Spyder Active Sports Manager Lindsay Gill Awarded Colorado State’s Distinguished Graduate of the Last Decade

An alumna who in just five years has made her mark in the apparel industry will be honored by Colorado State University as the Distinguished Graduate of the Last Decade. The GOLD award, which recognizes recent graduates for accomplishments that have brought honor to Colorado State, will be presented to Lindsay Gill at the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards dinner on April 29.

Gill, who earned a bachelor’s from the Department of Design and Merchandising in the College of Applied Human Sciences in 2000, is a product development manager at Boulder-based Spyder Active Sports. In that role, Gill spearheaded the development of a technical product line, including outerwear, knits and accessories. Spyder is one of the most recognized and respected brands of high-performance, technically-oriented skiwear and outerwear in the world. It is an official supplier to the U.S. alpine, Austrian, Canadian alpine and Canadian freestyle ski teams.

"Ms. Gill is a truly outstanding young alumna of the College of Applied Human Sciences. She has exhibited exemplary performance in her career," said April Mason, dean of the College of Applied Human Sciences at Colorado State.

Since earning her bachelor’s degree, Gill has had increasingly important jobs in product development in the outerwear industry. She began as a product development assistant for Cloudwalker by Jeff Lowe, which made technical outdoor and mountaineering clothing. She moved on to work as an assistant merchandiser for Rocky Mountain Clothing Co., a Western sportswear manufacturer, before taking a post as senior product development for GoLite, a company known for the manufacture of innovative, lightweight outdoor clothing and equipment. At GoLite, Gill worked on the development and fit of an award-winning design, the Kinetic jacket, which was recognized by Backpacker magazine with the editors’ choice award.

In her job at Spyder, Gill spearheads the development of a product line from design review through final production approval. Currently, she is working on the fall 2006 line. She also is about to start the development of all Fundamental ski pants and outdoor pants in the line, plus various functional T-necks. Spyder’s products are sold in more than 50 countries.

"Since graduation, Lindsay has progressed in the field of product development very quickly. It is quite unique for someone to obtain the position of senior product developer after only four years in the industry, especially in the field of technical apparel," said Eulanda Sanders-Okine, associate professor for apparel and merchandising at Colorado State.

On top of her booming career, Gill has made an effort to give back to Colorado State. For the past several years, she has evaluated the capstone portfolios of apparel design and production students, giving them feedback as they prepare to enter the job market. Gill also has been a reviewer of the apparel design and production freshman portfolios, assessing the skills of prospective students in the program.

In addition, Gill hired four Colorado State students as interns at GoLite, helping them learn how to edit final sketches and prepare them for the workbook. The interns also organized and created the fabric swatch books handed out to sales representatives as a tool to help sell the line.

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