Shawn Orecchio

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Shawn Orecchio (b. 1972) is a retired professional snowboarder^[1] and mountain biker. He is also the founder of the US Open of Mountain Biking, the Diablo Freeride Park and several notable snowboarding parks.

Orecchio is generally credited with introducing snowboarding to North America’s largest metro-region ski resort Vernon Valley/Great Gorge in 1985, along with Denis Connor and early professionals Jason Grossi and "Skinhead" Joe Srholz^{[citation needed]}. The resort was known for its massive area and proximity to New York City, as well as for its famous "Playboy Club", now known as Legends Hotel and Resort. "VV/GG", an early snowboard education center, enjoyed renown as North America's largest snowboard school^[2] for the entirety of the 1980s.

In 1987 Orecchio competed and placed well in both the Mid-Atlantic Snowboard Series and New England’s Green Mountain snowboard series^{[citation needed]}. In 1989, Orecchio, Connor & Westervelt relocated to Truckee, California, to train with the Cross-M snowboard team, one of the "Big Three" North American world-cup snowboard foundations of the 1980s and 1990s^{[citation needed]}.

Summers found Orecchio mountain biking in North Lake Tahoe, as part of an off-season fitness regimen. His interest in mountain biking developed quickly, and by 2000, Orecchio founded the Diablo Freeride Park for mountain biking, bringing West-coast style to the East, and soon after founded the US Open of Mountain Biking ^[3].

In 2001, Orecchio designed and founded the Santa Cruz Jib Park^[4] at Mountain Creek ski resort in Vernon, New Jersey, Eastern North America’s largest snowboard terrain park^[2]. The terrain park was later renamed "Uncommon Ground" ^[5]. Orecchio later also founded JibLab at Mountain Creek. In 2004, Transworld Snowboarding ranked Mountain Creek as North America’s #3 Terrain Park in North America for Best Jib Variety^[2]. By 2006, The US Olympic finalists for halfpipe discipline were named at Orecchio’s JibLab^[2].

In 2006, Orecchio was named Director of Freestyle Terrain and Product Development at Jack Frost/Big Boulder resorts in The Poconos of northeastern Pennsylvania^[6]; by the 2007-08 Winter season, Orecchio took a sabbatical from his long Snow Board Parks industry tenure and returned to his snowboarding roots, training and riding each day at the resort of his youth. Observers^[who?] noted his riding in the '07-'08 season showed no signs of decline from his earlier professional years.