In early December, Silverton Mountain announced the hiring of a new, high-profile employee: Tim Petrick, former President and CEO of K2, who is now the COO of Silverton Mountain. This is a big change for Petrick—moving from K2 headquarters in Seattle, Wash. to Silverton, Colo. a town with a year-round population of fewer than 600 people.
Petrick is the embodiment of the ski industry. From his role as the director of the Aspen Ski School, he rose through the ranks in the corporate ski world. While he had many jobs, his primary home was with K2, where he jumped from his role as VP and General Manager of the ski division to VP of Global Sales and finally to his job as President and CEO.
So why has he now chosen to work at a one-lift resort in an old mining town? We caught up with Petrick to ask him this question and to find out more about his plans for the future at Silverton Mountain.
Tim Petrick earning his turns. | Chamonix, France | Photo: Adam Howard
Backcountry Magazine: How has the transition from Seattle to Silverton been?
Tim Petrick: I didn’t take off any time. I finished at K2 last Thursday and jumped in the airplane on Thursday night and got here (Silverton) at about 1 a.m. on Friday morning. I had an employee meeting here at 7:30 on Friday, so kind it’s been a whirlwind start.
BCM: What are your initial thoughts on your new job?
TP: It is a really interesting operation with new challenges. It’s not corporate, which is great. After 20 plus years in the corporate world, it is fun to be in a small, entrepreneurial business.
It is like a parallel universe. It is like going to another dimension. I was at the National Ski Areas Convention last May and I ran into Jen Brill who’s the co-owner with Aaron. I have known them for almost 20 years, since they first thought up the concept [of Silverton Mountain] and they bounced it off me at the SIA show in Las Vegas. It was probably 17 or 18 years ago. We stayed in touch and bumped into each other at trade shows. Last May, at the convention, Jen mentioned that they were looking for a Chief Operating Officer. I gave her three or four names and they interviewed a few people, but couldn’t get anybody to the finish line. I didn’t think much about it after that.
Last September, I elected to leave K2 and I remembered that these guys were looking for somebody, so I called them up and asked if they were still looking for someone to run the operation. I said, “I’m interested. What do you think?” One thing led to another, and here I am.
My wife found a job almost immediately down at Purgatory. She is going to teach skiing down there, and it’s 25 minutes away if the roads aren’t bad. It is all serendipitously coming together.
BCM: How do you envision your corporate background helping Silverton evolve and grow?
TP: I know people in the resort sector and I know people on the vendor side of things, the retail side, and those are all components that can and will interact more actively with Silverton. I have relationships that have built up over the last 40 years in the ski business and it just seems pretty natural that I can bring something to the table with these guys. I know people around the country and around the world. I have a big Rolodex of people I can reach out to and hopefully engage and get them involved in different ways here.
I can’t tell you I’ve got some grand plan of how that’s all going to fit together, but K2 has been actively involved with Silverton from the beginning as an equipment sponsor, so I will try to figure out how to embellish or enhance that relationship. I know what K2 wants. They want to sell more product. So how can Silverton help them sell more product? It is nice to have the image [the brand] of Silverton, right? But at the end of the day, you’ve gotta sell stuff and I hope that I can bring tangible programs to our marketing partners and help them see value in a relationship with this enterprise.
BCM: I have heard rumors that Aaron and Jen are expanding their heliskiing business and moving it to Alaska. Will you be helping with these efforts?
TP: Aaron and Jen have moved the helicopter operation (that runs during the spring) up to Alaska. They sold their trips out in a couple of days for this year, but of course that takes at least Aaron and some of the guys off the field here, and I think these guys are really just looking for more bandwidth; more people to turn things over to and help them run the business. This is obviously a very different size of business from what I have been responsible for previously, but way back when, I ran a business like this in terms of the scale—the Aspen Ski Club—I was the director and head ski coach of the Aspen Ski Club in the early ’80s. So I am used to being in businesses where there is not a huge cash flow and not a huge number of employees. You wear a lot of different hats, and I am no stranger to taking out the garbage. I’ll do whatever it takes to make the resort run better and to help people have more fun. At the end of the day, that’s what we are trying to do.
Silverton is not going to have a detachable quad chairlift. They are not going to have an on-mountain rotating restaurant at the top of the hill. None of those things are a part of the vision of Silverton. Silverton is a unique kind of mountain experience that you want to preserve. And if you can become operationally more efficient—make it easier for the guests to come, easier to make reservations—that’s a plus.
He leads a busy life, but every once in a while Tim needs a nap. | Chamonix, France | Photo: Adam Howard
BCM: Will you be helping with the Alaskan expansion?
TP: My primary focus will be on Silverton Mountain. Once the resort gets closed down here in early April, I’ll go up there and work with [the heli operation] probably for a month or so after I am finished here. I have been going to Alaska for more than 15 years now and I am pretty comfortable with it.
The whole thing is a dream scenario for me. After working for so long in a corporate, 90-day, short-term, quarterly focus, which is just the financial reality of working for a public company, to be in a less structured, less pressured environment is nice.
There are 15 to 20 cars in the street, it’s snowing, and it’s a very different environment from Seattle, Washington. It’s the great American city. I love Seattle and we will still maintain our residence up there. We will spend about half the year in Silverton full time and then I will work remotely the other half of the year [from Seattle].
BCM: The backcountry skiing industry is growing and becoming more popular, and Silverton Mountain is geared toward that demographic but is still considered an expert-only resort. How do think that is going to affect your marketing plans?
TP: I think that the reason why Silverton exists 15 years after these guys started is it that it is really a happy accident that backcountry skiing became such a popular way to slide on the snow. Jen and Aaron were in the right place at the right time. This backcountry phenomenon was just starting to occur and they were in the sweet spot in that market. The only part of ski equipment sales that is growing right now is backcountry. But relative to the issue of education and safety, that is obviously a huge part of the process here, too. They take the guests through the probe, shovel, transceiver training. I think that people [who come here] have a healthy respect for the backcountry. People may think that Silverton is a little intimidating, but I don’t think that you are ever going to be able to homogenize an experience like this for everybody.
BCM: What is something you have done to prepare for this new job?
TP: When I took this job I went back to my library of all the snow-safety books I have purchased over the years and re-read them in the last two months. I want to be up to speed. Most of my backcountry skiing in the last 20 years has been in the Pacific Northwest or Alaska, so all of those places are a lot easier to manage and navigate than the San Juans with their continental snowpack. You have to be on your game here, and I am looking forward to the winter ahead.
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To find out more about Silverton Mountain, visit silvertonmountain.com
I find it distressing that Backcountry Magazine would only ask Mr. Petrick about Silverton Mountain’s Alaska heli-skiing and allow him to opine upon his love of backcountry skiing, when at the time of the interview he was fully embroiled in a controversy right here in Silverton itself. Silverton Mountain – our make believe ski area – is trying to procure 16,000 acres of backcountry ski terrain around the town of Silverton to expand their heli-skiing operation here, probably in order to built a Canadian-style luxury heli-lodge. We do not have a ski area in Silverton. Unguided skiing at Silverton Mountain has been all but phased-out, and the ski lift is open less and less days each winter since Aaron pulled a 180 on giving us a New Zealand-style clubfield and started opening a chain of Silverton-branded heli-operations. I think you need to re-interview Mr. Petrick, about his and Aaron Brill’s attempt to destroy true backcountry skiing for mere mortals in pickup trucks and on snowmobiles. The Colorado Snowmobile Association and the San Juan Citizens Alliance are on the same side of an issue for the first time ever in opposing the theft of easily-accessible backcountry ski terrain by Aaron Brill and Tim Petrick. Maybe you should ask him about the collapse of K2 and it’s associated brands while he was at the helm. The Denver Post and Outside Magazine both have some eye-opening articles published in the last month about North America’s largest maker of ski equipment possibly no longer existing in a few months. BLM comments are due December 12 on the preliminary proposal to vastly expand Silverton Mountain’s heli-ski terrain. Use the current permit and give us the lift-served backcountry ski area we were promised!