AN INTERVIEW WITH GINO BLANDO
How did you get involved with Waterskiing?
Growing up spending warm weather months on the water stirred my interest in almost all water sports. I fell in love with trick skiing especially because the boat did not have to go fast. As a teenager in the early ‘70s I started to enter local ski tournaments with my home ski team, the Wilmington Ski Warriors. With so many older kids to look up and my strong passion for competing, skiing became an exhilarating part of my life. The three events of jumping, tricking and slalom became my daily routine.
What was your favorite event?
My friends did Slalom and skied out of novice, but I never could. My longest jump was 72’ at the Great Mississippi Open and I always tricked near 1600 points. I could never catch up to the really good skiers in the next division and stayed in novice. Almost every year at state, I was the overall champ. I would go home with four trophies while my buddies had none. They would joke about my novice status but they were novices also, except for Slalom. I always jumped and tricked better.
How did you start making Waterski jewelry?
I started as an apprentice diamond setter in 1975, just becoming a junior in high school. My father was a jeweler and I was going to learn how to make fine quality jewelry. Years later I was doing diamond setting and manufacturing for retail stores. Following all of the years of manufacturing experience was jewelry designing. Engagement rings, pendants, bracelets—I was making one of a kind custom designs along with odd items such as car charms, boat charms, and yes water skis.
How did you get your custom designs to water skiers?
By the early ‘80s, I was going to Nationals and setting up a booth to sell my ski jewelry. I met Carl Roberge, his sister Karen, Sammy Duvall and his sister Camille, trick skier Cory Pickos, Lucky Lowe and so many other world champion skiers. I did work for Denny Kiddler, Herb Obrian, Pat Connolly, Jeff Jobe, Rob Shirly (mastercraft) and other wonderful owners of ski-related companies. Because I was still young enough to become a better skier, I was ribbed for not skiing out of novice. But I was dating, working a lot of hours, and well… growing up.
Then what happened?
In September of 1985, I was going to Toulouse, France for the World Water Ski Championships. I had an assistant showing and selling the jewelry, including the World Champion logo charm. The secret was my girlfriend and I planned to elope there, but we found the laws on marriage in France tough for us to fulfill. We befriended skiers from surrounding countries and they all offered us assistance, “come over to our country… we will help you”.
Did you get a chance to elope then?
We never married in Europe, but travelled for over 30 days and had a marvelous time with all of our new friends. (I told my wife I’d marry her if the Bears won the Superbowl in ’86 and sure enough, we were wed in New Orleans that January three days after, in city hall.)
Back to the Waterski Jewelry, how did you make the jewelry more mainstream?
I was advertising in AWSA’s Waterskier and a new magazine called World Waterskiing. We had charms for everything—including AWSA. Custom hand engraved skis were popular as well as solid ski boats. Selected items made their way into the popular catalog sellers, Overtons and Barts.
As the waterski jewelry developed, so too did friendships and with that came requests for diamond engagement rings, diamond earrings and other fine jewelry.
Who did you make jewelry for?
Denny Kidder, Banana George, the Roberge family, Lucky Lowe, his mom Carol, just to name a few… We were invited to a wedding at Cyprus Gardens in 1987… Ricky McCormick was marrying Susie Graham and I designed and made their rings.
Where can I learn more?
I have a shopping cart, where you can look at the products. Check out the Photos area of our site. There aren’t many, but it is a little bit of the past. If you have any photos that are somehow related, send them in and we will start a Guest Photo page.
Happy Skiing to you all
-Gino Blando.
