A Transformative Relationship

For Bill Henderson, the Poma lift, affectionately named Rocco, had already taken its last rider up the hill a long time ago at Sky Tavern ski area in Reno, Nev.

“The lift was making me nuts. Every weekend was a new drama,” said Henderson, executive director at Sky Tavern, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and home to the award-winning Reno Junior Ski Program. “The electronics quit and the rope fell off. So, I went to the board and said, ‘We either replace this lift, or I’m putting $100,000 into something that will last us five more years.’”

Enter Team Service, an Italy-based company that designs and manufactures moving carpets and chairlift belts for ski areas. In North America, Planet Distribution is the official distributor and technical operator, running as a joint venture with other like-minded businesses in the ski industry.

“I had been talking to the guys at Sun Valley Ski Tools about a carpet lift for a while,” said Henderson. “We had bought equipment from them before. So, I was familiar with their products.”

Fortunately for Henderson, Sun Valley Ski Tools provides the marketing and sales support for Planet Distribution and facilitated a meeting with Ryan Neptune, who co-founded Planet Distribution with Samuele Piana.

“I work more on the sales side, and [Neptune] works more on the manufacturing, installation and technical support,” said Piana. “However, we interchange those responsibilities often as I’m more involved on the Canadian side, while he is more active on the U.S. side.”

Piana says that while Neptune, himself, Sun Valley Ski Tools and a few other companies provide individual services, it was a natural fit to work together as a joint venture because they believed in the quality and reliability of the Team Service product.

Founded in 1996, Team Service has continuously operated within the ski industry. However, it was only in 2011 that they started producing in-house moving carpets, including ski and waterpark carpets.

“I got in touch with Team Service when they started manufacturing carpets,” said Piana. “I showed the product to [Neptune], and we both decided it was something we wanted to invest in. We saw right away the quality and the modernity of the lift, as well as the attention to detail that Team Service puts into their lifts to make them very user-friendly.”

Since 2012, Planet Distribution has remained the face of Team Service in North America, bringing on other companies such as Sun Valley Ski Tools and Pfister Mountain Service, which provides installation, maintenance, mechanical and post-sales support, to round out the team.

“From this collective team approach, we are moving towards a more structured entity,” said Piana. “This will allow us to provide even better support to the growing number of sales and new projects in North America.”

Sky Tavern opened shortly after the Second World War and was the second ski area in the Sierra Nevada range, catering to the wealthy and famous who wanted to hit the slopes.

“It was a legacy in Reno. We’ve got pictures of everybody – every movie star in the world from the late ’40s and ’50s stayed there,” said Henderson. “By today’s standard, Sky Tavern was a little ski hill, but back then, it had a four-story hotel and even a casino in the basement!”

“We saw right away the quality and the modernity of the lift, as well as the attention to detail that Team Service puts into their lifts to make them very user-friendly.”

Samuele Piana, Planet Distribution

However, as the Palisades Tahoe area built up with bigger ski hills and casinos, the viability of Sky Tavern lagged – except for its Junior Ski Program.

“In 1948, a school teacher named Marce Herz started a ski program for kids in the area,” said Henderson. “She started with six kids and a station wagon, bringing kids up the hill to learn how to ski.” The program blew up and became a check mark for kids growing up in Reno. 

“School buses full of kids,” said Henderson. “I was one of those kids, and I remember being really mad at my parents because I had to wait until I was in the fourth grade to go, even though my two younger brothers got to go to another program that same year. I was like, ‘You made me wait. That’s not fair.’”

Over time, ownership transferred to the City of Reno before it almost closed in 1992.

“A whole bunch of people in Reno, including me, all got together and formed the non-profit,” said Henderson. He says they initially took over running the Junior Ski Program. However, since 2017, the non-profit has owned everything.

“Everybody still thinks it’s all run by the City because nobody can ever get the story straight,” he said. “But basically, it’s a bunch of moms and dads running a ski area for kids. Almost everything we do focuses around trying to get kids on snow.”

Rocco, the Poma lift that had served riders since 1967, was no longer meeting that requirement, says Henderson. “We spent a lot of time working and trying to keep the Poma lift together,” he said. “If you’re an eight-year-old that’s trying to learn how to snowboard, the Poma lift is probably the evilest thing on the planet.”

A Poma lift operates by having the rider straddle a disk-like support to pull them up the hill.

“You have got this thing in between your legs, and you’re trying to stand there, but half of the instructors couldn’t even get up the hill,” said Henderson. “It had probably done more to convince kids to avoid snowboarding than anything else we had at Sky Tavern.”

When it came time to seriously look at replacing Rocco, Henderson says he called up Neptune first. “I said, ‘Look, we’ve got to get real about replacing Rocco,’” he said. “And he goes, ‘Well, okay, let’s see what we can do,’ and the next thing I get is a phone call from Italy saying, ‘I hear you’re interested in one of our carpet lifts.’”

Team Service implemented a financing plan for Sky Tavern that allowed the non-profit to pay off the carpet lift in smaller increments. “I went back to the board and said, ‘I think we can do this,’” said Henderson. “And we pulled it off.”

In the fall of 2020, Rocco 2.0, the new carpet lift, arrived at the ski area and the non-profit, through a generous donation, ordered a second, Webster, which came two days before Christmas.

“It had snowed [about] three feet, so we took our 1903 snowcat out and plowed the snow away from where we were going to put the carpet lift together,” said Henderson. “On New Year’s Eve day, we built the second lift with about 50 volunteers, including a whole bunch of teenagers.”

Neptune and Team Service remained instrumental during the first few months of operating the carpet lifts. 

Henderson says he felt he could call them up at any point while manufacturing the lifts. “Every time I called [Neptune], I’m sure he just looked at his phone and went, ‘Oh, crap, it’s [Henderson] again,’” he said. “But he calls me back each time. He’s just been an amazing support system during the entire process.”

Since 2012, Planet Distribution has remained the face of Team Service in North America, bringing on other companies such as Sun Valley Ski Tools and Pfister Mountain Service, which provides installation, maintenance, mechanical and post-sales support, to round out the team.

Piana agrees. “Neptune is the main partner in the North American distribution, and he provides sales support and installation support, including manufacturing and warehousing, while running the operational crew,” Piana said.

“On top of that, he can make modifications and repairs to ensure Team Service’s products can serve any ski area.”

Henderson says that even though they haven’t had Rocco and Webster for that long, the product has exceeded their expectations. “We’ve never had to mess with the product,” said Henderson. “It’s so easy to use that we have teenagers excelling at being lift operators and problem-solving on their own.”

The relationship with Neptune and Team Service has been transformative for Sky Tavern, says Henderson.

“The big deal is every kid makes it to the top of the hill as opposed to before with the Poma lift,” said Henderson. “Maybe half of them would make it all the way to the top, and the rest would fall off halfway up and then have to hike up the hill.”

Henderson says he feels Sky Tavern is a more viable option for kids to ski and snowboard, especially those wanting to learn.

“The amount of cycles up the hill they get during the day is incredibly high now,” said Henderson. “It’s probably 10 times higher than it used to [be] because we can put so many more people on the lift and we don’t have to stop it because someone fell off.”