SAM Magazine-Lakewood, Colo., May 1, 2009-Henry "Hank" Lunde has received the National Ski Areas Association Lifetime Achievement Award, while Bill Gilbert has earned the Sherman Adams award, NSAA announced today.

Lunde was president of Vermont's Killington and SKI, Ltd., for 28 years before spending nearly a decade as president of Stowe Mountain Resort. During his time at Killington, the area developed advanced snowmaking systems that set the standard other resorts would subsequently follow. At Stowe, he successfully directed the company through the planning and permitting process of the $400 million Spruce Peak expansion. The collaborative focus of that process earned the resort the Golden Eagle Award for overall environmental excellence in 2000 and Audubon International's Green Community Award in 2006.

Lunde served many years on the ANSI B77.1 executive committee, the Vermont Tramway Board, and the Vermont Ski Area Association, and served on the NSAA board of directors from 2006 to 2009.

Gilbert earned the Sherman Adams Award, presented annually to an individual from an Eastern ski area that has significantly influenced the industry, in several ways. He operated Fahnestock Ski Area in the Harriman State Park, N.Y., starting in 1953, and became a pioneer snowmaker. Gilbert and his partners are considered to be the first to make snow at a public ski area in the eastern U.S., and the second in the entire country. They went on to create Silvermine Ski Center in Bear Mountain State Park, N.Y., in 1955, and built and operated Sterling Forest Ski Centre, in Tuxedo Park, also in New York (recently renamed Tuxedo Ridge), four years later. The area had 100 percent snowmaking from its inception, an unheard of accomplishment for the time. Gilbert and his partners purchased Catamount Ski Area on the New York-Massachusetts border in 1973, and Gilbert remains president and GM.

In 1963, Gilbert became distributor for Tucker Snow Cat. In 1969 he co-invented the first airless snow gun and formed Snow Machines International (SMI). Gilbert was named to the original New York Passenger Tramway Council in 1969 and continues to serve on the Council today.

NSAA will officially present both awards at its annual National Convention & Tradeshow at the Marriott Marco Island Resort, Fla., May 13-16. \

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