INDUSTRY EVENTS    SAMMY AWARDS

Please e-mail liz@saminfo.com to enter the 2009 Contest.
Submission deadline is December 1, 2008

2008 Recruit of the Year
All of our participants offered innovative and cutting edge ideas that addressed the future of our industry. Three winners were chose by SAM and our esteemed panel of judges including; NSAA's Michael Berry, Tim Boyd from Peak Resorts, Bill Jensen from Vail Resorts, and Bill Rock from Snowshoe

Thank you to our sponsors Flow and Elan who provided the top two winners with full equipment packages. Our lucky first place winner receives airfare from SAM to attend the NSAA National Trade Show and Convention in San Francisco this May, and NSAA has donated lodging and registration.

2008 Winners Are...

Read Erica's Entry
Read Brent's Entry
Read Jeremy's Entry

We asked each participant to answer the following two questions:

1. What do you think are the two most important sustainable green practices that would yield the greatest energy efficiency for a ski resort and why? And, how would you most effectively communicate your resorts' environmentally forward practices to guests and potential costumers?

2. You have a bottomless budget and endless resources to get one big idea off the ground. Your idea can be about customer retention or attraction, snowmaking, environmental planning, etc. What would you propose and why and how would you implement it?


Entries from the top three winners:

Erica Kelleher
Erica.Kelleher@lsc.vsc.edu

Question 1:

Recycling to Reduce Waste & Maximize Efficiency
Recycling encompasses many endeavors in which ski areas can pursue in order to become “green.” While recycling paper, corrugated cardboard, plastic bottles, and soda cans is typically the first step most areas take towards being “green,” recycling can become much more elaborate. From paper French fry containers to kitchen oil, if previously utilized products can be converted into usable goods, then less waste will be created. Minimizing waste is perhaps one of the most important aspects of a ski area working to become more “green.” Additional steps can be taken such as converting cooking oil into energy for snowmobiles and utilizing wind power to minimize electricity for lift functions. Furthermore, reservoirs can be developed in order to recycle melted snow into machine-made snow.
Thus, varying levels of recycling can occur at ski areas around the world. By starting a recycling initiative through small-scaled endeavors and working their way up to larger sustainability programs, resorts can improve efficiency and reduce waste. Through departmental contests to resort promotional efforts regarding environmental conservation initiatives, every ski area has the potential to promote recycling on any level.


Green BUS: Bio-diesel Utility Service
One way in which ski areas could help contribute to environmental sustainability is through offering bio-diesel bus services around resort communities and from major cities to their ski area. This would be known as the “Green BUS,” which would be a service provided by resorts in order to be more environmentally conscious while continually striving to benefit their guests. A bio-diesel bus service would help promote both environmental and economic sustainability. Through making skiing and riding more accessible, ski areas can help positively contribute to both the environment and their own financial success. I see this as a two-step process.

First, areas that do not currently provide resort transportation can begin with bio-diesel bus services around their resort community. Then, after initial implementation, areas that feel they would best serve their clientele can begin running shuttle services from greater distances in order to attract skiers and riders to promote environmental sustainability on a more global scale. This can serve as an expansion f current resort shuttle efforts around their facilities and local towns. This would not only reduce carbon dioxide emissions which contribute to global warming, it would also help make ski trips accessible t more people. Furthermore, this would enhance the social spectrum of skiers and snowboarders, decrease traffic, and enable an easier way for skiers and snowboarders to travel…without having to worry about traffic, gas prices, and “schlepping.” Both day and weekend trips could be provided in order to best cater to customers, with discount lift tickets offered to those who participate in the Green BUS program.

The key to both of these initiatives is demonstrating publicity and awareness within the ski area community and to current and potential guests. Resorts should use advertising and the media as tools to help express their environmental messaging in order to create awareness of their efforts. By creating marketing campaigns around the Green BUS system and recycling, guests will become aware of how ski areas are becoming more environmentally and socially responsible.

Question 2:

Last Saturday, I cam across a Parent/Teacher Organization (PTO) bake sale outside a general store near a rural Vermont ski area. “Please help our kids ski this winter,” pleaded one of the teachers. I also overheard some parents saying that the budget was tight, and skiing could not be fully funded by the school program anymore. Typically, all of the elementary school children would ski or snowboard at a local ski area one afternoon per week during the winter. However, with school budgets becoming more stringent, extracurricular programs are frequently cut. In my eyes, snowsports are more than an extracurricular activity and can possess an extraordinary meaningful purpose in any child’s education.

Therefore, I believe skiing must be an integral part of every child’s education. Besides promoting physical activity early in a child’s life, especially in a nation facing severe childhood obesity, skiing can help improve children’s confidence, social skills, and quality of life. With ski areas in nearly forty of the fifty United States, and several resorts throughout Canada, I would develop a funding program for schoolchildren to be introduced to skiing and snowboarding as part of their school’s physical education program.

My bottomless budget would provide grants and programming to enable school system in states with ski areas the automatic ability to have grants available to the school systems for ski and snowboard school systems. However, if a school system is not in a state with a ski area, they have the opportunity to apply for a grant if the school is interested. Even schools in Hawaii who desire to have their students learn to ski or snowboard will be allowed to participate! This way, all of America’s youth will be provided the opportunity to learn to ski or snowboard, regardless of their financial status or geographic location. This will provide an opportunity for everyone to enter the snowspots industry which will, in turn, enable growth for ski areas. With more and more youth being exposed to snowsports, skiing and snowboarding will become more popular. This will also serve as a retention tool to turn first time skiers and riders into lifetime members of the sport.

After all, accessibility to snowsports is quite difficult for most people. Thus, skiing and snowboarding can become an equal opportunity for all Americans, regardless of where they come from. This program would be available for all elementary schools throughout the United States and Canada. While weekly ski trips will be provided for schools in states with ski areas, week-long field trips will be funded for schools that do not have ski areas in their state. Partnerships can be developed between local resorts and individual school systems to provide more midweek ski area visits to ski resorts while still benefiting the school system’s educational programming.
Skiing and snowboarding learning programs will inevitably enable America’s youth the opportunity to excel in areas they may have never had the opportunity to explore. While I feel a child’s education must include traditional classroom learning, children who may not excel in the classroom will be able to discover other methods of learning through experiential education. Besides teaching children a new sport, this fully funded ski and snowboard program can teach children that learning certainly exists beyond the confines of a classroom. In fact, I cannot think of a better place to develop a passion for learning than at a ski area! Learning to ski or snowboard can serve as a positive experience for children in a safe environment, where their success is totally based on their commitment to fun and learning.

Not only would a fully funded youth ski instruction program benefit thousands of children, it would help enhance economic stability of ski areas through the conversation of lifelong members of the skiing and snowboarding family. If children discover the excitement of skiing and snowboarding at an early age, they will likely want to experience it throughout their life. This will, in turn, help attribute to financial stability of ski areas for years to come.
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Brent Maylsh
bmalysh@gmail.com

Question 1:

The two most important sustainable green practices that would yield the greatest energy efficiency, in my opinion, would be to first find areas where heat and electricity are being wasted within the resort and making the necessary changes to eliminate the waste. This is a simple solution that would utilize technology and products that are already easily available and affordable. Secondly, I feel resorts should invest renewable energy sources to heat and power resort infrastructure.

The first solution is not a secret to anyone. There are a number is simple solutions that resorts can make in order to reduce the amount of energy used. The first and often most talked about is switching from incandescent to compact fluorescent lights. While this may seem simple, many ski areas, especially smaller ones, have not made this change as it can involve a substantial investment. Compact fluorescents are considerably more expensive than standard bulbs. Outfitting an entire building is expensive, but the long-term savings will more than outweigh the cost. Resorts with night skiing should be looking into the amount of energy used to light ski runs. In my experience, the lights are either on or off, regardless of how dark it is. Some cities are installing dimmers on street lights, which register the amount of natural light and slowly increase the amount of light being produced as the night sky darkens. Additionally, some Canadian cities are toying with dimming street lights by 30-40% to reduce the amount of electricity used. I feel these options should also be explored in the resort setting. Again, installing dimmers would involve a capital investment, but would yield both energy and monetary savings in the long run.

Investing in renewable energy is the second point. I think solar energy is the best way to go. The technology allows for power to be produced with increasingly less sunlight and resorts can easily install solar panels on buildings and lift terminals. Some will say that solar is a poor choice as mountains can often go long periods of time without significant sunshine. I have a solution for this. There is a company called Vantek which produces batteries designed to power high-rise buildings. The basic idea is that batteries are charged at night, when electricity is cheaper, and then power the building during the day, reducing power costs. I think this idea could be used in conjunction with solar energy. When there isn’t enough daylight to produce electricity, the battery would power the lift or building. When there is more than enough power being produced, unused energy could then be stored in the battery. This system could help take lifts or buildings off of the resort grid saving thousands of both kilowatt hours and dollars. The only drawback I can see is that solar panels would need to be kept free of snow, of which there are a number of solutions.

The easiest way to effectively communicate your resorts environmental practices is first via the resort webpage. As we all know, the internet is probably the most important marketing tool, and therefore, the best medium to convey your resorts green efforts. Information about the resorts green practices should be easily found on the home page with as little navigation of the site as possible. Secondly, I would place the same information/stats as on the website in a physical location somewhere at the resort. Possible locations could include cafeterias, washrooms, or on lift maps around the mountain. Each location doesn’t need to have the full-story, but instead quick and fun facts that can be read while standing in the lift line or at the urinal. Each info board could include things like how much energy is used to power a given lift for a day or how much electricity is not being taken from the grid by using your new independent solar energy/battery system.

Question 2:

I think the most important issue facing the ski industry today is attracting and retaining new skiers. North America’s population is increasingly less active, has greater competition for leisure time, and has immigration from traditionally non-winter climates. Combine this with a dramatic decline in ski areas over the past 30 years and it’s easy to see that the industry as a whole needs to address this issue. In the 60’s and 70’s there was somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1200 ski areas in North America. Today, there are roughly 700. True, some have been forced to close due to climate change, but many were closed because they couldn’t make money. If we want to attract more new skiers, we need to ensure skiing/snowboarding is accessible to people living in all snow-bound regions of North America. With that in mind, I would like to start an “adopt-a-resort” program. The basic idea is that large destination resorts would “adopt” regional or feeder/breeder resorts around the continent. The destination resort could then help the smaller resort with purchasing capital improvements, marketing, or including the smaller resort in purchase orders when getting new uniforms or rental equipment.

This program would have a positive effect on both the destination resort and the feeder/breeder area. For starters, the feeder/breeder would gain access to invaluable expertise as well as often much needed extra money for key capital improvements to resort infrastructure. The feeder/breeder would also then become a natural fit to relocate chairlifts, groomers, or otherwise costly items. Destination resorts could also contribute simple monetary donations to help subsidize season pass costs to ensure that skiing remains affordable in small communities. I feel this is a key point to capturing and keeping new participants in the sport. In most cases, a new skier will not head straight to the romantic destination resorts of BC or Colorado; rather they will start at smaller areas near their hometowns. In order for this program to work, there must also be some sort of incentive for the destination resort. The first benefit as I see would be the opportunity to brand your resort with skiers at the small ski area. Imagine having your image/brand at a number of smaller ski areas. As soon as the local pass holder wants to take the family on a vacation, your destination resort would be the natural choice! Along with gaining new skiers and snowboarders, a second added benefit would be access to resort staff. Think of it as the destination resort being a professional sports team and the small ski area as the farm team. In sports, the farm team is where the player develops the skills needed to break into “the big-time.” At the small resort, employees could easily gain skills in a number of different departments. The small ski area could hire high-school kids part-time to begin learning about the tourism/ski industry and give them the promise that when they graduate from school they would be offered positions at your destination resort. This would also provide the destination resort with the opportunity to identify early-on who has the potential to become the future leaders of the resort, or simply to begin instilling your resorts values and ethics amongst your future recruits. This could help reduce hiring and training costs as you would already have access to a database of candidates who are willing to re-locate to your resort and they would also already be familiar with the basics of their role.

Implementation would be easy. Small ski areas would put their names on an “adoption list” with their ski area association. Destination resorts could then contact the various ski area associations across Canada and the USA to find out which ski areas are looking for help and the negotiations would begin!

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Jeremy Oclatis
joclatis@uvm.edu

Question 1:

Wind Energy
Wind energy is a source of renewable energy growing in popularity around the country. Its availability is abundant; its sustainability is paralleled only by solar power; and its convenience for businesses like ski resorts that happen to be on mountains is indisputable. Wind power, whether purchased through “green coupons” or taken into the hands of resorts themselves, is one of the most viable sustainable green practices out there. Though Jiminy Peak may be the first to take matters into its own hands and construct a turbine itself, resorts across the country are buying wind power to offset their consumption of energy.

This practice is the most important of all sustainable practices used by ski resorts for a number of reasons. First and foremost, wind power is one of the most sustainable, renewable, and well-known green practices around the world. People have been using wind since the days of windmills grinding grain and pumping water. For this reason it is surely the most understandable form of sustainable energy to communicate to guests and potential customers. Secondly, wind energy is one of the fastest growing markets in the sustainable energy field. With the up front costs from mass produced turbines decreasing year by year, the potential for resorts to construct their own wind turbines seems more and more appealing.

For resorts, wind energy represents a means for them to demonstrate (in a big way) their support for sustainable green practices by taking power into their own hands and producing the energy they use from a natural and renewable resource that does not have any pollution associated with it. Furthermore, places like Jiminy Peak have earned recognition for their environmental stand in the industry and in its community as a progressive minded resort which recycles whatever power they don’t use back into the grid. Wind power has the potential to change the way resorts utilize energy and one day could lead to completely self-sustained resorts. This is a concept that anyone can understand and can only improve the image of resorts to the public.

Reduced Transportation
Reducing transportation to and from resorts is a concept that any resort can participate in and involves the guests more than any other form of sustainable green practices. It is also the easiest and most diverse form of reducing pollution and consumption for resorts because there are so many options. First off is giving incentives for guests to travel in carpools, by hybrid vehicle, or by public transportation. Incentives could include reduced lift ticket price, reserved parking, or free transportation. Someone who gets a free ride to the mountain or a reduced lift ticket is more likely to spend more money at that resort. Increasing mass transportation to resorts by providing buses that run on biofuel has the potential to further decrease emissions. The biofuel could be derived from the oil used in the resorts’ kitchens. By reducing and recycling waste, the resorts will save money as well as convey their commitment to sustainable practices.

Lastly, reducing transportation within a resort (such as Stowe’s Over Easy Transfer Gondola) can eliminate the need for driving between peaks and/or needing mountain shuttles from one side to another. This enables the resort to reduce emissions, save energy, and save time and energy for the guest who can now ski or shop with much more ease. This is why reducing transportation needs can be beneficial for the resort, the guest, and the environment.

Question 2:


I believe that one problem faced by many resorts today is the void between a resorts’ overall image and their “freestyle” image if you will. There are too many resorts to count anymore that provide younger and more adventurous guests with terrain parks, half pipes, and contest/events to go with them. The problem facing resorts is that as their freestyle programs grow larger, they tend to stray further away from the resorts image and sometimes clash with resorts presence in the industry. I think the article last year about “Moms wanna rock too” was sort of a wake up call to resorts that simply putting up some rails and jumps for the teenagers will no longer suffice. Resorts need to look at terrain parks from a different perspective, as a tool for them to showcase their creativity, style, and adaptability to entertain a new generation of guests.


In a world where resorts still exist that do not allow snowboarders (though that number is one less now) there is a serious market for resorts to utilize their terrain parks as tool for marketing, entertainment, and drawing in a new segment of skiers and riders. Areas are already using these techniques such as Winter Park, in Colorado, who started the first ever public terrain park to give a chance for kids to enjoy the features of the mountain without the lift ticket. We live in a society where more kids know the name Shaun White and Tanner Hall than Bode Miller. This new generation of kids growing up with Tony Hawk as a household name are looking for new and exciting terrain and features that enable them to put more creativity into their skiing/riding than turn radius. This really puts resorts in the position to use terrain parks for more than just jumps and rails.


At my resort I would use my terrain park to do more for the resort than people in the industry today think it has the potential for. One idea I have had for a while now that would incorporate a resorts environmental stand and terrain parks would be to construct a terrain park solely from recycled materials, a “green park.” The park would have only features that are made from recycled materials or features like staircases, oil drums, plastic tubing that would otherwise be thrown away. In promoting this terrain park my resort would receive publicity for sustainable practices, young skiers and riders would have a new and unique park, and people who would not usually be concerned with terrain parks could appreciate. This would obviously be a low to no cost park, it would raise public awareness about sustainable practices, and involve a more youthful crowd into green jibbing.


Another way that resorts can use their park as a tool for their image is to think of every rail, box, wall ride as a piece of signage. Most resorts spend many hours and dollars on the most appropriate colors, font, material, etc. for signs around their mountains, yet simply spray paint their terrain park features without putting much thought into it. I see terrain parks as an area of the mountain where resorts have the greatest ability to be creative and unique in their signage. Features in terrain parks have come a long way from double barrel shotguns rails and rainbow boxes. Rails like the “Kingvale” rail and the Helly Hansen “HH” rail bring a new level of utility to features in terrain parks. By creating parks with consistent and unique color scheme you can really brand your park image so that if someone sees a picture in a magazine they recognize where the photo was taken. Though some still think it is a fad, like those who thought snowboarding was a fad, terrain parks are a growing segment of resorts and those who embrace them and use them to their advantage reap the benefits.