Profile: Murray Wais

By Dawn Belloise

Murray Wais wanted to be a writer and when Powder magazine offered him the chance to visit Crested Butte to cover the second annual Extremes Championships in 1993, he came for the comps and stayed. Even though he did his time at the Chronicle/Pilot under Lee Ervin (and working with the Crested Butte News current editor, Mark Reaman), you might be more familiar with his exhilarating ski films and company, Matchstick Productions.

Murray was looking for those Crested Butte odd jobs after deciding to move here and walked into the Chronicle, telling Lee Ervin he was a writer and wanted to do movie reviews. “So, Lee told me to go write one,” which he did and Murray recalls that afterwards Lee said his writing was good however, he had given the review assignments to someone else. Murray instead became the entertainment editor, interviewing visiting bands coming to town and writing weekly features about entertainment. At the same time, his friend from home in Seattle, Steve Winter, hired him to help make a ski movie. “I had no experience, but I was a writer, loved skiing and Steve and I knew each other. I was just trying to carve out a life in CB and have a creative job,” he recalls. Steve had already created Matchstick Productions in CB and then talked Murray into becoming a quarter partner initially.

Their first movie together was Soul Sessions and Epic Impressions, much of which was filmed in CB and premiered in the fall of 1993 at the Grand Lodge ballroom on the mountain. Murray recalls, “It was fun, sold out and crazy. I remember walking to the back of the theatre where the bartender was standing on the bar cheering and I asked for a drink and he handed me a bottle of tequila.” From there they started the journey of making ski movies based out of CB. “I’ve been doing it for 32 years now,” and he has the receipts in the way of life changing stories and award-winning films. 

After making those first movies they were pretty much broke, both personally and the company. “But we had fun and wanted to live a life of adventure,” he says. “We kept going with the support of the town and lots of people volunteered for us, finding us a place to live. Gina Kroft (CBMR marketing princess) especially helped tremendously and there were a lot of people along the way encouraging us to keep going. It took about five years before we started making money.”

Matchstick Productions grew and became a much decorated, award-winning international production company that has produced over 35 feature films and hundreds of TV shows and videos, also covering mountain biking and primarily outdoor sports. “The internet really changed our business and our ability to operate in CB and to reach our audience directly.”

Murray’s life began in Seattle, Washington, where he grew up with a younger brother and a gaggle of friends in his suburban neighborhood. His father worked for Boeing while his mom was a homemaker. He attended high school with his Matchstick partner Steve. “I was not a studious kid,” he smiles. “We grew up in a nice area outside of Seattle and spent lots of time wakeboarding, water skiing and fishing on Lake Sammamish in Redmond, Washington.” 

In high school, Murray grins that he didn’t really pay attention in class and cared more about hanging out with his friends. For work during those times, he washed dishes and cars and basically hung out smoking pot and cigarettes with his buddies. “I cared more about being cool than getting good grades,” he admits. In the winter they’d go skiing at Alpental and Steven’s Pass. “I started skiing around third or fourth grade, initially going through the recreation program where they’d put us on a bus for the hour and a half ride to Alpental every Saturday.” Just like the Mountain Express ride up the mountain where CB kids meet their friends for runs, Murray would be with all his buddies. He graduated high school in 1986.

Murray enrolled at Wenatchee College in Central Washington that had a program in applied science for an associate degree in ski instruction and coaching. “It sounded like a ton of fun and I had friends who had done the two-year program. I loved it and did it for a year and a half then decided I wanted a more formal degree,” he says and so he transferred to University of Oregon in Eugene and earned a degree in journalism. “I wanted to be writer of fiction, nonfiction, looking more toward writing books and for magazines.” 

After graduating in fall 1991 from the University of Oregon, Murray moved back to Seattle and was hired by Microsoft, where he sold Microsoft Office out of a cubical. In the spring of 1992, when he was laid off, he realized that big corporate life wasn’t the path for him. He wanted to pursue something that involved skiing so he attended the Las Vegas ski industry trade show which, at the time, was the biggest in the industry. It was there that he met the editors of Powder magazine who offered him an internship in southern California, but only if he could pass their grammar test.

His primary function at Powder was to take writers’ manuscripts and input them manually into the computers for the magazine layout. “It was teaching me to write and teaching me to type fast. Nothing prepares you for typing fast and writing fast like newspaper work,” he laughs. Murray was there for eight months when they offered him the opportunity to cover the Extremes Championships in 1993.

Moving to CB that year in spring with only his skis, mountain bike and a duffle bag of clothes, Murray recalls that it was a huge winter with major snow. He loved that the town was extremely welcoming, and his two childhood friends were already living here. He had met so many like-minded people at the comps who were, as he puts it, “into skiing powder and jumping off cliffs. I decided to move here because it was a small ski town with a progressive mindset and some of the very best skiing in Colorado.”

Murray recalls a pivotal time in the early ‘90s when they were filming in Chile. Their helicopter crashed and the accident paralyzed his partner Steve. Two others died in the crash. Murray was going to be in the next helicopter load and was waiting for the return. “When we returned to CB, the community was encouraging and so supportive and super helpful.” Steve eventually regained partial use of his legs and can walk. 

Murray met Amy Quan in 2007 in Whistler and the two had a daughter, Lola, who was born at the Gunnison hospital in September of 2008. He and Amy went their separate ways in 2013. Murray now lives in town with his partner Michelle Rampelt. What keeps him in CB are many things about the valley.

“I like being outdoors and the easy access to the outdoors here. I’m allergic to concrete,” he laughs about city life as he lives the dream of skiing, hiking and mountain biking. His daughter, Lola is even in an innovative mountain biking boarding school that follows summer throughout the world. “I like being part of this community. I honestly enjoy small town life and not spending time in a car. I have spent a lot of my life traveling for business, and I do get out of town a lot,” he says, however, he feels CB is such a great place to come home to and have a home base from. “I was looking to live a rural lifestyle but surrounded by a more progressive mindset. I’ve been to rural places and, in general, you don’t get a progressive mindset in small towns. I know it’s a stereotype vagary but it’s also kind of true. CB offers that progressive mindset and that’s what attracted me. And it is beautiful here.”