The 1st vice president of National Ski Areas Association is usually elected to the presidency after the incumbent has served two terms. It can therefore be anticipated that Peter W. Seibert, Chairman of Vail Associates, will be the next president of NSAA. With this in mind, we designed our cover around Pete, and interviewed him. We were not so much interested in the oft-told story of how he started Vail, or even in his intriguing plans for Vail’s future. Rather, we wanted to get a handle on his attitudes toward issues he may be involved in with his NSAA hat on.
Seibert is a pragmatist. This is no starry-eyed dreamer, but a man who roots his actions in what is practical. He is sensitive. He is not likely to use steamroller tactics to achieve his ends, but prefers behind-the-scene persuasion. He is tough. The quiet, almost bashful exterior is camouflage for a very determined man who has managed to get what he wanted most of the time.
There are two situations which Seibert would like to tackle right off. First is NSAA’s relations with its supplier members, which he thinks can be improved. Referring to last year’s trade show at Sun Valley, Seibert said, “The directors and wives went out one night to a very nice cocktail party, and it just happened to be the night of the cocktail party for the exhibitors. We ought to have been there just drinking with them, getting to know them. . .not just standing around massaging our own egos. Everyone should feel a part of the organization. We want them as well as their money.”
On small area participation, Seibert wants “to get the smaller areas back into the fold, involved. If they feel a part of it, they’re going to get more out of it. It’s the guy who’s kind of marginal, and then becomes a bit of a recluse. . . he’s the guy who sits home and feels he’s being trod upon, and he’s the guy we ought to be able to start bringing into it. . .basically just getting him involved. I think the specifics of what we have to do to this end would come out of the first year’s experience.”
As an ex-competitor, Seibert feels strongly about the amateur racing scene. The proposed new ski team organizational set-up, where it will be funded and controlled by an autonomous USSEF rather than USSA, is very much to his liking. In fact, it is very much akin to what Seibert urged at the Snowbird mid-winter meeting.
He wants the U.S. Ski Team program operated by a small board of directors made up of the people who provide the money for it. That would be SIA, NSAA, the fund-raising groups, with USSA participation, but not control. “The goal would be to somehow get 5-year commitments, and have a board of businessmen, not politicials, to run it. I think it is vital that we have a strong team, and a strong team will win its share of races.”
Still on the subject of racing, Seibert was distressed by the treatment of Willie Schaeffler by USSA. He points out that the team actually did very well over the winter, including two firsts, one second and a third in the last four World Cup races. “That didn’t sound like a disaster to me,” says Seibert. “They also had (in mid-winter) three men in the top downhill seed in the world—something that has never been accomplished before in this country.”
Seibert stresses that Schaeffler was very ill in hospital for four weeks, and that most of the team problems occurred then. He says that a month before Willy was terminated, he had agreed to resign at the end of the season. “The fact that he was terminated in mid-season,” says Seibert, “was a very unnecessary, thoughtless and cruel personal blow to Willy.”
Seibert feels that if he is elected NSAA president he is lucky to be following Frank Snyder. “In the past, people have come in as president and there have been substantial problems, and they spent their two years in office solving them. Frank has done a damn good job; he’s the type of guy who comes in—no monkey business—and if he steps on a few toes on the way through, that’s the way he operates, and I think a lot of that is necessary at times. But I would think our responsibility now is largely to police what we have, tighten up a few odds and ends that have always troubled me a bit and pull things together.”
Seibert sees the NSAA communications role as an important one—for disseminating the data that Cal Conniff’s safety committee generates, for instance. And he thinks that NSAA’s publication, National Ski Area News, will play a useful role. “We need Ski Area Management too,” Seibert added. “The more dissemination of ideas and information to the ski areas, the better.”
