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After my first class of Intro to Ski Area Operations our instructor Paul Rauschke advised us to start thinking of our 5/10 year plans of what we want to do on the mountain. That's a little difficult for someone who has never worked on a mountain before. All I know is I want to be the best and most knowledgeable groomer on the mountain. I've tried researching online the steps it takes to do so but haven't found much... maybe ya'll can help. What does it take to be the best? Where do you start? (besides CMC) When and how can you reach the top? What is the top? Any replies would be awesome!

Seems like kind of an odd bunch of questions where you're at CMC and could ask your instructor these same questions and probably get a pretty straight forward response....or are you asking us to do your homework for you?? lol

If your goal is to be "the best groomer on the mountain", it can only be acheived with hours upon hours upon thousands of hour of experience. A 5 year and 10 year plan title wise would be to try and be a lead hand by the time 5 years is up...and the Grooming or slopes manager after 10. A slopes manager usually encompasses snowmaking and grooming mangement into one job...or sometimes there can be a snowmaking and grooming supervisors over the lead hands who both answer to the slopes manager. This would be a rare case though.. as that's pushing gov't style amounts of management and the reality of the situation is you're much more likely to have 1 person managing grooming and snowmaking rather than 3 these days. This would be also be referring to larger resorts (think those with 3+ snowcats working shifts all night)...and all of this management and sometimes even operating the snow cat all lands in the operation managers lap at a small area. Operation managers can be both overall....or can sometimes be split into outdoor and indoor operations. An overall operations manager can fire the cook for making soggy fries one minute...and hire the 4th replacement snowmaker for the week the next. An outdoor operations manger is charged with overseeing lifts, grooming, snowmaking, patrol, terrain park.....and sometimes snow school...but usually snowschool operates autonomously. He is also who a slopes manager or grooming manager answers to at a larger resort. This would be an explanation of the hierarchy end of things.

Now, "best groomer on the mountain" from a skills perspective.....what a bag of rattlesnakes that one is. Ask any groomer if they're the "best groomer on the mountain" and you'll likely get a "yes"..lol. Even the guy who started yesterday! One would think the "best groomer on the mountain" would be the grooming supervisor or slopes manager....but that's often not the case. They usually get that job because they were the most viable person for the supervision position...not for being the best at actual cat operations. If they happen to be both...well then that's all the better. However, the best groomer on the mountain could be the guy who you can put in any brand of cat, on any mountain, in any condition to do anything (parks..trail builds...straight grooming) and get the best result from. It could also be someone who's mastered one type of cat and knows where every pebble and dip is on just one mountain. It's pretty tough to name a "best groomer on the mountain", as typically everyone has a niche area that they are the best at....or it could be someone who is pretty good at everything...but not the best at any of it.

Good advice, Canadianbombar. Good stuff.

Micio - I'll just reiterate from above. Hours at the sticks to become the best you can. That's what you need. In terms of supervisory or management, you need to think about people. In a supervisory or management role, you are a leader. Your groomers/snowmakers/etc. look to you for direction. It is best to work your way through the ranks, starting in the trenches, learning along the way, ultimately landing a higher position. That way, you can relate to your employees, and vice-versa. You're not asking them to do anything that you haven't done/wouldn't do yourself.

For Bear's assignment, just setup a bullet list of goals with a subpoint or two about each. In fact, for reference, here is my "plan" from Intro to SAO two years ago:

>2 years
-----Night shift groomer
-----Training for mogul competition during day
-----I'd like to have a job grooming at night in order to train hard every day for mogul competition. 'd also like to keep up with my musical interests, ideally putting a jazz trio or quartet together to play local gigs.
>5 years
-----Competing in mogul events
-----Consulting for [hopeful] Mt. Ellen expansion/redevelopment at Sugarbush
-----Grooming night shift @ Sugarbush when not competing
-----Playing jazz gigs
>15 years
-----Mt. Ops Manager/VP Mt. Ops @ major resort
-----Still rockin' the mountain-sponsored bump competitions... beating all of the young'uns who think they're something special
-----Playing jazz piano and folk guitar at the resort
-----Happily married with a family (assuming she can put up with a ski area manger's hours/weekend/holiday work
-----In 15 years, I'd like to be settled in as a General Manger, Mt. Ops Manager, or VP of Mt. Ops at a major resort. If the [hopeful] Mt. Ellen expansion plays out as I envision it, I would be honored to take the helm there. I also plan to continue competing in the bumps, but just for fun at this point. I'll clean up the Sugarbush events and the Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge, and various other New England bump comps. I'll also be playing jazz piano in the resort restaurants and playing folk guitar in the lodge. If I'm lucky enough to find a woman wonderful enough to accept the schedule and hours of a competitive mogul skier, mountain manager, and professional musician (which may be impossible, by the way), I'll hopefully settled in and have family by this point, and be able to share my passion for skiing with my kids (assuming they're interested).

Paul will tell you, I was always an overachiever. You might not have to be that detailed.

But there's something for reference. Come up with some life/career goals, expound a bit, and all will be well!

I was wondering if you were around and were going to give him a cheat sheet I must say though...I find it a little scary helping someone with the assignment: "What do you want to be"

Canadianbombar wrote:I was wondering if you were around and were going to give him a cheat sheet I must say though...I find it a little scary helping someone with the assignment: "What do you want to be"

Well, for someone who hasn't worked in the industry, sometimes it's hard to even know what the options are! It's not so much helping him decide what he wants to do, but rather just letting him know what career paths are available and logical in the slopes/trails department. The rest is up to him.

And he wouldn't dare copy my homework! Paul would fire him for that!

Hey Patrick! Thanks for the info and support. For Canadianbombar who thinks I'm here to get my homework done for me I guess I should point out the fact that two of my instructors our respected members of this website and that's not what I'm about. Like Patrick stated in the last post and I stated in my first post "for someone who hasn't worked in the industry, sometimes it's hard to even know what the options are!" As for "ask your instructor these same questions and probably get a pretty straight forward response" I thought I would ask everyone here so I could get multiple responses instead of just one. Isn't that what this website is about? For everyone to share knowledge new and old. That's all I was looking for is what options are out there and what it takes to achieve those options, so I can make my own 5/10 plan. N/E way thanks for all the info guys!

I figured you were just looking for the job paths in relation to grooming due to not actually knowing what they were...which is why I explained what they were and answered your question. I just honestly find it really odd that someone would enroll themselves in a mountain operations school without having a good idea of what the desired outcome of said enrollment would be. I would think that someone would attend a specialized school because they already know exactly what job they want....and how to get there...I know I sure would before I plunked my $ down to lock myself in to a few years of education. Call me crazy...but that's just me. Mind you, I saw a news story yesterday about a bunch of women who had enrolled themselves into a medical training course for 2 years @ 18,000 a year and it qualified them for absolutely nothing....and now they're suing. I guess that's where I'm coming from with my head scratching on this...

Canadianbombar wrote:I figured you were just looking for the job paths in relation to grooming due to not actually knowing what they were...which is why I explained what they were and answered your question. I just honestly find it really odd that someone would enroll themselves in a mountain operations school without having a good idea of what the desired outcome of said enrollment would be. I would think that someone would attend a specialized school because they already know exactly what job they want....and how to get there...I know I sure would before I plunked my $ down to lock myself in to a few years of education. Call me crazy...but that's just me. Mind you, I saw a news story yesterday about a bunch of women who had enrolled themselves into a medical training course for 2 years @ 18,000 a year and it qualified them for absolutely nothing....and now they're suing. I guess that's where I'm coming from with my head scratching on this...

To be honest, I was one among very few who really had an end goal in mind when I entered the program. A lot of people had an idea of what they liked, but had no ultimate goal. Since I grew up around the business (dad's been in the industry for 32 years), I had already been exposed to the entire ski area operation. I knew what was there, and I knew where I wanted to go with it.

There is a definite percentage of incoming students to the Ski Area Ops program who don't know the exact career path that interests them, but they know they have a passion for skiing and the operation of ski resorts. Many of them, after completing the program, know exactly what they want to do, because they have been exposed to every facet of the business. Some of them are still uncertain, but they are certainly qualified to embark on a journey through the industry in various departments until they find what they like. Others still decide that the ski industry really isn't for them, but they have a good time along the way, and walk away with a better understanding and appreciation for their favorite sport.

Patrick Torsell wrote:

Canadianbombar wrote:I figured you were just looking for the job paths in relation to grooming due to not actually knowing what they were...which is why I explained what they were and answered your question. I just honestly find it really odd that someone would enroll themselves in a mountain operations school without having a good idea of what the desired outcome of said enrollment would be. I would think that someone would attend a specialized school because they already know exactly what job they want....and how to get there...I know I sure would before I plunked my $ down to lock myself in to a few years of education. Call me crazy...but that's just me. Mind you, I saw a news story yesterday about a bunch of women who had enrolled themselves into a medical training course for 2 years @ 18,000 a year and it qualified them for absolutely nothing....and now they're suing. I guess that's where I'm coming from with my head scratching on this...

To be honest, I was one among very few who really had an end goal in mind when I entered the program. A lot of people had an idea of what they liked, but had no ultimate goal. Since I grew up around the business (dad's been in the industry for 32 years), I had already been exposed to the entire ski area operation. I knew what was there, and I knew where I wanted to go with it.

There is a definite percentage of incoming students to the Ski Area Ops program who don't know the exact career path that interests them, but they know they have a passion for skiing and the operation of ski resorts. Many of them, after completing the program, know exactly what they want to do, because they have been exposed to every facet of the business. Some of them are still uncertain, but they are certainly qualified to embark on a journey through the industry in various departments until they find what they like. Others still decide that the ski industry really isn't for them, but they have a good time along the way, and walk away with a better understanding and appreciation for their favorite sport.

I'm beginning to think 18 is too young an age to expect people to have a clue what they want to do. My parents had money set aside for me to go to university.....but I refused to go because I had no clue what I wanted to do....didn't want to waste the money....and in general...didn't like school. If I had to take a guess...I would say 75% of the money spent on education these days is flushed down the toilet due to people either picking useless programs (by not doing their homework like the group of women mentioned above) or people going with the flow due to pressure from parents to do something...anything etc etc etc. Does CMC earn you transferable University credits? There is a school in BC called Selkirk College which does a ski resort operations program too. There's is 2 years...and at the end of 2 years (or anytime in the future thereafter) ...you have the option to tranfer to a university in SK (I think...maybe it was in MB) and do another 2 years to walk away with an Mba etc. It's a really good deal that way....I think it's the cheapest route in existence to an Mba because the SAM program is so inexpensive.

Actually CMC does allow you to earn transferable credits for a four year business degree option. They made an agreement with Western State College in Gunnison, CO. When you take transfer-level general education courses as part of the Ski Area Operations program and complete an extra semester of courses, you can transfer to Western State's bachelor degree program. You start as a junior in business administration. Not a bad way to earn a four year degree and save some serious cash at the same time.