Rather than continue thread drift, I copied this from the Crosson skis thread-
RD really did start as a 'garage brand' - they were made in a garage, then a workshop in Ketchum and they really were one of a kind, hand built stuff. This article gives the early days and name checks Ken Crosson referenced above:
I was involved after the garage days, when Tim Kohl came into the company changed it into a 'brand' . Mike was there as a sort of figurehead, albeit an influential one. RD really became, as with Pre a sort of branding exercise [of the sort that lots of smaller brands are today - go to a factory Y with a graphic and order 10 000 of model X by length]. I have a feeling they were mainly Atomic but stand to be corrected on that.
Tim also developed a relationship with Swan and they sold their goggles and Poles in the USA. Mark Archer was involved on the bike side - this a long time ago but I think they started as RD bikes with Archer then starting up ARC 1 [one?] bikes much to the annoyance of atomic.
Someone will know better than I, but I seem to remember Tim previously being involved with Scott [or perhaps Pre] and leaving. RD [with Tim, who I remember as a fun guy] etc struck me as an effort to create a sort of
Scott version 2.
My girlfriend at the time worked at Bahnhof Sports in Park City where they had the All Mountain and Powder Skis. I lusted over the all mountain ski. Something about the shape flex and lightness was appealing as I was skiing a lot of backcountry at the time. This was in the days of skinny tele skis and I couldn't quite comprehend going as wide as the Powder ski. But the price was high and I waffled. An employee snaked the All Mountains and a Patroller ended up with the Powder ski. Both were happy. I eventually bought a pair of RD SLS that were made in Yugoslavia. Elan, I'm sure. They had a similar shape and a very light balsa like core and were fun powder skis. The later RDs were much more serious metal skis and I'd agree that they were likely built by Atomic.