In September, the National Ski Areas Association named Mike Reitzell as its new president and CEO. Unlike his predecessors, Reitzell doesn’t come to the job with a background in resort operations. Rather, for 14 years, he was an attorney with San Francisco- and Tahoe-based firm Hancock Rothert & Bunshoft, representing ski resorts in California and Nevada in litigation and risk management before a career pivot led him to the California Ski Industry Association (Ski California), where he served as president since 2015. 

During his time at Ski California he oversaw the creation of the Lift Maintenance and Operations Education (LMOE) annual conference, launched the association’s multi-award-winning Mountain Safety Guide, and spearheaded California and Nevada ski areas’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

A lifelong skier, Reitzell caught the bug as a 5-year-old on day trips to Bear Valley, Calif., with his parents. That early passion for the sport has subtly and not so subtly shaped his career. As an undergrad at USC (“not exactly skiing’s hotbed”), it led him to captain the USC ski team, which became the USC ski and snowboard team under his leadership (“I don’t want to make too much of it, but I ran that team a little like I continue to try to run things in terms of moving the group forward, adding more people, bringing people together, and trying to have fun,” he said.). It also drew him to law school at UC Davis (“closer to the mountains”) and then away from an offer for a position with a “would have been totally boring” law firm in Palo Alto to one with Hancock Rothert & Bunshoft, where he learned the craft of ski area representation under the tutelage of John Fagan. 

In 2015, when the long-tenured Bob Roberts decided to retire as the head of Ski California, Reitzell said “a light bulb kind of went off above my head.” Without any operations experience, he knew he couldn’t check every box in the job description, but he also knew he had plenty to bring to the table. The Ski California board agreed. 

Nearly 10 years later, the opportunity to serve the industry more broadly as the president and CEO of NSAA was another lightbulb moment: “There was really only one job that would have drawn me away from running Ski California, and that was NSAA,” he said.

SAM publisher Olivia Rowan and senior editor Katie Brinton talked with Reitzell in late November to learn more about the skills and experiences he brings to his new role, the ski industry issues that matter most to him, and his forecast for the future of snowsports. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Katie: What does your background as a lawyer and as someone who has run a regional ski industry association allow you to bring to the role? 

Mike: I do think my skill set over the years has become really well rounded. Amy Ohran gave a little speech at our board meeting a few weeks ago, and she talked about everybody’s superpower, which was super cool. She said mine, in so many words, is bringing people together, that I had a unique ability. I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but I think that’s a really important thing. 

When you’re talking about an organization that is a nonprofit, it’s not really judged on dollars and cents. Obviously, you have to keep the lights on, but it really is judged more on what you’re able to accomplish with the people that are your members, your stakeholders, and then everybody else associated with the organization. I’m technically the only employee at Ski California. So, other than some contractors, my job is convincing people that have day jobs to get stuff done. And the way you do that is you convince them that what they’re doing is a good thing, it’s a beneficial thing for everybody. And I think I’ll be able to do that at NSAA, too. 

The job’s a little different, for sure—leading a team versus being closer to a one-man show—but bringing everyone together for common goals and pushing forward to great results, I think that’s still the job. 

Olivia: You’re also bringing a slightly different approach to work/life balance. You have two kids, and you and your family are going to stay in California. How will you split your time? 

Mike: I made a note for everyone right at the beginning of the application and interview process, I didn’t put it out there as a discussion, I said, “If I’m going to do this, just know that I have to do it from where I am.” My wife is a senior executive at the ninth largest wine company in the world. Sonoma County is kind of an important place to be for wine, and her job is as or more important than mine. So, balancing that first need was extremely important. 

My kids are about to be 6 and 8 years old, and you know, grandma’s here 10 minutes away from us. I know it’s a cliché to say it takes a village, but when you’re balancing two careers with kids and you want to do a lot of things, having that support system is really important. I obviously value my family a lot, so I knew what needed to happen with this role.

My wife Kristen and I have been doing the balance already for a while. I mean, at Ski California, I didn’t just sit in my office all year. There were places to go, things to do. I think the challenge from the travel side will be that I have to go a little further for NSAA events.

From the office standpoint, I’m focused on finding a really good open communication line with everyone. I want everyone to know that when I’m around, meaning whether I’m there (in Lakewood, Colo.) or I’m here sitting in my California office, that I’m available. If you want to walk down the hallway to where I am in the office, then we can also do that virtually. 

Left: Ski California recognized Reitzell for his 9 years of service. Right: Reitzell is experienced at lobbying on behalf of the industry. 

Olivia: Switching gears a bit, what’s the toughest challenge you tackled while at Ski California?

Mike: I was going back through my email to get it nice and sorted for the next person, and I found this big set of emails that I had not moved into the “COVID” folder. And I was looking through those and, man, it made me recall how close we were in California to not being able to open, and some of the suggestions out there, some of the limitations that were going to be provided were going to be difficult to meet. 

We had a Zoom meeting with the California Department of Public Health. They wouldn’t give us their proposed documents in advance of the meeting. This is the day before Thanksgiving. They were telling us what challenges they saw with us. So, we’re on the call, just trying to type out what we thought our Covid guidance could look like. We end up sending it to them and kind of crossing our fingers that they would listen to us. 

Then I got on a call a couple days after that with this giant group of people, like the restaurant association and all these other huge groups. I just raised my hand and I was able to give the pitch about skiing, if you will. The next day, the governor’s office calls me, and they say, “we’re about to begin a shelter in place in California, but you’re gonna get to be open during the shelter in place.”

I’ll quote Tim Cohee. Afterwards, he said something along the lines of, “Up until that point, Mike had faced a lot of challenges, but this was fourth and goal with two seconds left in the Super Bowl, and we threw a touchdown.” I’ll always feel good about that one. 

Katie: Let’s talk about safety. Among other initiatives, you helped create the Mountain Safety Guide, which has been widely adopted by Ski California members and also other regions. How do you see the conversation around safety evolving? 

Mike: There’s a great base there already with NSAA. My perspective on it is just how can I help us continue to push the industry forward? I think that’s a much bigger challenge on a national level because it is easier in a specific region for you all to get behind very common things. There are fewer common things across the entire country. Even with the Mountain Safety Guide, when offering it to the other state associations and regions, I told them, “we know there are going to be some differences here.” Like, Michigan didn’t include our section on deep snow and avalanche safety because it just isn’t that relevant. 

So, I hope what I can bring is that I am very passionate about safety—being a lawyer, there’s a piece of that where you see a lot of things that you prefer not to see again. 

I also want to challenge myself with the idea that you have to make decisions about whether things should be a national platform versus a regional one. You can’t always bring everything together under the same set of goals or principles because they’re just not going to work everywhere. And then there are some things that are going to work nationally, so we’ve just got to figure out what those are. 

Katie: When Kelly was in the role, she talked a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion and supporting members’ education as things that were important to her work. What are some of the things that you’re passionate about? When you think about pushing the industry forward, what does that mean for you?  

Mike: I really do appreciate that Kelly did those things. I think those are great pieces to work with going forward. I think growth is one area where I hear so many people talk about it. But what does that really mean? Again, is it national? Is that regional? A marketing campaign getting people to ski and ride in Utah is going to be different than a marketing campaign in West Virginia. 

Olivia: The data is showing a lack of futureproofing in attracting and retaining new people. Meanwhile, the season pass is the main way in now, and there are barriers with parking and capacity management because of the record visits, but these may be eroding growth. Have you given any thought to how the growth issue might apply to your new role? 

Mike: I think research and data is a really important piece of all of this. And I want to look into how much more we can do from a research and data standpoint as a national association to inform everybody. If we’re seeing something in the numbers, we have to figure out why. We’ve got to ask ourselves, why is that happening? 

So, can NSAA be that organization that goes out there and helps answer the “why” question? Because the other stuff to me is more the nitty gritty, on-the-ground stuff—NSAA is not going to influence parking operations. I don’t know that it’s NSAA’s role to just grow the entire sport across the country. But helping answer those questions, about the why, like, why do people ski five days a year now when it used to be more like 15? Those are the questions that we have to answer. 

I think the season pass thing, the day ticket piece of that is going to probably evolve. [Alterra CEO] Jared Smith said something along the lines of, “we’ve reached a tipping point with day tickets.” I think the tipping point isn’t that they’re just either going to go up or down in price. The tipping point is, OK, what are the other ideas people come up with? We do need to do a better job with the people that are entering the sport. Every resort is responsible for lifting those people to become longtime skiers, people that do ski more often. 

I love the concept of just making that a heck of a lot cheaper because I’ve seen that from my perspective. I have two kids I brought through ski school just very recently, and I know how much it costs me, and I know that I’ve got a much easier path than most people to get them there. Not to mention the fact that I’m coming in already 110 percent committed to doing it. 

 Left: Mike Reitzell with his wife, Kristen, and his children, Eleanor and Ryden. Reitzell will take a remote-work approach to his role as the CEO of NSAA so that his family can remain in California. Right: Reitzell with John Rice, his successor at Ski California and the former GM of Sierra-at-Tahoe.

Katie: Advocacy is a key function of NSAA. With Trump coming back into office, that will inevitably mean policy changes related to climate, immigration, labor, public lands, taxes, and other areas that are critical to our industry. What advocacy challenges and opportunities do you see going forward? 

Mike: It’s going to be about challenges and opportunities. Sometimes that means whatever you have been doing, that might flip from an opportunity to a challenge, and vice versa. 

I think climate is one of those. Trump generally talks openly about rolling back those types of policies. I think we’ve pretty well established in our industry that sustainability and climate change solutions are extremely important to us, and I don’t think that any administration is going to change that. It might make it more difficult to do certain things, but it should not change the way that we are doing things and the things we’re talking about, because we still need to work with different groups to help push those things forward. 

From a regulatory standpoint, I can certainly see that deregulation is also a bit of a priority of this administration, and that can be better for us in some ways. For example, employee housing is a really important thing, and you can even look at it from a net positive on climate in that you aren’t having people drive from all over the place to get to the resorts for work. Well, we make it a real challenge here (in California) to build new housing. It almost doesn’t even pencil out to make any sense. So, sometimes getting rid of the red tape can help—we’ll call it the green tape, for lack of a better term. 

The NSAA team, Geraldine Link, Dave Byrd, and Grant Colvin, they’re fully prepared for whatever this administration throws at us, and we will deal with it as it comes. We’ll continue to work on our partnership with the Forest Service. It’s a great one. And beyond that, advocacy is an area I’m comfortable with, and I know we’ve got a great team at NSAA.