Blue Skies Magazine is the independent voice of air sports. Our only agenda is to make you want to get out and enjoy the blue skies.

It started in the Reno airport. Lara was trying her best to get out after the 2009 Parachute Industry Association Symposium. With her flight canceled and no departure time in sight, Lara tweeted that she was stuck in Reno. Being the concerned, caring friend that she is, Kolla called to mock her. After a while, the conversation turned to the new air sports blog they were planning. From somewhere deep within a well of Reno-induced frustration, exhaustion and desperation, Lara blurted out “Why don’t we just buy Skydiving magazine?” For the first time in nearly 3 decades, Kolla was speechless.

It was perfect; Kolla had just left her job as Sponsorship Manager at Performance Designs and knew almost everyone in the sport; Lara was managing ad sales for Parachutist magazine and the USPA website; together they were unstoppable. Except that neither could draw a straight line to save their lives. In came Pierre; where exactly either Lara or Kolla knew him from remains a mystery, but they did know that he had spent eight years designing really beautiful magazines for the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), shared their unique sense of humor, and best of all, was currently unemployed.

In the end, we decided to leave Skydiving as it was – Mike and Sue’s incomparable contribution to our community – and forge a path of our own. A path filled with snark and sarcasm, beer and boobs. A path paved not just by skydiving, but by BASE, paragliding, ground launching, speed flying, hang gliding and any other form of human-powered flight. A path to the road of sky bums. To Neverland. Not the creepy ranch, but the place where we all abandon our maturity and play like kids in the blue skies.

So here we are. Blue Skies Magazine. We hope you like it. Please check out the Contribute page and send us your pictures and words. Join us in our quest for blue skies.

We are:

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  Kolla earned the Icelandic equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree in biology before literally winning the green card lottery and moving to Florida. For many people, Kolla was Performance Designs, starting out in their customer service department and moving around to demo queen, tour rep, sponsorship coordinator and all-around marketing guru. They tried to get her to take the Marketing Manager job at least three times, but knowing the average life span of a PD Marketing Manager, she wisely turned them down.
  
  Kolla is a kick-ass triathlete, having completed a half-IronMan and countless smaller tris.

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  Lara was studying for a PhD in chemistry when she made her first skydive: a tandem at Mile-Hi Skydiving Center, where she soon got a job as manifest bitch. After that taste of freedom, she left the world of beakers and lab rats to be a ski bum in Winter Park, CO. From there she went to Skydive New England in Maine to work manifest full-time for a season. After that it was Marketing Manager at Alti-2 in DeLand, FL and from there, Advertising Manager and Webmaster for the U.S. Parachute Association in Virginia.
  
  A reluctant runner, Lara’s completed one marathon and six half-marathons. The next sport on her horizon is boxing. Her absolute favorite type of skydive is full altitude hop & pop, followed closely by screw-all zoo dives.

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  Pierre is a South African-born permanent resident who has lived in the USA for twelve years. He holds a National Diploma: Graphic Design — which is the South African equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Apart from a two-year stint in the health & fitness industry and a one-year “sabbatical,” Pierre has been doing graphic design his whole working career. From December 2005 to October 2006, he managed Marketing Design for CubCrafters, a small airplane manufacturer in Yakima, WA. For eight years prior to that he designed publications for the Experimental Aircraft Association, a non-profit organization promoting recreational aviation internationally.
  
  Pierre is [obviously] an avid aviation enthusiast with a pilot’s license; he skydives; he’s a non-smoker; he has a tattoo; and he tries to ride his mountain bike as much as possible.