlacen/ Vancour-Tech ski clothing line. Brad and his peers (Scot Schmidt, Glen Plake, Mike Hattrup) were heroes of an entire generation, having traveled and filmed in all corners of the globe, in many places no one had yet dreamed of skiing.

These adventures and expeditions included multiple first descents in remote locations, and ground breaking ski trips to Russia’s Caucuses, India’s Himalayas and China’s Manchurians Mountain Range, resulting in 2 additional WME documentaries ("Extreme Skiing" and "Destination India").

Over the span of a 15-year near injury-free ski career, Brad was a veteran of 17 ski movie sequences, (including 4 VHS covers and Ski Film Posters for WME Films) and over 50 international magazine covers. During this period, Brad was highly regarded by his sponsors and contemporaries as one of the sports ‘best all around skiers’, and, coupled with his technical skills in freestyle and aerials, established himself further as one of the 1st Extreme skiers to perform daring jumps and radical Big Air cliff flips for Warren Miller’s annual ski classics.

Brad’s flips, steeps and acrobatic stunts opened the hearts and minds of skiers everywhere, igniting the evolution of the X-Games, The Extreme Ski Championships, various Red Bull Contests and other successful and transformational Freeskier and Extreme ski events. During and after his career, Brad was one of the1st Extreme adventure skiers invited to various Hollywood, Celebrity and Pro-Am Events across North America (previously reserved for ex-Olympic and National Team racers) and has retained many long-standing relationships in the ski, film and entertainment industry.

In the years following his professional skier and movie career, Brad settled in the Seattle, WA area, with his wife and 2 daughters, working on high-end real estate developments and selling unique luxury properties for Sotheby's International Realty.

As well, Brad has been involved in various successful tech start-ups and kept his hand in the film business, most recently as Executive Producer of "The Last Rescue", a WW2 feature film set in occupied France of 1945.

- Updated 2015, in collaboration with Andrew Lindsay