About Us
About Pro Standard
As a former pro snowboarder, professional photographer, filmmaker, traveler and long time GoPro evangelist, I’ve boiled down my 35+ years of riding, shooting, traveling, creating and dragging camera equipment around the world to invent mounts and accessories with un-matched multi-functionality and attention to detail, that enable you to get more creative with your GoPro, while carrying less.
Ken Achenbach
Founder/Designer
Member Snowboard Hall of Fame
About Ken Achenbach
Ken’s record at changing the game and disrupting the status quo is legendary. Ken brought the world the Twintip snowboard, the snowboard that the modern snowboard is based on. Also the Baseless Binding, the binding that inspired the Burton EST Binding system. His creativity has changed helmet design, boot design, clothing design, snowpark design and many other areas of action sports. He opened the first exclusive snowboard store in the world in 1981 and basically invented the action sports summer camp with the Camp of Champions Snowboard, Ski and Mountain Bike Summer Camp in Whistler. His mind never stops when it comes to design. Ken’s desire for “something” better and more functional that enables more creativity is how Pro Standard was created.
Starting snowboarding in 1980, days later, Ken opened the first exclusive snowboard store in the world, called "The Snoboard Shop", thinking "Anything this fun is going to be the biggest thing ever". It took a little longer than he thought but he was right. He was 16.
At one point he had stores in Calgary, Banff, Whistler (where he was the first person to snowboard on Whistler Mountain), Tokyo, Mammoth Mountain, Auckland and Queenstown. He was a pro snowboarder from 1983 to 1990 with a second in the world in Halfpipe in 1983 and a third at the first ever Mt. Baker Banked Slalom being his competition highlights. Pro snowboarding was an excuse to travel the world with his friends, shoot photos, film movies and ride powder instead of "working".
In 1986 along with Neil Daffern, Ken co-invented the Twintip snowboard, the snowboard that all modern snowboards are based upon. Snowboarding was never the same again. Going catskiing in the mid eighties, first heliboarding at Mike Wiegele Heliskiing in 1988, Ken's already semi well known powder hunger developed into a vicious addiction to powder. As a rider, photographer and writer, Ken was instrumental in inspiring the publishers of International Snowboard Magazine and then later the publishers of Transworld Skateboarding to start Transworld Snowboarding Magazine and later doing the same with Surfer Magazine's parent company to start Snowboarder Magazine, supplying inspiration, photos and words to the then fledgling publications.
In 1986 along with Neil Daffern, Ken co-invented the Twintip snowboard, the snowboard that all modern snowboards are based upon. Snowboarding was never the same again. Going catskiing in the mid eighties, first heliboarding at Mike Wiegele Heliskiing in 1988, Ken's already semi well known powder hunger developed into a vicious addiction to powder. As a rider, photographer and writer, Ken was instrumental in inspiring the publishers of International Snowboard Magazine and then later the publishers of Transworld Skateboarding to start Transworld Snowboarding Magazine and later doing the same with Surfer Magazine's parent company to start Snowboarder Magazine, supplying inspiration, photos and words to the then fledgling publications.
In 1989 He started the Camp of Champions Snowboard Camp in Whistler so that he would have a place to ride in the summer and where he could invite top pros to teach and inspire the next generation to throw it all away and go snowboarding and as of 1998 throwing it all away to go skiing. During the 2013/2014 season, current and former campers won 10 Olympic medals, sweeping the podium in Men's Slopestyle in both Snowboarding and Skiing at the Olympics, X Games US Open and the AFP Tour, following that up with 7 World Championship titles. The inspiration worked.
In 1992 he invented the baseless binding which Burton evolved into the EST system. Ken also dropped his first video "Nature of The Beast" and a year later his second flick "Free". Writing his column titled, So Anyway... for Transworld Snowboarding at the time, Ken wrote "Keys To Reality" the most loved piece of writing in snowboarding. It's his mantra and this company's mantra. Read it and change your life... or not.
In 2005 Ken and fellow snowboard vagabond, washed up pro snowboarder and top heliskiing guide, Don Schwartz, bought Powder Mountain Catskiing in Whistler so that they wouldn't have to travel the world looking for powder, getting into and out of precarious situations and sleeping on floors. Now they could get their powder fix 20 minutes from home.
In 2012, taking a Keys to Reality break, living in Bali for 5 months with his kids Kaia and Caprii, surfing every day and searching for something new to inspire and progress himself, Pro Standard was founded to bring his DIY GoPro mounts and accessories to the world.
Superior Design = Superior Performance = Superior Footage
When I first came up with the idea of a mouth mount for GoPro cameras in 2013, like everyone else, the first prototype was made with snorkel mouthpiece design. After one surf I knew the limitations of the design. A restricted airway that can't be closed, bouncy footage and an uncomfortable fit. Most of all it was a one dimesional mount. It was only good as a mouth mount. So I set to work to design a mouth mount that didn't have those limitations. I came up with the Grill Mount - The most multi-functional and versatile GoPro Mount ever made.
The Grill Mount's unbeatable “feel” that has users raving, came to be through the mouthpiece being sculpted into existence by combining the latest in 3D software and 3D printing technology. We then tested those prototypes while surfing, snowboarding, skiing, mountain biking, climbing, traveling and having fun, for almost a year in Hawaii, Canada, Tahiti, the USA, Australia and Bali to make sure the fit, function and multi purpose performance was as perfect as we could make it.
With feedback from our team of surfer, snowboarder, skier, biker, photographer and filmmaker co-creators, I never stopped continually refining the shape until I felt that we had created the ultimate mouth mount... one that also happens to be the most multi purpose mount ever made for your GoPro. It's a mouth mount, hand grip, tripod, hook mount, bottle mount and wall mount it's almost everything you want it to be.