Browse Our Archives

Move the SIA Show to Denver
by Chris Diamond, President and Managing Director, Steamboat Ski Resort, Chairman, Colorado Ski Country, USA

The SIA Vegas Trade Show has had a wonderful history. I can remember staying at the Dunes in the mid-’70s when that was basically as far out of town as you could get. I would walk to and from the Show to save $6 by skipping the cab ride! Travel budgets weren’t exactly flush. But those were exciting days, and the SIA Show was the talk of the town. We were big business for Vegas. The Show was in March, and you could actually break outside for some sunshine (an important bennie for us easterners). But times have changed, and so should the location for the SIA show.

This is not so far-fetched as it might seem. The SIA Trade Show Committee met in Denver during the first week in April. They talked with folks from the Denver Convention and Visitors’ Bureau about the possibility of relocating the SIA Show to Denver sometime in the near future. By the time this magazine is published, that committee will probably have made a recommendation to the SIA Board. I sincerely hope that Denver is the committee’s choice—and if not Denver, then perhaps Salt Lake City.

The Vegas locale just doesn’t seem relevant in comparison with a mountain setting. Let’s get the manufacturers, retailers and ski area folks back together in the mountains. I know that the Colorado areas would roll out the welcome mat, hosting meetings, demos, whatever. Attendees could mix some serious buying with some equally serious skiing/riding/demoing before or after the show. The current January dates also work well in terms of the ski areas’ ability to host the attendees.

Denver has a brand-new convention center, new city hotels, legendary dining and night clubbing in LoDo. Denver International Airport is one of the most easily accessed in North America. Colorado is our premier ski state. What better locale for our premier ski show?

Many initiatives have been tried over the years to bring the manufacturers and the ski area operators closer together—most, as we all know, with limited success. Moving the annual trade show to one of our great mountain cities would open doors that have been closed for a long time and create all sorts of new opportunities for communication and cooperation. Let’s hope that SIA recognizes these opportunities and has the courage to move out of Vegas, with Denver as its first choice and Salt Lake as a second option.


On Liability for NSP Members
by Larry Daniels, General Manager, Alyeska Resort

I am writing in response to Peter Pitcher’s comments about providing workers’ comp for NSP members (“Speak Out,” SAM March 2006), following an incident for which Discovery ski area had to pay $900,000. A number of years ago, we made the decision to pay workers’ compensation insurance for our National Ski Patrol members for this very reason. In the state of Alaska, employees may not sue for negligence if they are covered by workers’ comp. After hearing about some wrongful death suits in other areas, as well as having a trainee incur a serious injury, we chose to go the workers’ comp route on our volunteers. With the rise in premiums, there is still significant cost to our business, but at least it is more predictable. We also worked to change the labor statutes to recognize volunteer patrollers as state-recognized volunteers. In this way, we do not have to pay wages but can include them in our WC coverage. Other states may have similar statutes.

We are now very careful where and how we use “volunteers” throughout our resort. Good luck to others, and our condolences to Discovery for having such an expensive lesson.


ASTM Standards Are the Solution, Not the Problem
by Jasper Shealy, Chairman of ASTM F27 Committee on Snow Skiing

If Alex Douglas is really on a mission and wants to make some progress on improving rental shop operations (“So Many Questions, So Few Answers,” SAM March 2006), I would encourage him (and others) to get involved with the ASTM F27 Snow Skiing Committee. We have tried very hard to get dealers involved with the rental shop practices standard for more than 20 years. Steve Hanft, risk manager at Big Bear Mountain Resorts and a longtime rental shop manager, is the chair of F27.50 Shop Procedures (Retail and Rental) and would love to have more dealer input and assistance. He and Mike Owen, who runs a chain of independent rental shops, are usually the only ones directly involved in shop procedures (rental or retail) that provide any meaningful feedback, i.e., constructive criticism on how we can make the procedures better.

Our interests lie in trying to not only make skiing and snowboarding safer for the participants, but also to make procedures easier and more practical for shops. If anyone has any ideas as to how we can do it better, we are all eyes and ears. But if this information is not conveyed to us, it is pretty difficult to respond to anyone’s concerns.

One of the main complaints of the attendees at the Rental Roundtable at the SIA Show regarded recent changes in the recommended release values and adjustment charts for children nine and under. These changes were made in response to research findings that children nine and under are much more likely to sustain a fracture of the lower leg than they are to be injured by some sort of inadvertent release situation. A recently published study points out that for boys and girls nine and under, 12 to 14 percent of injuries are lower leg fractures, as opposed to 1 to 3.5 percent for adolescents and adults. This is the basis for concluding that it might be prudent to lower the release values for the nine and under age group.

Based on the almost total absence of any meaningful dealer comments at ASTM meetings, other than those of Mike Owen and Steve Hanft and binding manufacturer technical and risk managers, we can only conclude that shop procedures are working smoothly. If they are not, we need to hear from dealers so that we can arrive at a workable solution.

To encourage greater dealer participation, we have tried shifting our meeting times, locations and schedules to accommodate dealers, yet we have not been able to increase their numbers. Shops do not have to actually attend our meetings (although that would be nice); they can simply become members of F27 and gain full access to what is going on. In fact, by my count, at least 17 of the 97 members of F27 are from rental/retail shops or ski resorts with rental/retail shops.

In closing, I agree with Mike Owen when he suggested that it would be good if more dealers got involved in ASTM. And I also agree with Alex Douglas when he said that we, as an industry, must do a better job with regard to training our shop personnel. Let’s all work together to make sure that this happens.


Whose Snow Cats?
by Steve Bauer, Vice President, Track, Inc.

As a 35-year reader of SAM and having attended more than 25 NSAA Trade Shows, I actually got a chuckle out of your first paragraph in “Grooming Vehicles 2006” (SAM March 2006): “The number of brand names in the snow cat business shrank to three: Prinoth, Kassbohrer-PistenBully, and Ohara.”

Our company, Track Inc., has been in the snow cat business for 30 years. In just the last two years we have sold in excess of 160 new and used snow vehicles which, until we can be proven wrong, enables us to use the claim of being “North America’s Largest Dealer of Snow Grooming Vehicles.” Yet we sell none of the three brands you list.

Are you aware that the name “snow cat” is trademarked? Ever heard of the Tucker Sno-Cat Corporation?

SAM replies:
To be completely accurate, SAM should have said there are just three grooming vehicle brands serving the Alpine ski area trade. Tucker sells its Sno-Cats primarily for snowmobile trail grooming and utility company use, though a few Tuckers still ply ski-area slopes.


Corrections
Bern Burned: In our report on new products at the SIA Show in our last issue (“25 Top Products,” March 2006), we failed in our attempt to properly and concisely describe the new Bern helmet line, which incorporates several new technologies. One is the Zipmold hard shell, a patented molding process that provides light weight and strength. Second, Bern offers interchangeable winter and summer liners (hatlike knit liner for winter, lightweight sock-like liner for summer), for year-round multi-sport use. And third, Bern uses a new Brock protective liner in several styles. While many Bern styles use the more or less standard EVA foam inner shell that meets the ASTM ski helmet standard, the Brock liner has a different purpose. It’s a compressible foam that retains its initial shape, even after multiple impacts. Brock foam is also engineered to keep wearers cooler, dryer and more comfortable.

Also in March, in the article, “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,” we incorrectly listed SMI’s website. It should read: www.snowmakers.com.

And, in the Idea Files of the same issue, we listed snow gun towers as 320-foot Snow Streams, which would be awfully high. They are series 320 Snow Streams towers.