The result of these deliberations was the birth of the National Ski Areas Association. By-laws were adopted in 1963 which stated these three purposes: “To promote skiing, safety in skiing and to protect the legitimate interests of the ski area operator.” After an active year of organizing, membership totaled 25 areas. A year later sponsor memberships—suppliers and friends who were interested in building a strong industry—were established.
During the early years, the NSAA Board of Directors organized a professional staff and committees to supervise various areas of concern. At the beginning, there were only five such committees: executive, insurance, forest service, safety and legal, and the professional staff consisted of one person, Miss Ann Hasper, whose management skill was a large factor in getting NSAA off to a fast start.
The first major problem tackled by the Association was insurance. Many areas found themselves losing coverage after a single liability loss. The market was fragmented among a hundred insurance carriers, most of whom had little knowledge or experience in the skiing field. Our Board decided that the way to bring stability to the insurance picture was to set up a single firm to handle NSAA members’ insurance. Invitations were sent to all major brokerage firms to submit bids to include a comprehensive plan on how the business would be regulated. Conferences were then held with each bidder. The award went to Lukens, Savage & Washburn whose Rufus Barringer set forth what was in the Board’s opinion the best conceived plan of inspection and administration.
That was in 1964. Today, eight years later, 288 ski areas are insured under the NSAA plan. The insurance carrier is protected by stringent inspection; the ski area is protected from a loss of market by the inspection plus the number of participants involved in the program. Each years sees new participants and even great stability.
In 1960, prior to the formation of NSAA, the Eastern Ski Area Operators Association had funded and sponsored with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers a code for standards of lift construction under the umbrella of what was then called the American Standards Association, now the American National Standards Institute. One of the early objectives of NSAA was to assume responsibility for sponsoring the code. This was accomplished in 1965, a revision to the code was made in 1970 and machinery was set up thereafter for regular review of the code. While the code does not have the force of law, it does provide a strong guide—not only for NSAA inspectors but also for state tramway board engineers. The industry owes a debt of gratitude to the hard-working volunteer members of the B.77 Committee and also the NSAA task force whose job it is to evaluate suggested changes to the code.
Federal regulations rapidly became our second big problem when the forest service decided to alter its time-honored method of collecting fees from a flat percentage to a new graduated-rate fee system. The Federal Relations Committee has carried the burden of negotiating with the forest service in attempting to obtain a fair and equitable fee system.
Teaming up with Federal Relations is a new committee of operators, Economic Research, which was formed in 1971 under the leadership of Charles Lewis of Copper Mountain to obtain useful economic statistics in the industry through the aid and assistance of the United Bank of Denver. The first annual study prepared by UBD was distributed to members in February 1972. Based on confidential information submitted by members, these annual reports will, we believe, make it easier for new and existing ski areas to obtain financing.
Skier safety continues as one of our primary concerns and a new Ski Research Committee was formed in 1971 to study how NSAA might contribute. Cal Conniff of Mt. Tom, Mass. heads up this effort. The first tangible move by the committee was to make a grant to a group of equipment engineers and doctors for the primary purpose of establishing a set of workable standards for ski area rental shop operations.
In all, there are now 19 committees working in such other diverse areas as taxes, legal, operations, manual, weather modification, ski touring, snow maintenance and conventions.
Our conventions have become major events in the skiing world. The Annual Meeting is held in late May or early June, the Mid-Winter Meeting in January, each alternating every year between the East and West. The 1972 Mid-Winter Meeting at Waterville Valley, N.H., featured on-snow demonstrations of snowmaking equipment, slope-maintenance vehicles and GLM skis. The Annual Meeting, which will be held at Sun Valley beginning June 6, will concentrate on environmental planning. It will be preceded by a three-day environmental seminar for NSAA members to be held at Aspen under the sponsorship of the Rocky Mountain Center on the Environment and the Thorne Ecological Institute. Literature on these important meetings will be mailed out shortly.
NSAA is rapidly maturing into a strong well-organized trade organization. Membership has expanded to 422 ski areas, 117 sponsor members and a hard-working professional staff of four under the leadership of executive director Richard Garis. Because so much of what we do affects our suppliers, whose total sales exceed $2 billion, we are contemplating a new class of associate membership which will help give them a voice in forming the future of this dynamic new industry.
All of us are aware of how rapidly skiing is expanding as a sport, but are we aware of the significance of an annual compounded growth rate of 15 per cent? There are 5 million skiers in the U.S. today. If the 15 per cent growth continues undiminished for eight years, there will be 20 million skiers by 1980. And so our primary problem at NSAA is to foster the growth and economic health of existing and new ski areas to provide the winter recreational facilities which American citizens will demand while at the same time meeting new requirements of environmental planning and control. Only NSAA can do that. A lot is riding on what this group is doing, and we need your support in accomplishing it.
