The Snowboarder's Journal - frequency 16.1
Simple Notions, Complex Chemistry: Jonathon Penfield’s Balanced Approach
Words: Ben Osborne 2018-09-17 18:56:02
Between 2012 and 2015, Jonathon Penfield accumulated eight first-place finishes on the North American Freeride World Qualifier circuit. During that time, he also completed a now-published piece on substrate specificities and conformational flexibility of 3-Kesteroid and 9-hydroxylases. If that sounds like a foreign language, don’t worry, you’re reading the right journal—Jonathon Penfield is indeed a snowboarder, but he hasn’t taken a conventional path.
The 30-year-old Penfield, from Truckee, CA, lives a double life. The self-proclaimed “unprofessional snowboarder” holds a Bachelor’s of Science in chemistry, a master’s in biochemistry, and second-, third- and sixth-place overall finishes in the Freeride World Tour in the last three years. His riding reflects his personality: completely unassuming, highly technical and committed. His professional resume states a clear objective at the top: “To improve quality of life through environmentally responsible technological advancement.”
His academic skill set?
“Protein crystallography and sequence/structural analysis including enzyme kinetics.”
Growing up in North Lake Tahoe, Penfield developed a close relationship with nature through snowboarding. He sees parallel rewards in snowboarding and biochemistry.
“The better I learn to snowboard, the more fun I have; and the more I discover about science, the more awed I am by it,” he says.
Biochemistry is complicated—wanting to have more fun, ride more and learn more, is simple.
“I have this really strong desire to be in natural settings that require a high level of focus and connection to the environment,” Penfield says.
For Penfield, that connection comes through global travel on the Freeride World Tour. It costs a lot—roughly $7,000 per year to chase events in places such as Hakuba, Japan; Chamonix, France and Andorra, Spain—with no guaranteed returns. The time commitment of leading a double life is also taxing. In 2015-2016, while working a full-time biotech job in San Francisco, Jonathon managed to secure third place by the end of the season. However, “I’d only get maybe two or four days of riding in during a two-week gap between events,” Penfield says. “My riding started to suffer toward the end of that season.”
While most athletes were spending their off days preparing for the next competition, Penfield was on a plane, in a San Francisco-based lab at his 9-to-5 job, or driving to Tahoe for the scarce “training day” between competitions. He does what he calls “green chemistry,” a process that, as Penfield explains, “uses bacteria for the efficient and sustainable production of goods, like medicine, food ingredients, or other chemicals such as fuels. It’s a lot like brewing alcohol; basically, directing microbes and their enzymes to do work for us. The potential applications are limitless; it just takes a lot of research to make each system work.”
He kept his body in tune by bike commuting 20 miles per day, surfing, mountain biking, windsurfing and spending as much time outside as possible. But after a year of competing on the tour and working full time, Jonathon decided he’d had enough and moved to Whistler, BC to dedicate all his time to boarding. The result? Second place overall in 2016-2017.
Still, Penfield kept his “brain in shape” by reading scientific journals and working on web programming throughout the winter. He also continued working on pet projects ranging from a website that tracks historical weather data, to a miniature-parachute-mounted Go-Pro (which didn’t work so well, but he claims there is still hope for it). He stays busy. But he spends his time and money wisely and has partnered with brands that mirror his detail-oriented approach such as Arc’teryx and boutique board makers TahoeLab. Spin a few laps with Jonathan and you’ll probably learn a new way to save a couple of dollars, something about your gear you likely didn’t know, and you will see the last 180 degrees of an unexpected back three in natural terrain.
While some riders will chase sponsors and inundate their followers on Instagram, Jonathon leads how he knows best—by example. He recently moved back to the Bay Area and back to his day job, but he’s hoping to work out a remote-employment situation for the winter. It’s easy to question how it’s possible to balance both professions, but for Jonathon the juggling act that keeps him inspired.
“I’m just really passionate in both fields,” he says. “They are creative outlets that challenge me physically and intellectually. And both provide access to flow—they feed each other that way.”
Photo: Jeremy Bernard/Freeride World Tour
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