FEATURE
that I applied for and it worked out really
well to get those scholarships.”
Of course, there are academic requirements
and a co-operative work
experience component. However,
alongside classroom time, there is a
large emphasis on actual experience,
a 50/50 split between classroom training
and practical training.
Mallozzi points to new CMC Instructor
Brian Rosser, a graduate of
the program himself, as well as a lawyer
and a bit of a renaissance man
when it comes to ski hills.
“Brian spent years doing lift stuff,
whether it’s inspections as a risk management
officer, or the actual operations,
the service repair of those lifts,”
said Mallozzi. “And so, every chance he
gets to get the students into a gearbox
or take apart a grip or something, he
makes it happen, which is part of the
experience, I think, what the students
love so much about the program. Yes,
they have to sit and listen for a bit
but, by and large, they get to get their
hands dirty, literally and figuratively,
in terms of seeing how operations
work. So, when the Cat has a problem,
they don’t send the Cat out or call in a
repair specialist, unless it’s necessary.
They turn it into part of the class. And
the students are in there, re-greasing
this, swapping out that and replacing
another part. It’s hard to build a specific
curriculum around that, because
you never know what’s going to break.
But that’s part of it.”
In terms of turning out qualified Ski
Area Operations grads, there can be a
bit of a built-in challenge. While the
qualified grads are experienced, what
the resorts are looking for depends on
the resort itself.
“It’s a tricky market though because
a lot of the areas want entry-level employees,”
said Mallozzi. “Well, we’d like
to produce folks that are earning a little
more than bare minimum and have
that upward mobility, you know – that
those who want to stick to it can, in
fact, turn the ski industry into a career.
And that, I think, is a difference.”
With the SAO program, the college is
looking to turn out highly trained, prequalified
and cross-trained graduates,
ones who tend to see a “sharp upward
turn in their careers in years three to
five.” SAO Assistant Professor Jason
Gusaas points to the success story of
one particular recent grad, a veteran
who returned to school at CMC.
“He graduated and now has a risk
management job at Loveland, in upper
management, salaried,” said
Gusaas. “We’re not just producing
entry-level jobs.”
Another challenge to running such a
program is keeping properly equipped,
says Gusaas. However, there are a
number of corporate believers who
have been keen to help out, including
Prinoth, SMI Snow Makers (with their
Super PoleCat Snow Gun and associated
equipment and software) and
Snomax. (Sidenote: a recent SAO grad
has become a Snomax sales rep.)
“One of the biggest challenges is
the acquisition of equipment,” said
Gusaas. “The equipment is expensive
equipment, we’re talking about Snowcats
$300,000 and higher. We have to
emulate the industry as much as we
can. Prinoth has given us a loaner
Snowcat. They always bring us one
of their newer machines. They see
the benefit because students learn
to use them at an important stage of
their career.”
The program isn’t just attracting local
students. Student Maddy Pierce
is from pretty far away, upstate New
York; her home range is the Adirondacks,
rather than the Rockies, which
is where she heard about the program.
“I had kept working for that same
ski area and got really close to the
owner and worked for him since I was
11,” she said. “I was kind of doing operations
stuff with him, making snow
and ski patrol and doing a lot of trail
crew stuff and I didn’t know what I
wanted to do after high school. And
he said, ‘Hey, you know you can go to
school for that stuff.’ And I was, like,
‘No way!’ I saw that there was a program
in Colorado and so I looked it up
and came out here and saw it. And I
immediately fell in love with it as soon
as I was here.”
Pierce is in her second year and has
just started the co-operative work
experience portion of the program,
working at Copper.
“And it’s super cool because there’s
that many of us, but we all kind of have
similar goals,” she said. “I mean, we’re
obviously all skiers and snowboarders
so it’s cool because we can go ride to-
CMC Ski Area Operations students learn and practice slope-side skills in a ski patrol
operations course at Ski Cooper near the Leadville campus
PHOTO COURTESY OF LAUREN SWANSON
There can be about 15 to 25 students per class, taught by two
main instructors and a “handful of adjuncts” who teach the
specialty subjects.
24 Jan/Feb 2019 | snowopsmag.com
/snowopsmag.com
