Draft:Matt Shaffer

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Matt Shaffer (born July 2, 1980) is an American former professional snowboarder and business professional from Utah. He competed in freestyle snowboarding events and appeared in snowboarding films and magazines from the 1990s into the 2010s.^[1][2]

He later became a strategic planning manager at the Davey Tree Expert Company in Kent, Ohio.^[3]

Shaffer was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and grew up in nearby Bountiful.^[4] He was diagnosed with Legg–Calvé–Perthes disease at an early age.

He began snowboarding at age 11 at local areas including Brighton Ski Resort.^[5] Local newspapers reported on his participation in junior divisions of the Utah Winter Games.^[6]

He attended Bountiful High School, where he played basketball and baseball, earning all-state honors in baseball.^[7] He later studied at the University of Utah and the University of Wales in the United Kingdom.^[8]

Shaffer began appearing in snowboarding media in the 1990s. The Park Record reported that he qualified for the USSA National Championships in Telluride, Colorado, and The Daily Herald also covered his early competition results.^[9][10] In 2001, he was named an alternate to the men's U.S. Snowboard Olympic Team.^[11] His sponsors included Burton, Red Bull, Nike, and Oakley.^[12][13]

TransWorld Snowboarding included Shaffer in a 2003 feature on the Grizzly Gulch Pyramid Gap session.^[14][15]

In 2005, he appeared on the cover of Snowboarder Magazine's Winter Rail Special Issue at Olympus Hills Park in Salt Lake City, a location known in snowboarding culture as the "Rail Gardens."^[16][17]

Shaffer appeared in several snowboarding films, including TB8, State of Mind, Double Decade, and Three Busy Winters in Tahoe.^[18][19][20] He also appeared in videos from Superpark 19, Superpark 21, Superpark 22, and California Daze Ep#4 – Squallywood and Whitelines.^{[21][22][23][24]}

In 2019, archival footage of Shaffer appeared in Snowboarder Magazine's web series Rewind: Salt Lake City – Episode 2, Influx & Explosion, about Utah snowboarding in the late 1990s and early 2000s.^[25]

Shaffer competed in International Ski and Snowboard Federation events in slopestyle, big air, halfpipe, and snowboard cross.^[26] His other contest results included second place in the Open division at Volcom's Peanut Butter & Rail Jam Championships at Mammoth Mountain, California, third place at the Burton finals at Seven Springs, Pennsylvania, and third place at the Goon Jam Tour stop in Kingvale, California.^[27][28][29]

Shaffer’s footage of an avalanche at Sugar Bowl Resort was included in news coverage of the incident.^[30][31][32]

A 2014 Continuum profile described Shaffer’s transition from snowboarding to business.^[33] He later worked in corporate strategy for The Davey Tree Expert Company. As of 2018, he lived in Hudson, Ohio.^[34]