Musings on the Tenth
NSAA President Frank Snyder has ably outlined the history of the association on page 6 of this issue, so there is no need to dwell on this. Rather, we would like to comment, as we have periodically over the past 10 years, on NSAA’s role, present and future.
In the first five or six years of NSAA’s life it can now be told that the emphasis was on survival. The association had very little support, and what was accomplished can be credited to the enormous efforts of a very few individuals. Building NSAA membership—both area and sponsor—was the first priority, and the pace was glacial. Things were sufficiently discouraging after two years that serious consideration was given to dropping the whole association. But the vision was there—the vision of what could be done if a strong national organization got rolling. The first solid accomplishment of NSAA—the establishment of an NSAA insurance program—actually came into being as a result of the need to build membership. A sound insurance program with promise of rate sanity would appeal to many ski areas, the argument went, and if NSAA membership were a prerequisite to joining the insurance program, then membership would grow.
The insurance program was an ideal one for NSAA because it was capable of fostering three desirable ends: 1) membership growth; 2) higher standards of safety through inspection; and 3) stabilization of insurance rates.
As NSAA membership—both regular and sponsor—began to grow, and as budgets got large enough to permit real functioning, the role of NSAA started to grow also. Service to the membership became paramount, and various programs were initiated that met the immediate needs of the membership. As a functioning, effective trade association, NSAA really came into its own in the past three years, and stands today with strength, unity and great potential.
And therein lies the key to the decade ahead: the potential for NSAA. Will it vacillate over today’s great environmental causes, or will it provide bold and imaginative leadership to help shape the future of the ski resort industry? For, above all, the environmental issue is going to be the foremost concern of the next several NSAA administrations.
An historical analogy may be useful here. Some years ago, long before NSAA was around, the ski area operators of the time felt threatened. They felt threatened by impending legislation. It concerned lift-safety. A general consensus of ski area operators then would have shown an instinctive reaction to fight the proposed legislation. If it was going to impinge in any way on the area operation, then it must be bad . . . big government meddling . . . rights of free enterprise . . . and so forth. At the time, the Eastern Ski Area Operators Association was blessed with imaginative leadership. The inevitability of the legislation was acknowledged, so the route chosen was to attempt to get good legislation. Furthermore, the association’s leadership was not cynical. By “good” legislation, it did not mean a body of law shot through with loopholes. Rather, the association’s members took the position that the public had a right to the safest possible uphill facilities, that this would be good for business in the long run, and that since they were both skiers and ski area operators, they were a great deal better qualified to write the safety standards than some state elevator safety engineer.
Thus it was that the tramway safety code was written, funded by the very people who would be conforming to its standards. Nor was this a case of having felons write the Penal Code. The so-called B.77 Code was written under the umbrella of the American Standards Association, and on the committee were representatives of the public, the American Standards Association, the insurance industry as well as the ski area industry. Indeed, the latter did not control the committee. Once written and accepted, the code was urged on state legislatures as the basis for ski lift safety legislation. The ski areas could actually urge enactment of such legislation because in the code they had the basis of reasonable law.
This experience should spell out a clear message for the coming environmental struggle. NSAA should not be formulating plans to man the battlements and pull up the drawbridges; rather, NSAA should be working out its own responsible environmental standards and then urging these on the appropriate legislatures. The standards thus proposed should be tough, as were the standards of the tramway code. They will be resisted by many area operators, just as the tramway code provisions were. But with purposeful leadership, it can be accomplished.
We believe it is inherently good business to be in step with the times, and the times call for environmental concern. We believe there should be legislation that abates pollution and that protects our environment for future generations. We believe in that for cities, suburbs and the mountains. We do not feel that this sort of legislation should be written by extremists of any persuasion. We are distrustful of armchair ecologists. As John Fry wrote in the March issue of SKI, “Some of the most eloquent arguments for locking up vast tracts of America’s wilderness are made by people who have seldom walked a footpath there . . . I have more confidence in the ultimate wisdom of skiers to arrive at the right decisions than in theorists who want to put our mountains out of reach and in permanent dead storage.”
Inaction by NSAA on the environmental front will be self-defeating; rearguard action will be ineffectual. The only course for NSAA is bold leadership . . . forward.
There are other issues to be faced by NSAA. The deplorable operational standards of some ski areas are a disgrace to the whole industry. Their callous disregard for public safety and comfort is increasingly being detailed in the press and is giving the whole sport a black eye.
Confident in its own strength, NSAA should have the courage to insist on the adherence by its membership to certain minimum standards. NSAA membership should be made valuable enough to an area so that loss of membership is a hardship. Then you have a force for progress and enlightened self-interest, rather than an amiable association of peers who meet socially twice a year to discuss how to fight “them.” (Definition: anyone who is against us, notably the Forest Service, the IRS, the state legislatures, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society and the press.)
How to give NSAA membership that sort of direct value? The NSAA Insurance Program was one very effective service. Another, we feel, would be the structuring of a national promotion with the U.S. Ski Association. If you insist, call it a discount at NSAA areas for USSA members. Better, think of it as a scheme whereby you charge the non-member more. However, for an area to be listed by USSA, it would have to agree to maintain certain standards as jointly set by USSA and NSAA.
In one fell swoop, this would accomplish three things: 1) the mass of regional discount book programs are disposed of; 2) the ultimate and only effective membership incentive for USSA is provided, thus assuring a strong consumer association to give weight to NSAA arguments; and 3) a useful “persuader” is available to apply to those ski areas which hurt the whole ski area industry through poor operational standards.
Finally, let us reiterate that NSAA has been blessed with wise leadership and sound administration in its 10 years. It has acquired unity and muscle for the future. We hope this muscle will be used.—David Rowan.
