Translate the idea
Connect user needs and business intent to geometry, materials, construction, cost, calendar, and manufacturing reality.
Profile
Derek Gustafson
Product leader, technical developer, maker, and committed mountain user. I help turn ambitious outdoor-product ideas into things that can be built, tested, understood, and used hard.
My career has moved from tool-and-die work and injection molding to ski boots, hiking footwear, climbing equipment, portfolio leadership, and DGx Solutions. The common thread is curiosity, practical judgment, and a suspicious enthusiasm for difficult problems.
20+
Years in outdoor product
40+
Factory-development trips in Asia
$57M
Global portfolio leadership
3x weekly
Mountain mileage, more or less
How I Work
Equal parts product strategy, technical detail, and sleeves rolled up.
Learn before polishing
Build the right prototype, test the important assumption, and let the evidence improve the plan before everyone falls in love with the render.
Stay close to the work
Strategy gets better when it remains connected to factories, samples, field use, financial tradeoffs, and the people doing the actual making.
The Short Version
A career spent moving between the drawing, the factory, and the mountain.
DGx Solutions
Owner
Independent product development, category strategy, commercialization, and practical workflow support for footwear and outdoor-product teams.
Black Diamond Equipment
Business Unit Director, Climbing & Footwear
Led a global portfolio and multidisciplinary product team across climbing equipment and footwear, from line strategy through launch.
Oboz Footwear
R&D Manager
Led footwear research and development spanning lasts, fit, tooling, materials, testing, tech packs, and factory execution.
Black Diamond Equipment
Ski Boot Development and OEM Development
Helped turn complex plastic parts, hardware, molds, tests, and factory specifications into production-ready ski boots and climbing products.
Jungst Scientific and Blackhawk Industries
Manufacturing, Tool & Die, and Product Design
Learned product development from the inside of the mold outward: CNC, machining, injection molding, CAD, prototyping, and production problem-solving.
Beyond the Job Titles
A physics degree, a full workshop, and very little fear of taking things apart.
I hold a B.S. in Physics from Montana State University, a Mastering Leadership Certificate from Westminster College, and a Harvard Data Science Initiative credential in agentic AI.
Outside formal roles, I keep designing and building: CAD, fabrication, ski-boot parts, race cars, footwear repairs, and small AI-enabled tools. Climbing, skiing, and mountain running keep the product opinions honest.
Difficult problems usually become manageable with enough focus, enough room to think, and the right tools.
Product leadership
Footwear development
Climbing equipment
Factory development
Injection molding
CAD and prototyping
Testing and validation
Business modeling
AI-enabled workflows
Let’s Build Something Useful