Inside Lindsey Vonn's emotional relationship with late mom and national ski champion dad

Alan holds a law degree and worked as an attorney. In 2017, he joined Briggs and Morgan as a commercial litigation attorney in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

"Kildow concentrates in the prosecution and defence of complex commercial litigation, with an emphasis on disputes arising out of banking and insurance transactions. He has represented banking, insurance, and other Fortune 500 clients in civil and class actions involving antitrust, RICO, lender liability, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and deceptive trade practices, among other disputes. He also represents banking and insurance clients in investigations, enforcement proceedings, and civil litigation with regulators and attorneys general," reads his bio on the company's website.

Prior to joining Briggs and Morgan, Alan worked as a managing partner at DLA Piper for 12 years.

Alan showed early promise as an alpine skier, finding success on the junior circuit before his competitive career was cut short by a serious knee injury at just 18, shortly before he was in line for national championship selection. He trained with Erich Sailer, a member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.

He remained closely connected to the sport through his daughter, Lindsey, and started teaching her how to ski when she was as young as 2 years old. When Lindsey was 6, her father took her to Buck Hill near Burnsville, Minnesota, to train with Erich.

"If I wouldn't never have come (to Buck Hill), there would never be a Lindsey. Because I got Alan a job with a company so he could go to school. He went to school in the day and would be coaching at night. He met his wife. So it happened. Lindsey was born here … and it just was really exceptional, an unbelievable story," Erich told Golf Digest.

Lindsey tied the knot with fellow ski racer Thomas Vonn in 2007. However, despite parting ways in 2011, the former couple have remained friends. Lindsey met Thomas when she was 17 years old and he was 26 years old. The nine-year age gap was something that Alan disapproved of. As a result, Alan was not invited to their wedding and the pair lost contact for a few years following the nuptials.

"I can see any father being upset at the age difference. But I would at least try to meet the person and have a dialogue," Thomas Vonn told Sports Illustrated in 2008. "I loved him and I didn’t want to end my relationship just because [my father] said so. It forced me to take sides," Lindsey told the outlet.

"As a father, as a parent, you want to protect and guide your children," Alan told Sports Illustrated.

However, following her divorce, Lindsey reconnected with her father. "I had been confiding in my sister Karin, and she was helping me decide what to do with my life. She always had been saying that my father missed me, and she said my father had offered to help," she told the New York Times in 2012.

"He’s a lawyer; he'd been through a divorce with my mom. I knew the direction I was going to follow. But I needed help. So I called him. It was a difficult first conversation, but we kind of worked past everything. He apologized. It’s going to take a long time to build a relationship back, but it’s definitely come a long way since that first call."

Lindsey’s mother, Linda, relocated to Colorado to support her daughter’s pursuit of competitive skiing, with the rest of the family joining her the following year. A trained psychologist and attorney, Kinda spent her career working as a public defender and drug counselor. She and Alan divorced in 2003, and she later remarried.

In 2021, Linda was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and passed away on August 26, 2022, one year later. "None of us expected her to die as quickly as she did. One year later, she was gone. Grief is something that you learn to live with, but it doesn’t go away," Lindsey told ELLE in 2024.

"I was in Los Angeles when a doctor called to let us know she had ALS. My family and I weren’t expecting that news. We were in shock. To be honest, I didn’t realize that the diagnosis was a death sentence."

She continued: "It’s only when you see how quickly things slip away that you realize anything can happen at any moment. I now use every opportunity that I have to live my life to the fullest. I never waste a second. I keep perspective of how lucky I am."