THIS IS MY 122ND BLOG ON UNDERSTANDING MONEY
TOOLS.
September 14, 2017
This blog is totally different than anything I have
done. If you have ever snow skied,
or have an interest in the history of that sport you hopefully will find this
of interest.
I start by saying a good friend and father figure once told
me to be successful it is wise advice to hang out with those who can help
you. For me he recommended
associating with the wealthy at yacht clubs, elite golf and tennis country
clubs and top ski resorts.
Early on in life, I doubted if I was going to keep up with
top academics so I went to my strong skills becoming a teaching pro in 3
sports; snow skiing, tennis and later in life Taekwon Do and Hapkido. Living in Vail, Colorado, and being
good at sports I was welcomed into this circle of elite and eventually
permitted me to become a millionaire.
Retiring in 1992 from this world I found that it was easier to make
money than to invest it with the USA/world economic cycles and keep the
money. Today, instead of using
sports, as many are waning, it might be better to associate with people in the
technology industry.
Recently, the Farwest Ski Association asked me to write my
history in the sport recapping the decades 1950s through 1970s for an article
in their 2018 Ski Guide. This is
to be published and presented at their annual meeting in Banff, Canada in
February. I was a member of the
Rocky Mountain Ski Instructors Association and Professional Ski Instructors of
America for 27 years. Many of the
people who were instrumental in the evolvement of the sport have passed away
and history is being lost. At
recent meetings it was noted that most of my photos and newspaper clippings are
40-50 years old and cannot be used for quality purposes in the magazine.
Here is the rough draft I have written for the
magazine. Hope you find it
interesting. It is quite long
REMINISCE AND REFLECT
I thought I would write a personal summary of how one
industry greatly had an impact on my life and it’s outcome, that being snow
skiing. Snow skiing in the early
days was very much concentrated to the Europeans and a few wealthy, or
Hollywood individuals in the USA.
I wished for a pair of skis for Christmas in about 1954,
which would have made me 8 years old.
Skiing was encouraged by a friend of my aunt who was a member of a local
ski club and offered lessons. We
were living in a suburb of Milwaukee and had a county park, Curry Park; close
at hand where they placed a rope tow lift in the winter on one of the golf
fairways and lighted the slope at night, not exactly Mt. Everest! I believe the cost to ski was $.25 in
those days.
I had my Christmas wish come true, a pair of skis, bamboo
poles, no ski boots but wore what we called galoshes. The skis had no metal edges and bear trap bindings held the
foot. That was the start of my
addiction to the sport. The local
areas of Little Switzerland, Wilmot
and Alpine Valley offered night skiing with lighted slopes. Young and
old could enjoy skiing at night, which I certainly took advantage of on a
regular basis. For a larger slope
a person would drive to Wausau, Wisconsin, and ski Rib Mountain.
In 1959, my grandmother and an aunt took my brother and I to
Aspen for Christmas. By then, we had graduated to better skis with metal edges,
leather ski boots, better bear trap bindings with “long thong” leather straps
to stabilize the boot. Aspen ran a
single chair lift from the base, and you could protect yourself from the
elements with a tan canvas tarp.
Great times, no grooming of slopes, big moguls carved out from the long
skis. The wealthy were at hand. I remember one evening we had to share a table
at a pizza place that being with fashion designer, Oleg Cassini and his
daughter. I only became more
addicted to skiing. Aspen was a small
town, no one expected skiing to take off and change the old mining town. The block in downtown Aspen that is now
a park used for rugby and soccer was offered for sale to a friend in the early
1950’s for $800, they passed and the town bought it for a park.
The Aspen Ski Company was started by wealthy industrialist,
Walter Paepcke. With his cultural inclinations he also started the Aspen Music
Festival and School in 1949.
Today, Aspen is well known for its summer music and cultural events.
Walter built the first ski lift in Aspen in 1947. (This started taking Aspen from a dead
silver mining town to a ski town.)
Up until this time in the West the only other areas that had major lifts
were Sun Valley in 1936 and Alta in 1939.
Winter Park Ski Area, an actual Denver City Park, installed a J Bar lift
in about 1939. With the old T Bar
and J Bar lifts a person hooked the bar around their lower backside and it
would haul you up the slope with your skis on the ground. (A-Basin had a couple single T Bars, one
from the base up the mountain, another on the beginner slope.) As I remember sometimes the Bar from
the base would jerk you a couple feet in the air when the lift attendant pulled
the “go”. Better than a
chiropractor, or one was needed afterwards! In Gunnison, Colorado, their ski
club also fashioned a primitive lift about the same time. Klaus Obermeyer was one of Aspen’s
first instructors. He went on to
become one of the best in the manufacturing of ski clothing. Another player in Aspen to improve the
lift capacity was well known, Friedl Pfeifer. (A good look back at early Aspen
can be found through Anne Gilbert’s writing at the Aspen Historical Society;
they have a website.)
My brother, Ron, was also addicted to snow skiing. During high school vacations we talked
our parents into letting us take the train to Glenwood Springs where we would
catch a bus to Aspen. We found a
very inexpensive place to stay called Ed’s Beds which were bunk rooms shared by
several, however sufficed as no one was ever in the rooms except to sleep. As I remember the cost was $2 per
night. The next obstacle was ski
tickets. The Aspen Corp. had trail
crews to stabilize the snow on steep slopes. This preceded snow grooming equipment. Aspen hired ambitious people like my brother
and I to join others to sidestep up, then down, steep slopes. If you see old photos and wonder why
you might see horizontal lines packing the new powder on slopes this is how it
was done. If my memory serves me right, we received 2 lift tickets for a
half-day of packing. Hard work,
but we looked at it as improving our thigh muscles which are so important for
good skiing. One must remember
that before ski lifts side stepping was how a person went up slopes and then
skied down in minutes.
Let’s fast forward.
I was accepted to the University of Denver and attended 1964-1969. The University in those years under ski
coach Willy Schaeffler won most of the NCAA Championships. By then I thought I was a very good
skier and went out for the team in the fall of 1964. No way. Trained
the fall season with all members of the team. Unless you were already on an Olympic team, mostly US or
Norwegian, a person didn’t stand a chance. Willy Schaeffler and I got to know each other quite well
because of the daily training. He
was also ski school director at A-Basin Ski Area then owned by Larry Jump. Willy asked me, like many D.U.
students, to join the ski school.
We taught weekends and all school vacations.
Several well-known skiers had their roots at A-Basin. One ski instructor I taught with in the
late 1960’s was Ed Lukes. The Viet
Nam War was going strong and many soldiers were returning as amputees. Ed started devoting his teaching to
instructing amputees and taught them a new world on snow. As I remember, Ed eventually took these
teachings over to Winter Park.
A-Basin was noted for its challenging slopes and Winter Park was most
likely more accommodating to Ed’s needs.
At Vail we started teaching the blind. Most instructors had some training in
regard to this teaching, and then certain instructors specialized in this
arena.
(A brief comment here. Many of the original well known
people who started the modern ski industry came out of World War II. Willy fought for the Germans, the
founders of Vail were in our infamous 10th Mountain Division. Many, like Pete Seibert and Willy
Schaeffler were severely injured in battle. After the War they stayed with what they loved and knew
best, skiing.)
At this point I want to write in honor and memory of members
of the 10th Mountain Division.
Working in Vail in the inception years I heard of the history connected
to one of its famous runs, Riva Ridge.
Riva Ridge is a black diamond run, and was used in the early days as the
downhill course for some of the international races. Pete Seibert and many other 10th Mountain men
fought at Riva Ridge in the Apennines, Italy, in 1945 against the Germans. The
battle was one of the toughest fights in the mountain areas of Europe. In 1942 the US Government started a
training camp for elite soldiers to fight in Europe. The training camp was called Camp Hale and remains a
historical site today. The
location is just south of Vail between Red Cliff and Leadville on Colorado
State Highway 24. The soldiers
were outfitted in all white uniforms as well as white skis, poles, etc. to
blend in with the white snow conditions.
Most of these soldiers were good skiers before they trained at Camp
Hale, and came from families that were
financially “well-off”.
In December 1967, while a student and part time instructor
at Vail I was asked if I would participate in being the first to ski the runs,
not yet open, at a new resort called Snowmass. I candidly don’t know why they chose me when they had many
instructors to choose from at Aspen.
Snowmass Ski Area was opening Christmas that year. They wanted a public relations
news article with photos. I was to
include a couple students who were excellent skiers, able to ski virgin powder
conditions. The couple who went
with me were from New York City, Mr. and Mrs. Alan Slifka. I also included my then girlfriend and
instructor, Jain Davis. The Aspen
Times newspaper sent a photographer with us. We took off by helicopter from the top of Ajax Mountain in
Aspen and landed for a good day skiing on the top of Snowmass. After this helicopter skiing took off
as a commercial endeavor.
Copper Mountain, Colorado, is another ski area and opened in
1972. In 1971 before any lifts
were constructed one of the original founders of Vail, John and Mary Hobart asked
if I would like to go with them and their family to ski the original runs and
virgin powder snow. They rented a
snow cat from Copper Mountain for the day to take us up the slopes for fine
skiing all day. How could I resist
such a trip.
The United States Ski Association has/had separate
divisions. I was part of the Rocky
Mountain Division. In those days it extended from Vail, Aspen, Steamboat
Springs and Winter Park in the north down to Taos and Santa Fe Ski Basin in the
south. In Taos, owner Ernie Blake
ran Taos very well. He named the
steep run coming down to the St. Bernard Lodge Al’s Run.
I was stage one certified in 1965, my number was 367. Today, there are thousands of certified
instructors.
Jerry Muth took
over as ski school director at A-Basin. In about 1966 he was asked to assist Roger Staub as
director at Vail. A bit on
Vail: Vail was started in
1962. Three or four members of the
10th Mountain Division from WWII were working in Aspen after the
war. Pete Seibert being one would drive
past the mountain that is now Vail on his way down to Denver. He noticed the areas potential, put
together very wealthy families who he knew from skiing and a talented
architect, Fitzhugh Scott from Milwaukee.
They wanted a conforming pleasant architecture they found in Switzerland
and Austria and Vail was started.
As Jerry Muth moved to Vail he asked if I would be
interested in teaching only private lessons during the long vacation breaks
from college, and I started working for Vail Associates. I was then fully certified with
RMSIA. After my graduation from
college in 1969 I moved to Vail, already had a solid base of wealthy people
wanting ski lessons and got into real estate. Skiing was my occupation, real
estate was my avocation!
Part of my skiing was to test and experiment new products
coming out. During the 1960’s ski
equipment changed for the better.
Howard Head invented a metal ski, boot maker Henke put plastic over a
leather boot shell (they came in colors blue or red). One individual I was
friends with was Bob Lange with Lange boots. I tested proto-type boots not on the market for Bob as well
as ski manufacturers. There are
good marriages between sports and business and I think skiing and real estate
was one of the best in those days.
Along with real estate licensing I picked up Security Exchange Licenses
which enabled me to raise money via my wealthy contacts for large projects.
In about 1971, the US Ski Association decided that the
country should have a definitive “American Ski Technique”. To this point, and especially in the
1950’s we copied and taught either the Austrian technique with severe counter
rotation, skis together or the more moderate French Technique. Prior to these
techniques it was the Alberg technique with ski hero Hannes Schneider. Partly due to the primitive type of
equipment the technique used a severe rotation of the body.
Terminology changed.
Instead of referring to a beginner “snowplow” position we called it “the
wedge”. We redefined the German
“wedel”, linking quick parallel turns together, as “shortswing”.
I was one of about 7 or 8 ski instructors selected to
evaluate skiing and various aspects of the sport to come up with a new national
manual serving to upgrade what we were using and with little standardization. We approached the challenge quite
seriously looking at visualization, kinesthetics, audio, emotional, biometrics
and more. We wanted a final
resolve so that skiing would be more natural and comfortable for all; e.g. a
man’s normal physical structure is different from a woman. Most likely a woman has a wider hip structure thus her angulation won’t be
enough when needed on a very steep slope.
A woman will need to counter rotate more to get the same result and keep
weight over the skis or slightly downhill. We also moved the ski’s position a bit apart more shoulder
width, away from the severity of keeping the skis right together as was the
discipline of the Austrian technique.
(When I was a kid learning skiing from the Austrians, I would wrap my
long thongs around both boots as a training technique to perfect my technique
and balance.) We moved the pivotal
point for a turn back from the shovel of the ski with the Austrian technique to
over the ball of the foot or the toe piece of the binding. With the improvement of skis and edges
we started using more weight on the uphill ski not just downhill ski, let’s say
60/40. We all read the book
Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz from 1960. In this he proves the mind can accomplish almost as much
through visualization as one can when actually doing the physical event. A person can also overcome fears such
as speed and steepness of slopes.
With the completion of the manual, I can only give my
highest regards to the writer, a perfectionist totally dedicated to the ski
industry and good friend, Horst Abraham.
After the manual was completed we had a judged competition
to select 6 top skiers to represent the US and show off our wares. I was one of the 6 on the US
Demonstration Team, also known as the Interski Team, however did not make the
top 4 that would travel internationally.
As I remember we had one of the first exhibitions at Vail and it
included some of the top ski countries like Germany and France. The international 4 went on to Japan as
their first stop.
As an examiner for the Rocky Mountain Ski Instructor’s
Association from 1972 until 1976 I came in contact with so many great people
who continued with dedication to improving skiing.
In 1990 Professional Ski Instructors of America awarded me
with a nice plaque for 25 years of dedication to the sport and industry.
In association with the ski industry, I was a realist that
one needed to make money. Through
the ski industry and contacts this was achieved both in the real estate
industry and oil and gas industry.
Success has a great deal to do with contacts!
In summary, I could never have outlined a life as I
had. I came in contact with so
many great people, many better skiers and many smarter. This was my baseline. The industry has totally changed as big
business has greatly changed it.
It will never be the same, however younger people will have a new
baseline to measure things.
