Ok. So I am Jan Leonard's daughter... you know, check out the CTEC link. That picture, from the year I was born, is great! I would love to dig up more pictures like that. Thanks guys, it made my day.
Allison
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That picture of my dad is great!
Started by CUAlliegator, May 17 2006 05:27 PM
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Posted 17 May 2006 - 05:43 PM
Did you see this article on your dad?
Riding a ski lift to success
untitled2.JPG (13.15K)
Number of downloads: 50
Jan Leonard, president of Doppelmayr CTEC, stands in front of a giant chairlift gear. His company is one of only two ski-lift makers in the world. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)
By Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune
Jan Leonard's story begins like that of so many other ski industry veterans.
While working in Pittsburgh for a division of U.S. Steel, his life was changed by a ski trip he and some buddies took to Killington, Vt. But instead of being inspired to devote his life to the pursuit of powder, the civil engineer out of Penn State University became enchanted with ski lifts.
Three decades later, Leonard is president of Doppelmayr CTEC, overseeing completion of an expansion project that more than doubles the size of his company's manufacturing facility on Salt Lake City's west side and will bring together Doppelmayr CTEC units that have been based in Sacramento, Calif., and Golden, Colo.
"Twenty years ago there were 12-13 manufacturers, but the industry has become so consolidated that only two manufacturers can be justified -- and that's worldwide," said Leonard, 57. "To me it's gratifying that we're the North American manufacturer that survived."
Gone are Yan, Von Roll and Riblet Tramway, along with Hall Ski Lift, the Watertown, N.Y., company that hired Leonard following his ski awakening. He spent a couple of years with Hall before moving West, landing in Logan with Thiokol Chemical Corp., which in 1973 was building ski lifts along with snow-grooming equipment.
In the mid-1970s, when Thiokol decided to stick with solid rocket motors and other propulsion systems for the aerospace and defense industries, it sold its snow-grooming business to auto magnate John DeLorean and its ski lift rights to Leonard and Mark Ballantyne (who left CTEC in 2000 but remains a partner with Leonard in a door distribution business in California).
They did much better than DeLorean.
Within two years of breaking off from Thiokol and establishing CTEC, the acronym for Cable Transportation Engineering Co., Leonard and Ballantyne landed a contract to build a lift at Seven Springs resort, an hour's drive southeast of Pittsburgh. "It was close to my home town and I knew those guys forever," said Leonard. "Luckily, they gave us our first chance."
Three years later, in 1981, they erected their first Utah lift at Solitude.
Since then, CTEC's presence at ski resorts throughout Utah and the Intermountain West has grown steadily. The company was an independent manufacturer through 1992, when it built the Great Western Express high-speed detachable quad lift at Brighton Ski Area. But it merged that year with Garaventa, a Swiss ski lift company known for building people movers such as the tram at Snowbird.
"We made good money for them and they let us do our thing," Leonard said of CTEC's relationship with Garaventa. The company built 28 new lifts in 1996, including a six-person Quicksilver chair at Park City Mountain Resort -- the first "six-pack" in the West. Deer Valley, Elk Meadows near Beaver, The Canyons and Snowbasin Ski Area all turned to Garaventa CTEC in the next couple of years for new lifts, everything from old-fashioned fixed-grip chairs (capacity 2,400 skiers per hour) to more sophisticated detachable quads that could move 3,600 skiers in an hour.
Then last year, Garaventa CTEC merged with the Austrian company Doppelmayr, forming a conglomerate whose only rival is the Italian-French combination known as Leitner Poma.
"Luckily there's enough business for both of us," said Leonard, contending only two lifts in the state do not bear a CTEC, Garaventa or Doppelmayr nameplate or some combination thereof. "There's one place high at The Canyons where you can go up and see 21 of our lifts. That's gratifying. We spent a lot of time paying our dues before we were recognized."
The CTEC brand is respected in the ski industry.
"They're a real class act and bring a lot of professionalism to the table," said F. Scott Pierpont, president and managing director of The Canyons. "Jan's put together a world-class team of engineers and designers. . . . If they say they will do something, they will deliver it."
"You look at the CTEC stuff and there's never any doubt that they're big enough, stout enough and have enough quality to do the job. That's a trademark of their engineering," added Onno Wieringa, general manager at Alta Ski Area. Alta is prepared to sign a contract for two of the last available Garaventa CTEC detachable chair lifts once the U.S. Forest Service approves the Little Cottonwood Canyon resort's plan to replace the existing Germania and Collins lifts with a high-speed, bottom-to-top system.
Besides the Alta lifts, Leonard said his company will build a six-person detachable chair for Mount Rose, one of the resorts around Lake Tahoe, a fixed grip lift for Mount Baker in Washington and expects to land a contract for a chair lift in western Canada.
All of that work will be done at the company's expanded facility at 3160 W. 500 South.
The complex has grown from 27,000 square feet to 69,000 square feet. Much of that will become home to welding equipment, metal-shaping lathes and other machinery being transferred from a Sacramento facility where specialized items were built, such as the bulky bull wheels that spin as their attached cables deliver chairs to mountaintops.
Doppelmayr also is moving its spare-parts operation from Golden to Salt Lake City. With an unspecified number of people from Golden and Sacramento also being relocated to Utah, the expanded facility has new offices for a work force that will approach 165, a bigger kitchen area and training rooms.
"We bring in maintenance people from all of the North American ski areas and show them how to take care of the equipment," Leonard said.
He hopes the whole facility will be abuzz with activity a year or two from now -- much more than it was this summer. This will be the first winter in perhaps 15 years, Leonard said, in which a new lift was not erected in Utah.
"Our whole industry, I wouldn't say it's in a slump, but it is down," he said, especially compared with five years ago. Then, business was spurred by two factors: the approaching 2002 Winter Olympics and the consolidation of resort ownership among Vail, Intrawest and Park City-based American Skiing Co., which led to huge investments in high-speed lifts.
"You always want to see the market more like it was five years ago, but like many other industries, we're in a retraction mode now. But we're OK where we're at," Leonard added, especially because of the consolidations with Garaventa and Doppelmayr. "We're all more profitable with the mergers than as stand-alone companies."
mikeg@sltrib.com
Average prices for different ski lifts
(installed)
* Fixed-grip chair -- $1 million
* Detachable quad chair -- $2.7 million
* Gondola -- $5 million-$6 million
* Tram -- $12 million-$13 million
Riding a ski lift to success
untitled2.JPG (13.15K)
Number of downloads: 50
Jan Leonard, president of Doppelmayr CTEC, stands in front of a giant chairlift gear. His company is one of only two ski-lift makers in the world. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)
By Mike Gorrell
The Salt Lake Tribune
Jan Leonard's story begins like that of so many other ski industry veterans.
While working in Pittsburgh for a division of U.S. Steel, his life was changed by a ski trip he and some buddies took to Killington, Vt. But instead of being inspired to devote his life to the pursuit of powder, the civil engineer out of Penn State University became enchanted with ski lifts.
Three decades later, Leonard is president of Doppelmayr CTEC, overseeing completion of an expansion project that more than doubles the size of his company's manufacturing facility on Salt Lake City's west side and will bring together Doppelmayr CTEC units that have been based in Sacramento, Calif., and Golden, Colo.
"Twenty years ago there were 12-13 manufacturers, but the industry has become so consolidated that only two manufacturers can be justified -- and that's worldwide," said Leonard, 57. "To me it's gratifying that we're the North American manufacturer that survived."
Gone are Yan, Von Roll and Riblet Tramway, along with Hall Ski Lift, the Watertown, N.Y., company that hired Leonard following his ski awakening. He spent a couple of years with Hall before moving West, landing in Logan with Thiokol Chemical Corp., which in 1973 was building ski lifts along with snow-grooming equipment.
In the mid-1970s, when Thiokol decided to stick with solid rocket motors and other propulsion systems for the aerospace and defense industries, it sold its snow-grooming business to auto magnate John DeLorean and its ski lift rights to Leonard and Mark Ballantyne (who left CTEC in 2000 but remains a partner with Leonard in a door distribution business in California).
They did much better than DeLorean.
Within two years of breaking off from Thiokol and establishing CTEC, the acronym for Cable Transportation Engineering Co., Leonard and Ballantyne landed a contract to build a lift at Seven Springs resort, an hour's drive southeast of Pittsburgh. "It was close to my home town and I knew those guys forever," said Leonard. "Luckily, they gave us our first chance."
Three years later, in 1981, they erected their first Utah lift at Solitude.
Since then, CTEC's presence at ski resorts throughout Utah and the Intermountain West has grown steadily. The company was an independent manufacturer through 1992, when it built the Great Western Express high-speed detachable quad lift at Brighton Ski Area. But it merged that year with Garaventa, a Swiss ski lift company known for building people movers such as the tram at Snowbird.
"We made good money for them and they let us do our thing," Leonard said of CTEC's relationship with Garaventa. The company built 28 new lifts in 1996, including a six-person Quicksilver chair at Park City Mountain Resort -- the first "six-pack" in the West. Deer Valley, Elk Meadows near Beaver, The Canyons and Snowbasin Ski Area all turned to Garaventa CTEC in the next couple of years for new lifts, everything from old-fashioned fixed-grip chairs (capacity 2,400 skiers per hour) to more sophisticated detachable quads that could move 3,600 skiers in an hour.
Then last year, Garaventa CTEC merged with the Austrian company Doppelmayr, forming a conglomerate whose only rival is the Italian-French combination known as Leitner Poma.
"Luckily there's enough business for both of us," said Leonard, contending only two lifts in the state do not bear a CTEC, Garaventa or Doppelmayr nameplate or some combination thereof. "There's one place high at The Canyons where you can go up and see 21 of our lifts. That's gratifying. We spent a lot of time paying our dues before we were recognized."
The CTEC brand is respected in the ski industry.
"They're a real class act and bring a lot of professionalism to the table," said F. Scott Pierpont, president and managing director of The Canyons. "Jan's put together a world-class team of engineers and designers. . . . If they say they will do something, they will deliver it."
"You look at the CTEC stuff and there's never any doubt that they're big enough, stout enough and have enough quality to do the job. That's a trademark of their engineering," added Onno Wieringa, general manager at Alta Ski Area. Alta is prepared to sign a contract for two of the last available Garaventa CTEC detachable chair lifts once the U.S. Forest Service approves the Little Cottonwood Canyon resort's plan to replace the existing Germania and Collins lifts with a high-speed, bottom-to-top system.
Besides the Alta lifts, Leonard said his company will build a six-person detachable chair for Mount Rose, one of the resorts around Lake Tahoe, a fixed grip lift for Mount Baker in Washington and expects to land a contract for a chair lift in western Canada.
All of that work will be done at the company's expanded facility at 3160 W. 500 South.
The complex has grown from 27,000 square feet to 69,000 square feet. Much of that will become home to welding equipment, metal-shaping lathes and other machinery being transferred from a Sacramento facility where specialized items were built, such as the bulky bull wheels that spin as their attached cables deliver chairs to mountaintops.
Doppelmayr also is moving its spare-parts operation from Golden to Salt Lake City. With an unspecified number of people from Golden and Sacramento also being relocated to Utah, the expanded facility has new offices for a work force that will approach 165, a bigger kitchen area and training rooms.
"We bring in maintenance people from all of the North American ski areas and show them how to take care of the equipment," Leonard said.
He hopes the whole facility will be abuzz with activity a year or two from now -- much more than it was this summer. This will be the first winter in perhaps 15 years, Leonard said, in which a new lift was not erected in Utah.
"Our whole industry, I wouldn't say it's in a slump, but it is down," he said, especially compared with five years ago. Then, business was spurred by two factors: the approaching 2002 Winter Olympics and the consolidation of resort ownership among Vail, Intrawest and Park City-based American Skiing Co., which led to huge investments in high-speed lifts.
"You always want to see the market more like it was five years ago, but like many other industries, we're in a retraction mode now. But we're OK where we're at," Leonard added, especially because of the consolidations with Garaventa and Doppelmayr. "We're all more profitable with the mergers than as stand-alone companies."
mikeg@sltrib.com
Average prices for different ski lifts
(installed)
* Fixed-grip chair -- $1 million
* Detachable quad chair -- $2.7 million
* Gondola -- $5 million-$6 million
* Tram -- $12 million-$13 million
- Peter<br />
Liftblog.com
Liftblog.com
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Posted 18 May 2006 - 02:57 AM
Great article
One thing I wonder about, how did they get this stat: " "Luckily there's enough business for both of us," said Leonard, contending only two lifts in the state do not bear a CTEC, Garaventa or Doppelmayr nameplate or some combination thereof."
I guess that refers to the only two Poma lifts in the state at The Canyons, one of which is being replaced by a CTEC this year anyway. But there's a whole bunch of Yans in Utah too, and some Riblets. Still, it's impressive how many lifts in Utah are from the DoppelmayrCTEC empire
One thing I wonder about, how did they get this stat: " "Luckily there's enough business for both of us," said Leonard, contending only two lifts in the state do not bear a CTEC, Garaventa or Doppelmayr nameplate or some combination thereof."
I guess that refers to the only two Poma lifts in the state at The Canyons, one of which is being replaced by a CTEC this year anyway. But there's a whole bunch of Yans in Utah too, and some Riblets. Still, it's impressive how many lifts in Utah are from the DoppelmayrCTEC empire
- Tyler
West Palm Beach, FL - elev. 9 feet
West Palm Beach, FL - elev. 9 feet
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Posted 19 May 2006 - 10:36 AM
I have seen this article. :) ...dad sent me a copy.
Florida skier, regarding the statement you quoted from my dad, you have it a little off kilter... he is referring to the lift manufacturer competition... the only competitors that existed at the time, if I am correct, were Poma and Leitner. They have since merged into one company, Poma Leitner.
Unfortunately, lift volume is quite down, this may have something to do with the fact that ski areas aren't expanding, and this may be due to the fact that land is becoming less available, especially the use of forest service land. At any rate, it is becoming difficult for them to generate work.
Allison
Florida skier, regarding the statement you quoted from my dad, you have it a little off kilter... he is referring to the lift manufacturer competition... the only competitors that existed at the time, if I am correct, were Poma and Leitner. They have since merged into one company, Poma Leitner.
Unfortunately, lift volume is quite down, this may have something to do with the fact that ski areas aren't expanding, and this may be due to the fact that land is becoming less available, especially the use of forest service land. At any rate, it is becoming difficult for them to generate work.
Allison
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Posted 19 May 2006 - 02:51 PM
DoppelmayrCTEC has 34 installations this year which is way up from past years, and their market share seems to be up also.
- Peter<br />
Liftblog.com
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Posted 19 May 2006 - 04:54 PM
who has the percentage of installations this year?? Doppelmayr CTEC has way more than Leitner Poma....that's all I can remember. They're building 4 lifts in Park City alone....talking to Jamie Kansler last week....they're having a hard time finding construction foreman to install lifts. Although ski areas might not be expanding like they were in the last 10-15 yrs...existing lifts are becoming harder to maintain due to non-existant repalacement parts. Sterling is a good example of this
-Jimmi
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Posted 20 May 2006 - 06:02 AM
DoppemayrCTEC has 24 lifts making up 80% of new installations, against Leitner-Poma's 6, or 20%.
That kinda surprises me. There are a lot of Yans older than Sterling still in operation. Is it the aluminum assembllies that are getting hard to replace?
lastchair_44, on May 19 2006, 08:54 PM, said:
Although ski areas might not be expanding like they were in the last 10-15 yrs...existing lifts are becoming harder to maintain due to non-existant repalacement parts. Sterling is a good example of this
That kinda surprises me. There are a lot of Yans older than Sterling still in operation. Is it the aluminum assembllies that are getting hard to replace?
- Tyler
West Palm Beach, FL - elev. 9 feet
West Palm Beach, FL - elev. 9 feet
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Posted 20 May 2006 - 08:28 AM
floridaskier, on May 20 2006, 06:02 AM, said:
DoppemayrCTEC has 24 lifts making up 80% of new installations, against Leitner-Poma's 6, or 20%.
That kinda surprises me. There are a lot of Yans older than Sterling still in operation. Is it the aluminum assembllies that are getting hard to replace?
That kinda surprises me. There are a lot of Yans older than Sterling still in operation. Is it the aluminum assembllies that are getting hard to replace?
Bearings for the wheels...and the sheave halves always crack...the assemblies crack because they're aluminum. It was mainly the line machinery....which we opted to replace with Doppelmayr line gear for 280,000 but DV decided to just tear 'er down and build another Detachable.
-Maybe I shouldn't have said "non-existant" replacement parts... the right phrase would be "hard to find"
-Jimmi
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Posted 20 May 2006 - 01:33 PM
Remember reading in SAM a while ago that there where around 900 chairlifts built in the seventies. Now figure that more than half where built by companies that don’t exist any more combined with an increasing demand for more capacity and shorter ride times this should fuel some replacement or up fitting work some time soon, maybe not the rush the mid 90s resort expansions provided but some. The notion that detachables have a shorter life span than fixed is interesting but then again we are comparing the first generation of a fare more complex system to the 2nd 3rd and even 4th generation of a simpler system, its simply apples and oranges.
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