JASON E. KAPLAN But you have much bigger problems than paint. Our lift infrastructure is a little bit older, and sometimes things happen that aren’t due to a lack of maintenance. This year we’ve replaced the motor on Northwest. We replaced the haul rope on Northwest. We replaced both the motor and the haul rope on Little Pine. We replaced the gearbox on Outback, and we’re replacing the motor on Sunrise. And Skyliner, of course, is an entirely new lift — towers, terminals and all. The shakeup at Bachelor seemed very sudden to us outsiders. Do you feel like you inherited a team or did you see a need to rebuild? There’s always some weeding that happens, and sorry if that sounds crass, because the vast majority of the team really wants success and they’d bleed for Bachelor. You need to hire the right people in influential positions. Our leadership team now has really bought in. They need a consistent leader and somebody who’s going to have their back, all the time. But I like to consult; I don’t ever like to tell people what to do. But obviously you have to make decisions. Absolutely. But I don’t like to. It might even make some people a little uncomfortable. I want to talk through their process so they come to the right decision on their own. What is it you’re trying to cultivate by doing that? Confidence. As a leader, you have to have that. That’s what I feel is my life mission, to develop young leaders, and help people to really spread their wings and grow. You’ve said you want to enhance the employee experience. What does that mean? That is critical to any business, but especially in this business, because every single one of our employees has an impact on our guest experience. One thing I think all businesses suffer from is you take your best individual contributor, and you make them a manager. They’re not really trained for that, so we’ve started this new leadership training. Every employee also goes through an orientation that makes sure we’re all on the same page right from the start. A lot of your employees have to be in this business for the lifestyle, and we want to help that and encourage that. A huge part of that lifestyle requires a place to live. How is Bachelor handling housing for these low-wage workers? At Copper, something like 70% of our employees lived in the [company housing or deed-restricted housing], but Bachelor has zero. But the unique thing about Bend in the ski industry is that Bend is busier in the summer, with occupancy that’s 75% or higher. That flips in winter. So we reached out to some hotels and worked out a deal where we guarantee rooms and then recruit employees to stay in them well below market rate. We just did that with Campfire Hotel, where they set aside 51 beds — 30 rooms — an entire wing for our employees. 17
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