Grips

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Ian's story is one of restoration and redemption

The Bbc , the weekly-in-chief-series-profiles of various executives from all over The World . This Week we talk handles to Ian Powell and Jackie Hueftle, the own US company Lot, the power holds for climbing Walls .

When Ian Powell hit Rock Bottom very hard, it was in Life rather than in a rock wall climbing.

A former U.S. national team climber in the early 1990s until 2010, at the age of 39, he was a homeless drug addict in Denver, Colorado.

Addicted to both crack cocaine and crystal meth, he would go through the pain of withdrawal, while you hide in commercial waste containers.

theft to Finance his habit, he was finally arrested and sent to prison for credit card fraud.

"I designed a destruction of Life ," says Ian a look.

Ian, pictured here as a young man, says he threw eight years of his Life ,

Born in 1971 in Atlanta, Georgia, Ian remembers climbing that His Love started very young, when he was three or four.

But it was a difficult childhood, that his father, the alcoholic was he took his own Life when Ian was 10.

Ian and his mother then moved to Texas, where he really began to climb as a teenager. Entry into the U.S. team then followed, But he finally got out.

"I didn't want to determined to be a contender, But I was just to A Life as a professional," says Ian. "I still wanted to be involved in the industry, so I decided to Do Something different. "

With a background in design and fine arts, which holds little else for the indoor climbing Walls .

Ian is taken to a world-renowned designer of Velcro

In 1996, he was a co-founder of eGrips, a compliment for his innovative styles, shapes and use of materials that keeps for quickly. The Money began to come.

Ian is also a talented sculptor, and at the same time, he began selling his art creations for tens of thousands of dollars. This led to his temptation to take drugs.

"I had never really tells hard drugs, But then I found that I could sell what I wanted," He Said . "I had money laying around, loose, bundles of cash, and I discovered cocaine and other drugs. "

he says he was not equipped to with success praise his thrown away - and so his drug use out of control.

"It is a special type of low self-must destroy-esteem, if you really want to, your Life with drugs. I was not able to turn My Life around, until I went all The Way to the bottom. I basically eight more years of throwing My Life . "

Jackie and Ian's partnership extends beyond The Business world

It was while in prison that Ian was finally able to conquer his drug addiction. In an interview in 2013 He Said that the prison had been.

was released After a year in prison, Ian, to a Halfway House in Boulder, Colorado. An old friend named Dan Howley , decided to, in the possession of a gymnasium in The City , to give him A Chance . And so Ian began doing Odd Jobs at The Venue .

to start, Finally, Dan gave Ian some of the foam climbing handles carving again, and slowly Ian's current business - Kilter -handles - came into existence.

Jackie Hueftle also was in the same gym, and as a fellow, you mountaineers was impressed by the holds Ian to make of it, and so the marketing took over-work.

she and Ian began dating, despite their memory of his behavior during his years as an addict, when at one point he had stolen her car. "I reminded him, and he felt terrible," she says.

Ian Powell's sculptures sell for thousands of dollars

As a sales joint handles" products grew, the company has a formal company in the year 2013.

Today, with annual sales of $2. 5m (£2m), and Ian and Jackie , the two boyfriend and girlfriend to stay, and Business Partners .

"Our Partnership is good, because he's The Artist and I am a soft," says Jackie , 38.

Additional features:

Aman Anderson, the owner of the Denver-based monster fingers to Climb, which makes training equipment for climbers, says that Ian was a major figure in the development of the climbing industry.

"In many ways, Ian has to climb is always at the forefront of innovation and creation of opportunities for other innovators," he says. "From his Early Start in eGrips, now with Lot-handles, he has a lot of younger generations, the industry needs the Creator shown. Ian is a sculptor at Heart . "

Ian Powell says he finds peace in his work,

Ian designs his hand-made climbing holds in a studio in The Barn at the Back of his and Jackie 's house in Boulder, for hours, often at night.

"When I crashed, My Life and I disappeared from the climbing world," he says. "No one knew where I was.

"But when I come Back clean and sober and wanted to, I was lucky, because Most People - not all - But a lot of People , Back she greeted me. "

art, entrepreneurship, united states, colorado, drug rehabilitation

Source of news: bbc.com