Bev Sanders

Bev Sanders is a snowboarder and surfer who built a set of travel businesses for women. Born Beverly Farrell near Greenfield, Massachusetts, in 1953, she became a ski instructor at sixteen at Mohawk Mountain Ski Area. In 1982 she co-founded Avalanche Snowboards in Lake Tahoe with her husband Chris Sanders and inspired the Sanders Design 148, a women-specific snowboard that won Snowboard Magazine award for best free-riding board. From 1982 to 1988 she campaigned for the acceptance of snowboards at U.S. ski resorts, and in 1995 Transworld Snowboarding honored her as a Pioneer Woman of Snowboarding. Taught to surf in 1997 by professional surfer Nancy Emerson, she started Las Olas Surf Safaris, billed as the first all-inclusive surf vacation for women, and later founded Manifesta Safaris, based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.