Success in the ski and snowboard industry over the years comes down to one word: Innovation.  One company takes it further: Seirus Innovation.

“The innovations we have in our line are for the person who wishes they could be more comfortable in a winter environment. They are saying, ‘I’m not having having fun when I get so cold,’” Joe Edwards, Seirus president and co-founder, told SnoCountry.com during the recent Snowsports Industries America Snow Show in Colorado.

The company’s snowsports products include gloves, liners, face protection, hats and quick clavas, and what they dub essential equipment such as boot dryers to knee braces. We’ll get to the “good stuff” of the SoundTouch gloves (keep ‘em on and use your iPhone) and HeatTouch gloves (a battery pack that is about as thick as a credit card) in a minute. Stay with me.

Seirus Innovation is a 30-year-old company Edwards and Mike Carey founded by combining their inventions and talents in 1979. Both avid snowsports enthusiasts, Edwards comes out of the tool and dye technology arena and still owns Belter Steel Rule & Dye. His first invention and contribution to Seirus was the Masque, something not seen before and still in demand. Carey, board chair of SIA from 2007-2010 and an NFL referee, invented Cat Tracks, slip-on walking soles. 

'Customer Epiphany'

“I think what sets Serius apart on the innovation front is we really listen to the consumer,” Edwards told us. “We hold what are essentially think tanks with our internal marketers, key sales people and retailers who interact directly with our customers. We incorporate the benefits of what really is a customer epiphany.” Seirus products are largely impulse sold. We are all seekers of creature comforts. It’s cold outside and we want to stay there in some sort of comfort.

Seirus products come in families and the concept is not remotely a one-size or product fits all approach, he says. Once a product is on the market, a family of products grows around it, so there is plenty of choice.

“There was plenty of skepticism out there in 1978 when the Masque came on the market,” Edwards explains. “I was skiing at Snowbird on a really cold day and I saw a guy in the lift line who had taken neoprene and draped it around his face and had cut out eye and nose holes. He glued a piece over his nose. It may have looked awful, but he was warm and I was cold.”

The Masque

Since Edwards was in the tool and dye business, he began working on and stamping out what became the Masque and received the patent in 1978. Seirus, today, offers 300 products in five categories. It owns nine patents covering 25 innovations in the marketplace.

The products include what the company says is the best-selling face mask – the Seirus Neofleece Combo Scarf; best-selling winter glove – Seirus Original All Weather Glove; and the best-selling glove liner: Seirus Deluxe Thermax Liner.

The current product line includes the first snow glove with touch screen functionality that is 100 percent waterproof, breathable, and fully-insulated. It is part of the line of six, rechargeable SoundTouch gloves. SnoCountry.com tested the gloves on an iPhone in the company’s SIA booth and it worked flawlessly. 

New Heated Gloves

The company’s newest product – to be available at retailers for the 2012-13 season – will be a line of six, rechargeable, heated gloves. These feature soft, flexible heat panels with three settings and wafer-thin, six-hour batteries that keep the gloves extremely light weight. The family of high-end HeatTouch products include the all-leather Inferno, Fiero, and two deluxe women’s Glow glove and mitten.

“Making a form fit, heated glove is a first,” Edwards says. “To accomplish this, we developed batteries that are nearly imperceptible, yet deliver long-lasting, on demand, warmth.”

What It Means: There are hundreds of booths and many thousands of products on display at the huge Snow Show each year. We spotlight Seirus here as one company that backs up its claim of staking its reputation on innovation by actually including the word in its name. The families of products in Seirus lines we checked out and tried on – including the SoundTouch and new-for-next-winter HeatTouch products – convinced even this “I’ve heard it all” journalist that "innovation" here is worthy of being part of the company name. "Seirusly."