Christie Dowling, Angela Hampton and Thom Heald are the names behind The Daily Flake in 2010/11. Here’s a little more info about each of them.
Christie Dowling
Christie is The Daily Flake’s Producer and Presenter. Christie grew up in Canberra and was introduced to colder climates by her snow-mad parents at a young age. At three years old, Christie could successfully go to the toilet in a one piece all by herself and negotiate ski patrollers at high speed. Her infatuation with snow became obvious when her parents took her on a beach holiday and she insisted on taking a carrot and building snowmen out of sand.
As she grew up, Christie satisfied her obsession by travelling to ski resorts around the world, eventually landing a job with Perisher’s media department where she was a snow reporter for 5 years. For three of these years she travelled between Australia and Niseko, Japan where she was a reporter for Powder TV (www.powder.tv). These days, Christie gets her fix as editor of Australian ski magazine, Powderhound.
Christie loves talking about snow, and for some reason people seem to like listening. Her online video snow reports for Perisher received between 5 000 and 8 000 hits per day, and were consistently rated as the most watched youtube videos daily throughout winter. She also presented reports for a range of different television shows, including Channel 9’s Today, WIN news, NBN News and FOX sports news. Over the last 12 months she has worked as producer with The Weather Channel and has since added words like ‘hectopascal’ and ‘pyrocumulus’ to her vocabulary. Whilst she won’t be using these words when presenting The Daily Flake, you can tune in to hear her use sentences like ‘bottomless powder cover’, ‘it just keeps snowing ‘ and ‘I’m going to stop talking now so I can go skiing’.
Angela Hampton
Angela is The Daily Flake’s Marketing & Partnerships Manager. Angela grew up in Cooma, the rural NSW town also known as ‘The gateway to the Snowy Mountains’. Angela’s first memories of skiing involve being a member of the Selwyn Snowfields race team and her early days on snow were spent speeding around this fun-sized ski resort with her twin sister Michelle and older brother Matthew.
Angela’s affinity for marketing was apparent from a young age. Any family garage sale or school fund-raiser was promptly advertised by an extensive and targeted promotional campaign and once she reached University, college parties were always sponsored by some kind of alcoholic beverage with a high-sugar content. Angela’s first degree was in nursing, after which she worked in the Prince of Wales Hospital’s plastic surgery ward but it wasn’t until her early 20s that she realised where her true destiny lay. Ange decided to do a degree in marketing and went on to combine her natural flair for branding and promotions with her willingness to help others, eventually taking on the challenging role of Direct Marketing Manager for CanTeen, a charity for young people living with cancer.
In 2008 Angela decided to take a break from the corporate world and moved to Niseko, Japan where she was easily romanced by the resort’s endless powder days and the laid-back lifestyle. True to her nature, Ange now wants to help others by introducing them to the magic of Niseko. For her, The Daily Flake is a perfect opportunity to provide people with a window into how incredible Japan’s winter really is.
Thom Heald
Thom is The Daily Flake’s man behind the camera, but when he isn’t GTSing like a pro he doesn’t mind getting in front of the lens to snag the odd epic pow shot.
Armed with a great eye for detail and a creative mind, Thom’s job is to capture Niseko in all its glory for the pleasure of the viewing public. His ability to turn a grey sky and low visibility into a workable shot has led many people to believe that he uses dark magic when no-one is looking.
Thom grew up skiing on rocks in the Scottish highlands and came to Japan in search of chest deep powder and tasty Japanese cuisine, both of which he has found in abundance.
