Anton “Toni” Arnsteiner, the Austrian who launched the Blizzard brand in 1953, has passed away in Mittersill, where his company has been located from the start. He was 88 years old. He started making skis at his parents' table factory soon after coming back wounded from the war in 1945. The production of Blizzard skis in Mittersill reached an annual volume of nearly 500,000 pairs in the 1970s and the 1980s. Arnsteiner retired in 1992, leaving the business in the hands of his marketing-oriented son-in-law, Franz Schenner, but he and his wife continued to live in a house next to the ski factory. The company was subsequently taken over by a local bank. It was bought in 2006 by Italy's acquisitive Tecnica Group, which has managed to bring the Blizzard brand back into the black.

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