They found believers
When SIA’s “I made him a believer” ad arrived for publication in Far West Ski News, I too was less than delighted, but for quite different reasons than those cited in your editorial (Screwing Around with Image, Spring 1978). As I told our 30,000 readers, promoting more skiers in California is like getting the lift line formed before the towers are in.
I also asked our members to send coupons to Ski Industries America promising to “Take a friend skiing” when SIA helped skiers open more ski resorts in California, and I less-than-politely suggested in a letter that their $25,000 could be put to better use.
“Watch out,” I was warned. “There are some big egos and small minds in the ski business and you don’t know who you’re writing to.’
Well, fabled ego-maniacs of the ski world, you may be out there, but you’re not at SIA. To summarize about a month of crossed fingers and held breath, SIA came through with $25,000 for the Far West Ski Association’s battle to stop inclusion of Mineral King Valley in Sequoia National Park.
But the support didn’t end with the arrival of the check. We had manufacturers all over the country writing and talking to their Senators and Congressmen. SIA Trade Show goers signed thousands of proxies in Las Vegas.
Best of all, we had Alex Schuster, SIA president, Doc Des Roches, SIA executive director, and Cal Conniff, NSAA executive director, with us in Washington, D.C. for Senate hearings on our bill.
In addition to the time, testimony and money, I found a little moral support in my briefcase after the Senate hearings. A “Skiing is Believing” T-Shirt!
So I wear mine with pride. Our national coalition of skiers, area operators manufacturers and retailers is already forming. We proved that we can work together to brighten the future of our sport.
“Make a friend a believer,” the ad says. Well, skiers in the Far West have certainly made some new friends this winter and take my word for it, they’re believers!
Janelle Dykes,
Editor, Far West Ski News
Barringer “withdraws” from NSAA insurance plan
The Editor wishes to share the following excerpt from a personal letter from an old friend.
In case you should find it newsworthy, I am withdrawing (I hesitate to use the word retiring) from active participation in Barringer & Williams as of July 1. I will continue in a consulting capacity to Barringer & Williams and will also become associated with Felix Kloman as an associate consultant with Risk Planning Group, Inc.
You of all people need not be reminded of the beginnings of the NSAA plan. You were there at its birth, if not at its conception. It has certainly come a long way in the fifteen odd years of its existence, but the solutions to the problem seem no closer to being within our grasp than they did at that time. Perhaps we were naive in thinking that there was a simplistic solution of risk selection and control by engineering. I think not, but the technology, legalistic attitudes and sheer size of the industry have changed faster than we ever imaged in 1963.
Rufus Barringer
I was indeed there at the conception, Rufus, and as you know, it’s a whole lot more fun to conceive than handle a teenager—the Editor
