First, I hope you’ll take a look at our Speak-out piece on page 13 on Cutters Camp. This brand new initiative—Timberline Lodge and SAM co-presenters—is an extremely important one for our snowsports world. The whole direction of designing, building and operating man-made terrain features represents an important part of our future. We need to get it right. Cutters Camp represents an opportunity for ski areas of all sizes to develop their own teams who can create, maintain and responsibly operate exciting terrain features no matter what the budget. A registration form is on page 29 for the first Cutters Camp, May 4 to 8 at Timberline Lodge, Mt. Hood, Ore. (Cutters Camp is sponsored by Kässbohrer, Bombardier, Burton, Zaugg, Salomon and Snowboarder Magazine.)
SAMMY Nominations
Secondly, time’s running out on getting your SAMMY nominations in. NSAA quite rightly bestows its prestigious Lifetime Achievement awards; just as meaningful, I believe, are the SAMMY awards, sponsored by Leitner-Poma and Acordia, that showcase some industry leaders for what they have already accomplished and, more importantly, for their future potential. Nominations have been coming in from all around North America and we hope to have even more before the March 31st deadline. Just go to page 21 for the form.
Hail to Lise
Thirdly, we want to put a nice, bright spotlight on a 30th anniversary we are marking with this issue. The Spring 1973 issue of SAM carried a new name on the masthead: Lise James, Circulation Manager. But the way Lise has handled this responsibility for the past 30 years makes a mockery of that bureaucratic-sounding title. The Norwegian-born Lise is more like a den mother to you, the family of SAM subscribers. If you fail to respond to a renewal notice, she worries about it and takes it personally. She knows you by name, not as a disembodied code number with expiration date. In many cases she knows more than one generation of SAM subscribers, having handled dad’s sub and then his son’s or daughter’s—perhaps as a student in a ski area management program, and then as a ski area employee.
Lise and her husband, Rolf (who also works for you!) retired to Florida a few years ago, which makes our St. Augustine circulation address an eyebrow-raising one for a ski publication.
On behalf of you, our family of SAM subscribers, congratulations, Lise, and many, many thanks!
David Rowan, Founding Publisher
