Sunday Strategist: Months Before Snow, Ski CEOs Struggle to Save the Season

The Spring Break set — louche and lucrative — was just starting to hit the slopes when COVID shut down the U.S. ski industry. More critically, the country’s 9 million or so skiers and snowboarders had just begun buying season passes for next winter — all-you-can-ride tickets for chairlifts that might or might not be running when snow starts falling once again.

The closing calculus was particularly tense at Alterra Mountain Co., which owns 15 of the largest winter resorts in North America including Mammoth Mountain and Steamboat. CEO Rusty Gregory and CFO Tim Donahue holed up in a war room for three days as the pandemic took hold. On the third day, Donahue tested positive for COVID, Gregory went into quarantine and started winding things down via a massive Zoom call with about 50 resort managers.