Cumming Buys majority stake in snowbird
Snowbird Resort, Utah, owner Dick Bass announced a partnership with Ian Cumming, which makes him majority owner of the resort. Bass remains as chairman.

Cumming, the founder of Powdr Corp, which owns neighboring Park City Mountain Resort, has plans for a new restaurant and skier services building atop the aerial tram set to break ground this summer. Snowbird’s current management team, led by Bob Bonar, Tom Jones and Jerry Giles, will stay in place.

Visit totals
Resorts nationwide tallied 56.2 million visits for the 2013-14 season, making a strong rebound in the latter stages after a weather-challenged start. The total represented a 1.3 percent drop from the previous season, according to preliminary results from NSAA’s Kottke National End of Season Survey. Several regions reported separately on visit totals, which are broken out here:

Starting in the East, Québec ski areas announced a slight increase of 0.6 percent for a total of 6,044,000 visits.

Vermont announced that its skier visit total was 4,503,269, about the same as last year.

New Hampshire announced its sixth best season overall with 2,272,826 visits.

Colorado set a new record with 12.6 million, which is up more than eight percent compared to the five-year average.

Utah tallied its third best year with 4,161,585 visits, up 3.6 percent over last year.

DestiMetrics, which measures lodging numbers, reported that season-long occupancy at the 11 Eastern resorts that participate in the program was up 2.9 percent, revenues up 3.7.

Its Western resort participants showed an overall increase of 4.7 percent in occupancy revenue up 10.8 percent.

Alpine Mountain sold
A father and son team, Kevin Fabiano and Kevin Jr., has bought Alpine Mountain Ski Resort, Pa., and launched a multi-­million dollar renovation of the area,
estimated to reach $3 million in improvements by December 2014.

Major events come to U.S.
The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), in partnership with the Olympic community of Park City and State of Utah, has been awarded the 2019 World Championships for freestyle, freeskiing and snowboarding. The bid featured a partnership of three resorts—Canyons Resort, Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain Resort—for an event that will host at least 12 competitions over 10 days in February 2019. Deer Valley will host the freestyle skiing events of moguls and aerials. Park City Mountain Resort will host halfpipe, slopestyle and big air skiing and snowboarding. Rounding it out, Canyons will take on the skicross and snowboardcross.

Aspen has been chosen to host the 2017 FIS Alpine World Cup Finals, which include men’s and women’s competitions in downhill, super G, giant slalom, slalom and nation’s team event. The Finals, set for March 15-19, 2017, will be the first to be held outside Europe since 1997, and mark the return of the men’s World Cup tour to Aspen for first time since 2001.

People
Thom Perkins is retiring as executive director of the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation, N.H., after 38 years.

Ski NH named Jessyca Keeler executive director.

Vern Barber is the new GM at Mount Bohemia, Mich.

George “Bub” Nelson Jr., founder of Lutsen Ski Area, Minn., died in early May at the age of 88. . .Spirit Mountain named Brandy Ream its new executive director.

Vail Resorts, Colo., announced that John M. Garnsey, president of the company’s global mountain development, is retiring after the 2015 Vail/Beaver Creek World Alpine Ski Championships.

The Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association (PNSAA) awarded Melissa Toney, Mt. Hood Meadows, Ore., the 2014 Tower of Excellence Award. The PNSAA Industrial Strength Award was given to Michael Weise, Leitner-Poma of America. Finally, the recipient of the Forest Service Partner of the Year Award is Mike Lane, member of the National Ropeway Services Team, USDA Forest Service.

Silver Star Mountain Resort, B.C., appointed Ken Durpak as its new managing director.

Supplier News
SAM congratulates CWA on its 75th anniversary and SMI on its 40th. We wish them many years more.

Star Lifts USA welcomes Bill Ossim to its sales team, with a focus on summer attractions.

Northstar Travel Media acquired a majority stake in Inntopia. Other partners include Inntopia’s founder and CEO Trevor Crist, Aspen Skiing Company and Intrawest Holdings Inc.

Leitner-Poma of America announced that Tom Clink is changing his role from sales manager to a new position supporting the marketing department and training newer sales associates. Jon Mauch will take over as sales manager for North America.

Rob Linde has left Eldora Mountain Resort, Colo., and is director of business development at RRC Associates.

Mike Woods has been named eastern resort sales manager for Ski and Skiing magazines.