Pipe dreams: Meet Park City’s Olympian plumber

Photo: Jonathan Cheever

“You know, the secret sauce to owning a business and making money is there is no secret, you have to do what you hate like you love it. You have to grind and work hard. And if you're working hard, try to do it right, try to have some type of strategy. And that's what I carried over from my athletic career” - Jonathan Cheever

PARK CITY, Utah — Jonathan Cheever grew up in Saugus, Massachusetts, a town just outside of Boston. His dad owned his own business and from a young age, Cheever witnessed what it was like to grind in the world of plumbing and HVAC. Following in his dad’s footsteps, he became a licensed plumber shortly after high school while still spending his first year in college. After which, he decided to move out west to chase the snow.

Always with a career to fall back on, Cheever moved to Park City in 2004 and found success quickly, making the US Snowboard team in 2005. At breakneck speed, he started competing in World Cups during his 2005-2006 seasons, eventually racking up ten X-Games appearances in snowboard cross, and making the Olympic team in 2018.

Between 2004 and 2011, Jonathan accumulated 38 top 5 finishes across all events, topping the podium in nine of those. He was only the second American to be ranked first in the world.

With a 16-year span of top level, elite performance as a professional snowboarder, Cheever looks back on his time in the sport with a lot of pride and fondness. “It was insane. You know, World Cup podiums, National Champion, just a really cool career, getting to travel the world and snowboard.” While it doesn’t keep the lights on anymore, he is lucky to have stood on his dad’s shoulders to land himself in such a lucrative career in a place like Park City.

“My fiancé Madeleine and I are easily working upwards of 55-60 hours a week and staying busy. We live in Pinebrook, where we can ride our mountain bikes after a long day before the sun goes down, maybe catch a couple laps, and enjoy these activities with my stepdaughter, she’s 9. It’s really exciting to see her doing her thing, but we just love what we do,” Cheever said.

In 2020, while the world stopped for all of us, Cheever also went through a divorce, lost his mother, and was confronted with the decision to turn the page on his professional career. “We’re all human and go through our ups and downs. The world’s going to keep turning whether we are sad or grieving or not,” he said.

He acknowledges the particular difficulty of that year, but it really put into perspective the point he was at in his life. “I still wanted to try to make the 2022 Olympics, just see what happens, and there were some flashes of brilliance. I think mentally, I was already checked out,” Cheever  said. “After that season, it was time for something new. Time to make some money. I wanted to get to the mountains and do some more mountaineering, ride some powder, get back into snowboarding for the original reason why I got into it.”

Plumbing and Snowboarding may seem like two very separate careers to most, but for Cheever he’s rooted deeply in both. Going from a plumbing-snowboarder to now a snowboarding-plumber, his career-long sponsors are still part of his day to day. Having always repped American-Standard fixtures, Bradford White Water Heaters, and Viega, he’s more of their ambassador now. In a growing industry, Cheever knows first-hand the opportunities he has in this field.

“For every 11 plumbers leaving or dying in the trade, there’s only one getting back into it. There is so much work out there. The home services industry is growing by about $5 billion every year. I just feel lucky that this is my life right now,” he said.

From prestige on the slopes, to having great appreciation and breadth of knowledge in his massive industry, this decorated snowboarder is serving his community in the plumbing and HVAC trade, but brings with him the ambition and grit of a world-class winter athlete––exemplifying the Park City lifestyle in such a unique way.