The Canadian native's first job was in wholesale, selling windsurfing equipment to sporting goods stores in the 1980s, Forbes reported.
Salter quickly pivoted his career to focus on brand rehabilitation, however. He bought a snowboard business for $35,000, and grew it enough that he managed to sell it for $5 million four years later, per Forbes.
Salter is also an entrepreneur. He founded his own snowboard maker, Ride Snowboards, in 1996. Salter spent four years as Ride's CEO, leading it through an initial public offering on Nasdaq, before stepping down in 1996, according to The Seattle Times. Peter Jacobs, a Ragen MacKenzie analyst interviewed by The Times' Christopher Solomon shortly after Salter's departure, used a sports car analogy to explain the situation.
"Founders Pogue and Salter built a great sports car, but neither of them knew how to drive it, Solomon wrote of Jacobs' explanation. "Professional drivers now have been brought in to steer. Unfortunately, that leaves no more room in the front seat."