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| Eden Serina - Fil-Am snowboarding pioneer |
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THE moment Fil-Am Eden Serina traded in her skies for a snowboard; she knew she was in love.
It only took her one lesson to know that snowboarding was going to be more than just a hobby.
"I remember the instructor took one look at me and said, ‘Are you sure you’re just a beginner?’ She recalls about her fi rst experience snowboarding. "After that I just fell in love with it."
She loved to snowboard so much that she couldn’t handle the daily three-hour bus ride to the mountain and work her job in Wall Street at the same time. So the New York University graduate quit her job as a Financial Analyst for Mergers and Acquisitions at the prestigious investment-banking firm Salomon Smith Barney in New York to pursue a venture in professional snowboarding.
She was 24 years old when she decided to give up her lucrative paying career to embark on a steep and crazy ride.
She packed all of her belongings and headed west to Vail, Colorado. She didn’t know anything about becoming a professional snowboarder. She just had the will and fortitude to try something new and different.
The first few years into her new career was tough, she said.
But she networked with the right people, most notably members of the US professional national snowboard team, and they gave her advice and some equipment.
She also met Jondre Reyes Mina, one of the sole members of the Philippine Snowboard squad.
"It [my career] just sort of took of from there," she said. "Once I met Jondre Reyes Mina I started to snowboard for the Philippine team and we began to compete in different World Cup events."
Making the switch
The question remains, how does a person quit a very lucrative job to pursue a career into a fairly new sport?
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