Al Sise died October 14, 1991, of a heart attack at Mary Hitchcock Hospital at the age of 84. He was preparing for another season of racing in an event that went from leather binding and soggy woolen pants to plastic and spandex in his lifetime.
He was a member of the National Ski Hall of Fame and left behind parallel ski tracks perhaps slightly father apart than he would have preferred, extending back to the farming hills of Medford when skis were hewn from backyard tree.
Born in Medford Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard in 1928 and helped develop shortwave radio and radar technology, and built the first FM radio station on the summit of Mount Washington. He lived in Wellesley for many years while working for MIT, first as associate director of servo mechanisms, then as director of personnel. In 1972 he retired to his farm in Norwich Vermont.
He never retired from skiing and raced in more than 600 alpine events since he founded the Masters circuit in 1942. He learned to ski on pine boards and was trained by Otto Schneibs, a German-born watchmaker from Waltham who would later become a legendary ski coach at Dartmouth.