303 Magazine, April 2009

Dressed from head to toe in ski gear, Michelle Roark enters the coffee shop and makes her way to my table. I extend my hand, then change my mind and go for a hug. Roark possesses the kind of friendly demeanor and exuber­ant energy that draws a person in.

She apologizes profusely for not having had a chance to change, then unzips her black ski jacket to reveal a pink striped scarf and pink sweater under­neath. “I have to wear jackets that make me look like a boy!” she exclaims. “Where’s the sequins?”

Coming from a figure skating background, the inner girly girl in her often butts heads with the ex­terior tomboy skier. “I always try to combine figure skating and skiing,” she says, referring to times when she’s “dressed up” her ski outfits with fur cuffs. A fan of rhinestones and anything sparkly, she wants noth­ing more than “to be on Dancing With the Stars. I want to learn to dance, and I want to wear those outfits!”

This skater-turned-skier is a multiple World Cup champion and a silver medalist who competes for the U.S. Ski Team. Roark’s journey finally landed her in the 2006 Olympics, after she sustained multi­ple knee injuries that kept her out of the 1994 Winter Olympics, as well as out of the1998 and 2002 games. When I ask for details about her injuries, she laughs nervously and asks not to talk about them, worried that talking might bring bad luck. She then knocks on wood and asks me to do the same.

Roark’s ski career is just one of many founda­tions she’s established for herself. A chemical en­gineer (Roark is two classes away from earning a degree from the Colorado School of Mines), she’s created her own line of perfumes, Phi-nomenal, to enhance the ski experience. “Skiing is all about be­ing in tune with all five senses, and I couldn’t find a smell I liked, so I wanted to make my own.” She stud­ied medicinal purposes of essential oils to combine them in a way that would enhance the sense of smell. No easy achievement, considering it takes her a year to develop each fragrance, but she’s up to five fra­grances for women and is working on a second one for men.

Before I have a chance to ask how she finds time for all this, she’s already moved on to telling me about a third project—Voilà Salon/Spa and Parfumerie—that she opened just a few months ago with co-owner Nam Tran. Considering she called me from Norway to schedule an interview, and two days after we met she left for training in Japan, all I can do is stare in dis­belief and utter admiration for this superwoman.

She’s traveled the world but says there is noth­ing like Colorado snow, claiming Winter Park is her favorite place to ski. Having been to Chile, Switzer­land and Vancouver, to name only a few, this speaks volumes about the respect she has for the Rockies. And, it can’t hurt that she met her husband at a gym in Winter Park.

Roark’s been married for almost five years to a PA consultant, and when I ask what PA stands for, she lowers her voice: “I have no idea. I don’t think it stands for anything. I don’t even know if he knows,” she laughs so infectiously, I can’t help but join her. Her face lights up talking about her “honey,” as she refers to him throughout our conversation. The two constantly travel for work, with Roark in and out of the country training and competing eleven months of the year, but they keep the spark alive. “He travels to see me whenever he can. He’s so supportive,” she gushes.

Roark is currently working on her skills for upcoming competitions, practicing a new trick—720—that requires her to spin twice in the air and land straight. The training is rigorous, from running stairs at Red Rocks to skiing down plastic ramps and back-flipping into water. And Roark encompasses the vision of a true athlete—petite figure and power­ful mind. “I’m ageless and weightless,” she says, and it shows. Looking at her now, one would never guess that she struggled for years trying to make ends meet, living in a tent in Winter Park. It wasn’t until she decided to use all of the money she’d saved up to buy a house that she started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. She rented all the rooms in order to pay for it and eventually learned to trade up in real estate. I compliment her success, and what do we do? We knock on wood.

Phi-nomenal.com     VoilaSSP.com

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