Dan and John Egan were the first skiers and the first siblings to be inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame as a pair. Their arrival, in tandem, on the stage of extreme sports was legendary in both its familial nature and the brother’s daring new approach to skiing.
The “Egan Bruthas” from the Boston area were the extreme skiing pioneers, constantly pushing the boundaries of snow adventure. Fueled by unrivaled passion for the sport and a strong work ethic, the Egan escapades set a new standard for big mountain dreams. What made the brothers’ travel feats iconic was the public’s access to their experiences through the innovation of technology and the growing demand for ski and adventure films.
In the 1980s, Warren Miller saw John and Dan as the relatable trailblazers the ski industry needed to reinvigorate ski culture. Warren bonded with the Egans over their bootstrap mentality and featured the brothers in 17 films collectively. Dan and John both took part in the production of many of the Warren Miller film segments, managed video sales east of the Mississippi, and hosted hundreds of shows on the film tour. In 1990, The brothers nearly escaped death after a massive cornice broke at Grand Targhee in Wyoming. The thrilling shot of the men floating above the fracture line as several tons of snow plummet from the ridge is captured in the film Extreme Winter. To this day, the clip is one of the most viewed ski film segments of all time.
Dan and John are also known as the founders of the North Face Extreme Team with Scot Schmidt. The skiers appeared in the first five Extreme Team Films as well as various automotive, soft drinks, and beer commercials. The brothers marketed the sport of skiing through ski shows, retails appearances, X-Team Ski Clinics, and film tours. Without social media, creative marketing and sponsor partnerships were the most effective way to show and share the sport of skiing. The brothers’ focused their film and ski objectives to follow the geopolitical landscape of the times, spreading the idea that where people could ski, they could be free.
John Egan, seven years older than Dan, was a successful competitor on both the pro race and mogul circuit. Today, he serves as the Vice President and Chief Recreation Officer at Sugarbush in Vermont, where he began his professional ski career in 1979. John founded the Adventure Learning Center at Sugarbush, transforming the resort into a year-round destination.
Dan, whose innovative marketing and business skills facilitated the brothers’ travel and paid the bills, has made a life for himself teaching private clinics around the world, producing award-winning films and TV shows, and managing marketing and sponsorship for big name brands and organizations like US Sailing and Rolex. In his career Dan has also served as a resort association director, mountain manager, and author.
To this day, John and Dan Egan continue to promote the sports and lifestyle they love. POWDER Magazine has named them among the most influential skiers of all-time, a reputation that encompasses the impact of the Egan brothers on the ski industry.
1985: John and Dan first appeared as the “Egan Brothers” in a Warren Miller film.
1990s: The Egans founded The North Face Extreme Team and created an apparel line with Scot Schmidt.
1990: John and Dan’s “cornice break” segment in Extreme Winter.
1990: John and Dan climbed and skied Mt. Elbrus in Russia and filmed at Red Square.
1996-2008: Dan Egan produced and starred in the Wild World of Winter series, a nationally syndicated cable TV show.
Mr. Eldon Trimingham is an esteemed classical painter, of the Romantic Period, whose commissioned works are at Buckingham Palace, the Smithsonian, other museums, and in private collections, internationally. Primarily specializing in historical marine paintings and in landscape paintings, he also paints portraits and has also produced paintings for the Blue Angels and Americas Cup. He is also an accomplished sailor, a Championship level croquet player, an Off-Shore World Champion powerboat racer and team owner—accomplishments, of which, are notable because he was born with cerebral palsy. He has also raised funds for a range of charities—also focusing on the needs of children with disabilities.
Gherdai Hassell is a Bermudian born, China trained, multidisciplinary contemporary artist, writer and storyteller, based in Manchester, UK. Her work investigates memory and nostalgia through which, She explores mixed media collage and painting as a means to construct and deconstruct identity. Moving and curating materials through concepts of representation, perception, identity creation, and globalization. The thread of influence that runs through this work is the impact of histories, tales of transformation passed down through family lineages. The figure plays a central role in many of her works, simultaneously existing within realms of past, present, and future. The work suggests that identity should be self-determined and understood, and contextualized through connection with others. Her multimedia work reimagines relationships with the body as avatar, social space and the invisible world.
Dr. Sajni Tolaram, Professor, English & Film Studies, at Bermuda College, teaches courses in English Language and Literature & Film Studies. She works in Rhetorical Writing and Creative Writing, and specializes in a range of Literature courses including Medieval, Shakespeare, and literary survey in British and American Literature within socio-historical contexts. In Film Studies, she works with narrative, documentary, and experimental modes. The concentration is in essential cinema and genre studies within the formative aspects of film as an art, as a science, and as a global enterprise. She serves within a range of arts entities.
MoZiah Fire Selassie is a university student studying an MSc in International Sports Management at the University Campus of Football Business. He lives in Nottingham, UK, working as a Sports Coach at Support Through Sport, an organization which aims to tackle negative influences such as knife crime and abuse that young people face through a range of sports sessions, mentoring and youth development projects. In his spare time, he plays football and represented the Bermuda National Team in both football and tennis. He also played at a semi-professional level in Nottingham and Doncaster and was on trial at professional clubs throughout England. His previous experience includes working with organisations such as the Bermuda Football Association, Salford City F.C. and Nottingham Forest F.C. in football event operations.
Dana Selassie, PhD, has extensive training as a media specialist, broadcaster, photographer and filmmaker. Dana has served as a Media & Television Lecturer at Bermuda College, the DeMontfort University, and the University of Nottingham. Dr. Selassie has presented research papers on race, media, and identity at Oxford, University of Nottingham, University of Warwick, and the University of Glasgow. Her academic and artistic works center around and promote Bermudian culture and identity. Her passion for documentary filmmaking and capturing real stories remains evident in the community-focused pieces she chooses to work on, such as in her most recent short film, ‘Broadcasting Black,’ featuring some of Bermuda’s most iconic broadcasters from the 1950s and 60s. Dana is also the founder and Executive Director of the upcoming Bermuda Black Film Weekend.
Joe C. Farr III started Trey Mojo Productions in 2005. He has been researching and interviewing subjects for a book on Coach Willie Jeffries – the first African American head football coach in NCAA Division-IA – while also editing video versions of the comedy podcast There It Is. At Tennis Channel, he aggregated, managed, and scheduled tennis content; developed programs in various genres; and led business development initiatives. While at ESPN, he was responsible for programming content in college football, college basketball, NCAA Championships, Track & Field, and Black History Month (to name a few). Under the BHM umbrella, he was the executive producer on Seasons of Change: The African American Athlete (2002 and 2003), Relatively Speaking: George Foreman, and Relatively Speaking: Joe Dumars. The 2002 installment of Seasons of Change won the NAMIC Vision Award for Best News/Informational Program. He has a BA from Duke University, where he was a four-year team manager for Mike Krzyzewski’s men’s basketball team (which included a trip to the Elite 8), and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.
Julie Anderson is an award winning non-fiction producer, director, writer and development executive. She is acclaimed for her inspirational insight and storytelling which has ignited programs and documentaries ranging in topics from race relations, education, social issues and sports.
She earned an Academy Award nomination for the documentary God Is The Bigger Elvis, which she produced for HBO Documentary Films. As Director of Documentary Development for HBO her projects included the series America Undercover and the Academy Award winning documentary Big Mama.
A well known sports producer, she developed ESPN’s Emmy award winning magazine shows OUTSIDE THE LINES and E:60. Anderson also co-created the award winning teen educational series Sportsfigures for HBO, which was recognized with several Clarion Awards for Best Children’s Programming, and numerous Parents Choice Awards as well as a regional EMMY Award.
Most recently, as the Executive Producer of Documentary Development at PBS, she executive produced the Emmy, Peabody and Dupont Journalism award winning series The African Americans, Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, as well as Gates’ series Finding Your Roots.
Anderson’s work has regularly appeared on ESPN, HBO Sports, HBO Documentary Films, PBS, CNN, CBS
Dan Egan is a master storyteller. Mentored by godfather of action sports documentaries Warren Miller in narration, he has fine tuned his craft through the years through live presentations, articles, hosting national television and radio shows as well as motivational speaking. As film producer he was awarded a Telly Award and he is a 3-time New England Emmy award nominee for his hour-long TV series Dan Egan’s Wild World of Winter. Egan has shot documentary television shows in some of the remote regions of the world including the Canadian Arctic, South America, Russia, and Argentina. He is a three-time NASJA Harold Hirsch award winner for excellence in journalism, authored three books, and has covered three Olympics as a contributor to the Boston Globe.
Egan is best known as a world-renowned extreme skier. He appeared in 12 Warren Miller ski films from 1985-1995 with his brother John. He was inducted into the US Skiing & Snowboarding Hall of Fame in 2016. His skiing exploits played a critical role in moving the word “extreme” from the mountains to Madison Fifth Avenue, creating the foundation for today’s YouTube and GoPro culture.
Prior to his skiing career, Egan was a varsity soccer athlete at Babson college, he attended Bridgton Academy where he played as a teammate to Gerry Best, the nephew of Clyde Best. Through this experience, Egan developed a decades-long rapport with Clyde Best, and now is in a unique position to take Best’s incredible life story and depict it cinematically.