If it weren’t for the conviction of his father, Alex may have never gotten hooked on kiting at such an early age. By the time kiteboarding entered Alex Fox’s life he was burnt out on learning new sports. He was only 10 and he had recently mastered windsurfing and scuba diving alongside his dad, but a trip to Bonaire had revealed the young sport of kiteboarding to his father who was hell-bent on learning. According to Fox, “I was done with learning, but my dad forced me to try kiteboarding because he wanted me by his side.” He spent his first six months flying a Slingshot two-meter trainer kite in a park by his house, recruiting friends, boosting airs and tooling around in hurricane winds. When Alex finally made it to the water, his first board was a Slingshot 141, a possession so important to him that he remembers sleeping with it in his bed that first night.
As one of the first generations to grow up under an industry in its sophomore phase, Alex is a walking encyclopedia of kiteboarding and the marketing history of Slingshot in particular. In his formative years, Alex soaked up every magazine ad, travel story and full-length action video and it’s no stretch to say that he’s been a marketing manager in training since his early teens.
