Starting Line Delivery Service from Nation’s Largest Nordic Dealer

Over several years and thousands of freshly waxed skis delivered to the starting line of the American Birkebeiner, only twice have skis entrusted to Pioneer Midwest’s waxing services gone astray, said Jeremy Hecker. the race service manager of the ski shop in Osseo, which is in the northwestern Twin Cities and near the popular Elm Creek Park ski trails. Murphy’s Law seems culpable for the missing skis, first striking when two skiers had not only similar skis, but identical names to boot. The second happened after a racer sent his skis to Pioneer too late, and the parcel arrived at Pioneer’s storefront after the staff had already decamped for their Birkie week headquarters. In both cases, Hecker provided the ski-less racers with spare pairs he keeps on hand for just such a scenario. “Everybody was happy,” he recalled.

Pioneer Midwest sells up to 4,000 pairs of cross-country skis annually, said owner Matt Liebsch, making them the biggest Nordic ski shop in the nation. Liebsch first worked at the shop as a high school and college student in the 2000s, before buying a 50% ownership stake in 2017 from his business partner and fellow skier, Adam Johnson. Liebsch, who took first place in the 2009 American Birkebeiner, said: “We are the only ski shop in the country that only deals with cross-country skis—no other sports to distract us.”

When the pandemic hit, Jeremy Hecker was coaching the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Nordic team. COVID shutdowns affected university funding, and Hecker found himself working full-time for half-time wages. He resigned and moved back to the Twin Cities to look for a job. Hecker had grown up in the ski industry. During the 1980s and 1990s, his dad, Mike, was the local rep for the Finnish ski company Peltonen. “We’ve been working with the Peltonen family for as long as I remember, since basically I was a baby,” Hecker said. He’s now 34. In Hartola, Finland, the Peltonen ski factory stood next to the home of a ski wax company called Rex. In the 2000s, the Peltonens bought Rex wax and sold their ski company to Rapala (of fishing lure fame). The Heckers became the North American distributors of Rex wax. Jeremy spent two years in Finland, studying for a master’s degree in Jyväskylä. He’d visit the Peltonens, have dinner and a sauna, and work in the Rex factory.

Hecker had gone to college at St. Scholastica in Duluth,MN, where he skied and qualified for the NCAA National Championships in 2012 and 2013. He started ski coaching right after college. “Growing up, I’ve always been competitive with skiing and running,” he said. “Once I graduated, I stopped being a competitive skier. That competitiveness came out as a wax service thing. Can I out-wax my other coaches?” The first time he waxed for other racers was at an event in West Yellowstone. Hecker was “incredibly nervous,” he said. He has gone on to wax at many international events and has been enlisted to help the U.S. team at the 2026 Olympics.

Now in his sixth year at Pioneer Midwest, each February, Hecker and his waxing crew prep up to 450 pairs of skis for the American Birkebeiner. Customers either drop off the skis at Pioneer’s storefront or send them via UPS. More skis still get checked into Pioneer’s Birkie race week headquarters. Prior to the starter’s gun, Hecker trucks the prepared skis to the start line, where customers pick them up immediately prior to starting the Birkie or Kortelopet.

“The thing that sets us apart from individuals waxing for themselves is not necessarily the right wax,” Hecker says. “But we are putting on better. We have better tools. We have people who are really good. The ironing, scraping, and brushing are far more important than applying the correct wax. If you can put on the wrong wax better than the right wax, then you’re going to win. That’s what we really emphasize with our race services: not what we’re putting on, it’s how we put it on. Our scraping and brushing is so much more refined because of our years and years of experience between all of us here.”

The Birkie is always held on a Saturday. Approaching the race, Pioneer takes on a work-binge atmosphere: “It’s a party,” Hecker says. “We are waxing all day every day, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. There’s always music going on.” They keep four wax stations going in the store. Most of the skis—300-350 pairs—have already been delivered. Starting work on a pair of skis, the waxer will inspect the skis’ base. “If dry, we add a soft layer to hydrate those bases,” Hecker said. “If a ski looks fine, we do a first layer of green.” The next layer will be a fluorocarbon-free race paraffin. Older high-test waxes contained PFAS, or forever chemicals, and are now banned from the Birkie because they are harmful to waxers and the environment.

The Pioneer waxers work until 10 or 11pm through Tuesday night, then load the skis on a truck and drive to Cable on Wednesday, where they rent space from CAMBA, the Chequamegon Area Mountain Biking Association. The first year they rented this space, they left a big waxy mess Hecker felt bad about, so they started making what he calls a “kill room.” “Kill room” is a reference to the television dramedy Dexter, about a serial killer who does his murdering in a room draped in tarps to ensure cleanliness.

Every day through Birkie week, someone from Pioneer is out testing different kinds of wax. For the final layer last year, Hecker landed on a Star Durable wax that they rubbed on and smoothed with a roto brush. He had three wax techs working the kill room prior to the 2025 race. All three had worked the recent World Cup event at Wirth Park in Minneapolis. “That is something—the level of experience and skill,” Hecker said of his waxers. They finished prepping the 450 pairs of skis about midnight on Birkie Saturday.

Hecker loves the pre-Birkie grind right up until the end. “The worst part of the entire week is when we finally finish waxing and have to organize the skis and put them in the truck,” he said. “We’re done physically waxing the skis, but we still have two hours of work.” Finally, at 2am, they wrapped up and caught a couple of hours of sleep. Hecker had worked 100 hours during the prior eight days. Then he was up at 4:30am to fire up the truck and get the skis to the starting line.

The 2025 Birkie started with over ten releases, called waves, in which the faster skiers began earlier. After handing out the last of his customers’ skis, Hecker clicked into a pair and started skiing at the back of the pack. He’d been too busy to eat breakfast and managed to scrounge three chocolate chip cookies just before starting. “I can get my breakfast at the first aid station,” he remembered thinking. Hecker passed many people, looking for stickers on their skis denoting those waxed by Pioneer. Whenever he saw a sticker, he’d ask that skier how the wax was performing. The only negative feedback, Hecker said, came from a skier who quipped, “Why are your skis faster than mine?”

It was a good year for Pioneer waxing. Matt Liebsch, the owner, finished in 6th place. “He’s getting a little older,” Hecker said (Liebsch was 41). “He doesn’t have time to train like these other athletes. For him to be able to do that, he had a really good day, but it also meant our skis are pretty dang fast.” Of special pride for Hecker, a Frenchman named Gérard Agnellet had had Pioneer wax his skis. To be safe, Agnellet waxed an additional pair himself. Prior to the race, Agnellet tested the different skis and opted for the ones Pioneer prepped. Agnellet started the freestyle race and took first place.

Hecker is no longer driven to out-wax the other coaches. “I don’t have that feeling that I want to beat the other techs,” he said. “I want them to do well.” He’s come to relish his place as an essential part of the Nordic ecosystem.

His younger brother, Chris Hecker, is the lead glide wax technician for the U.S. Nordic team. By the time this goes to press, Jeremy will have gone to Italy to help the U.S. team prep for the Tour de Ski and Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games, both in Italy. While the team is racing in early-season World Cup events to the north, Hecker will be in Italy working out of the U.S. team’s second wax truck. He’ll be using the stone grinder that the team keeps in the truck to experiment with different base patterns and hoping to come up with winning grinds prior to the big races in February.

Hecker and Chris stay in touch year-round, checking in on snow conditions and wax testing. “He’s asking me for ideas, and vice versa, giving me different ideas to test. We’ll bounce ideas off each other even if we’re not in the same location,” Hecker said.

During the last World Cup season, and representing Rex wax, Hecker traveled to Italy for the Tour de Ski. Each day, he tested the various Rex waxes to see which was fastest under the given conditions. Once he determined this, he’d go around to the competing teams, giving them recommendations and samples, and filling any orders they might make.

“Jessie [Diggins] ended up third that day,” Hecker said. “Chris came after the race and told me: ‘Thanks for the recommendation; we got third place because of that.’ It’s fun to do something like that—even though I wasn’t physically waxing for the U.S. team, something I did had an impact on that day and ended up putting them on the podium.”