The high-flying, and at times bumpy, journey of freeskiing’s busiest athlete. By Edith Thys Morgan
Jeremy Bloom is a planner…to a point. That point typically comes just when he launches towards his next big goal in life. At age 37, he’s already achieved more goals than most would dare envision accomplishing in a lifetime of hard work. At age ten Bloom set a goal to ski in the Olympics and play football in the National Football League. He did both, becoming a two-time Olympian (2002, 2006) in freestyle mogul skiing, then being drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles. He is the only athlete to ski in the Olympics and also be drafted into the NFL. And that was just a start.
Along the way he became a three-time mogul World Champion, fashion model, and TV personality. While in the NFL, he worried about being productive after sports, and took advantage of an NFL partnership program to study entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of Business. After retiring from football in 2008, and forming a successful nonprofit to give back to society, he started Integrate, a marketing software company in 2010. As Integrate continues to grow, Bloom explains how he planned its success. “We like to call it jumping out of an airplane and assembling the parachute on the way down,” Bloom laughs. “I love that part of it.”
Indeed, the uncertainty that goes along with bold ambition is one of the many sports parallels Bloom sees in business. “In some ways it is very similar to being an athlete. You set a really big dream and vision and have a little bit of an idea of how to get there. But everybody’s journey is different. You have to take it one day at a time.” ...