EP #19 - Paul Stumpf - Ballooning Classic

In this episode, Adam sits down and chats with Paul Stumpf. Paul Stumpf has been building, flying and maintaining balloons for over 40 years. He is one of the best known repairmen in the US and is based out of the North East USA in the state of Vermont. Paul's business Stumpf Balloons is best known to the wider ballooning community for its revolutionary Mail Order Catalogue which was extremely popular through the 80’s and 90’s providing bespoke balloon accessories to its customers. Paul's passion for photography led him to cross paths with his now long time Mentor, Brian Boland while in high school in the early 70’s and the rest, as they say, is History. Paul build his first balloon when he was 17, right when the ballooning scene was starting to mature in the USA. After finishing his Fine Arts degree at University and still hoping to become a photographer his life took a different turn and he became a full-time balloonist, and the two passions have never left him. In 1982 he opened his repair station and with this, his ride business, the mail order catalogue and the enormous growth of ballooning through the USA in the 1980’s, he was a very busy guy. Over the past 10 years Paul has gone back on his original entry point into ballooning by focussing on making balloons again. His experience and skill are well used in building ultralight, compact balloons for his customers and pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the ultra-light field.