NSAA’s next president will be Jay Price, who heads a small but energetic ski area in what was once California gold rush country. Says one of his colleagues, “Boreal may be small but it is operated very efficiently in a relaxed and informal type of atmosphere. Jay has great rapport with his employees and he treats them very well. You can see this when you visit the area and sense the loyalty built up among his staff.”
But, if you’ve never been to Boreal, then it’s Price’s terrific sense of humor that you’ll notice first. He’s a lively joke and story teller. With his soft but rapid-fire manner of speech, he gets an audience chuckling in seconds. He probably has an appropriate yarn to spin for every occasion but if you ask him how he got in the ski business, or better yet, what’s great about NSAA, he’ll likely tell you his Horatio Alger story— how he started peeling potatoes in Sun Valley for Governor Harriman in 1948, then returned to Sun Valley just a few years ago as a member of NSAA’s board of directors and stayed as a guest at the Harriman cottage. “Only in America and only in the ski business,” says a humbly amused Price.
In-between his stint as potato peeler and NSAA director, Price climed a ski area operations ladder up rungs that involved hill grooming, ski instructing and ski school directing. In the early sixties, he managed the old Timphaven (now Sundance) ski area in Utah. In 1965, when the opportunity to build a ski area from scratch presented itself, Price moved on to California and year-round employment in the ski business.
Right away, there wasn’t much time. Beginning on Labor Day, Price set out to install a chair, three T-bars, base facilities, utilities and a parking lot. The night before Boreal’s scheduled opening, rugs were being laid in the base lodge while crews worked to put in windows. But on December 12, customers were able to line up and purchase lift tickets.
If such speed in planning and execution of ski area constructon might be considered impulsive, Price would agree. “Never in doubt but seldom right,” jokes Boreal’s mastermind who last fall made a big decision concerning snowmaking. Price recalls he decided to put in a snowmaking system at noon on Tuesday. By Thursday, machine made snow was settling on Boreal slopes and on Monday, the area opened.
This sort of ability to make things happen despite seemingly impossible odds is likely to serve Price well when he begins to wrestle with some of NSAA’s thorniest problems. Says Price, “The biggest problem we are facing right now is with government regulatrory agencies. Ten years ago, if you wanted to build a new lift, you found a map and drew a straight line on it and said “here’s the lift.’ Then you went out and bought the lift and put it in and you were done. Now you have to work with probably 25 agencies just to do that. We have moved from dealing with some 40 agencies that affected our ability to do business back in 1950 to 700 agencies today. How does the businessman cope with this type of situation? This is the problem for NSAA.”
One problem destined to receive priority attention is ski area development and expansion. Will new ski area development be permitted in the future? Will existing areas be allowed to expand? If the current no-growth situation is to be changed, Price believes NSAA will have to broaden its base of support by encouraging Joan and John Skier to speak up and voice opinions concerning the sort of skiing experience they want in the future. He asserts outspoken minorities have succeeded in persuading government agencies to curtail ski area development but he believes that vocal skiers could start the pendulum swinging in a new direction.
Just what sort of action might be taken by NSAA either singly or in conjunction with other industry associations to rally skiers has yet to be devised, and Price indicates outside professional help may be required to get the ball rolling. “So far,” Price admits, “it hasn’t been a skier’s style to speak up.” However, he cites the Far West Ski Assocation’s efforts to educate and arouse its members’ interests in ski area development problems as being “very impressive.”
Another problem Price feels must be dealt with on a national level is energy and the effect on the ski industry of an FEA program that might cause the recreation industry to bear the brunt of fuel shortages. Says Price, “We’ve got to get our industry recognized as a viable, important industry that provides a lot of jobs; one that has economic impact on several geographic areas of the country. If we were farmers, we could get relief in a drought. Our work is cut out for us; we’ve got to convince people that the ski industry is not a fringe element—a frivolous pastime. But to do this we need to broaden our base.” Thus he considers efforts to work with other sectors of the ski industry and the American Ski Federation are very important.
“On of the association’s roles is as a forum or vehicle to help each individual area operator exist,” explains Price. Of course, some solutions to problems can only be reached on a national level because they involve federal issues. On the other hand, there are many things that can only be decided at state and regional levels. In these situations, it is NSAA’s job to coordinate and disseminate information so that regional associations can function effectively. To this end, Price cites one plan to draft certain types of model legislation for distribution by NSAA to regional associations for possible implementation. Such model legislation could be based on new laws already passed by one or more states.
Part of Price’s plan to solve some of NSAA’s biggest problems involves a change of posture. Says next year’s president, “We won’t try to function on a totally defensive basis anymore. Instead of simply reacting to outside forces, we’ll try to act more positively and initiate some actions. We have a very good executive staff; Cal Coniff is an excellent director and very competent.”
Though he follows in the footsteps of NSAA presidents who have headed some of the biggest ski areas in the USA, Price is seemingly undaunted by the challenge. Modestly, he claims his role as NSAA president will be to moderate, arbitrate or referee the wishes of the board through a democratic process. With a good executive director like Cal, he says “Perhaps Chairman of the Board might be a more accurate title.”
