Carl Richard Carlson II

Aug 18, 2023

Carl Richard Carlson II

Carl Richard “Skip” Carlson II, 56, of Morrisville, died suddenly and peacefully at his home on Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023. He was born Nov. 4, 1966, in Stowe to Dick and Nancy Carlson, followed by a sister Julia. And his adventure began!

He grew up skiing in Stowe, learning from his parents at the tender age of three on Mount Mansfield. He also loved racing BMX bikes as a kid. At 14, he spent a year riding bikes all over the U.S. with Wally Kessler, who owned a private school called Introspect in Stowe.

Then it was on to Concord Academy and Dublin. Eventually he decided that prep school was “too preppy” and returned to Stowe for senior year and graduation. By then he had developed extraordinary athletic talents, skiing in any possible conditions and leaping off cliffs and waterfalls on family ski vacations to Colorado, where he headed after graduation.

But his real love turned out to be mountain biking. After a year or two of ski bumming and mountain bike races in Summit County, he moved to Durango to work at Yeti Cycles. He loved everything about bikes: riding them, building them, fixing them, designing them and welding frames. Over the next several years his passion for bike building led him to Boulder Bicycles, Fat Chance and designing and building his dream bike with Frank the Welder.

When he finally came back to go to UVM, he was a bike messenger and bike mechanic at the Ski Rack. By then, he had decided that his bike habit was not going to afford him “the life to which he wanted to become accustomed” as he once famously said to his dad. So, he returned to Vermont and attended the University of Vermont, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Technology.

Off to the races, he soon landed a job with the Lean Institute, a perfect fit for his brain that loved building things and solving problems that improve the manufacturing process. He was sent to Singapore for a year to work with Perkin Elmer, with a later stint in Germany, and spent months in California developing Vermont-made electronics for Tesla. He was accompanied by his girlfriend Jenny, with whom he had his adored son Franklin.

Skip returned home with a desire for more hands-on work with bicycles, steel welding with SSW in Morrisville and contributing his Lean principles to the business. His passion for metal work and manufacturing expertise also led him to Burton, where he fabricated the snowboard molds: 55 hours of machine time each, and all complex curves.

Carl Richard Carlson II

Later on, he developed electron beam technology, a process that shortened cycle times for printing aluminum cans and snowboard graphics to minutes instead of days or weeks. On weekends he enjoyed steel sculpture for the fun and beauty of it. He was especially proud of a highly engineered staircase he built for Positive Pie in Plainfield, a series of metal sculptures he was asked to exhibit, and the paintings he produced as a resident artist at the Studio Center in Johnson.

In 2008 Skip married fellow designer and artist Lindsey Harty from North Walpole, N.H., with whom he raised a home garden, chickens, and a beautiful baby girl, Hanne. They lived on a pretty farm in southern Vermont, and later bought a house there. Eventually home called and Skip bought a house in Morrisville where Hanne visited regularly, learning to weld, work on a motorcycle, love cats, swim, and amuse her grandparents. Like his dad, he had a keen eye with shotguns on both pheasant and sporting clays. He also quickly picked up the sport of fly fishing from his dad and stepmother Kitty, as well as a love of fine dining and adventure travel inspired by all of his parents. Skip had been working for the last five years with Bourne’s Energy as their service manager.

He is survived by parents Carl Richard Carlson of Stowe and Nancy Wolfe Stead of Shelburne; his sister Julia Carlson Aiken of Bellingham, Wash., son Franklin Jin Carlson of Chicago, daughter Hanne Mitchell Carlson of Weston Vt., stepmother Kathryn Kitzmiller Carlson of Stowe, and dear friend Kathryn Stokes of Morrisville.

Also, cousins Chris and Andrea Kostanecki, Uncle Andy Kostanecki, Aunt and Uncle Betsy and Bruce Biddle, and cousins Caroline Biddle and husband Ray McKenzie of Burlington, Nicky Biddle Elsbree and husband Mark Elsbree of Sun Valley, and Gibson Biddle and wife Kristen Hege.

A gathering of friends and family will be held on Saturday, Sept. 9 from 2-4 p.m., at the Stowe Village Inn, 123 Mountain Rd., Stowe.

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