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Breckenridge is a company town, and when the head of the company decides to call it quits, it's a good time to sit up and take notice.
There's no one way to evaluate Adam Aron's tenure as CEO of Vail Resorts, a job he's leaving in June after 10 years. By Wall Street standards, he's done a creditable job, growing the company by 400 percent, increasing revenues and managing costs when his competitors are bankrupt or struggling.
Frankly, though, it's hard to know whether Mr. Aron has been good, or just lucky. The financial future of Vail Resorts was secured, though no one knew it at the time, one year prior to his arrival by the Buddy Pass. Vail Resorts was able to secure before the first snow fell a year's lift ticket revenue, and increase revenues from lift ticket/Buddy Pass sales to dollar amounts undreamed of.
Without the Buddy Pass, Mr. Aron would not have been able to spend the kind of money on capital improvements for which skiers and snowboarders must revere him as a godsend. In 1996, no one expected Vail Resorts to spend the millions on lifts and terrain parks, especially at Breckenridge, that have substantially improved the on-mountain experience for the destination skiers that are the financial foundation of Breckenridge and Vail.
The Buddy Pass has also put every Summit County business in the debt of Vail Resorts and Bill Jensen, Mr. Aron's predecessor, who introduced the Buddy Pass. The Buddy Pass amounts to a free gift of $750 per season per employee to those businesses, a nice addition to retained earnings that required no effort at all.
For real estate speculators, Mr. Aron and the company's financial backers have been a gold mine. The wealth if not value created through the buying and selling of small pieces of earth that have no useful function other than to hold the foundation of a 5,000-square second home is an economic marvel. The construction of those homes and the influx of people that have doubled the population of Summit County in the last decade have changed the area and a few pocketbooks irrevocably.
Which is exactly why so many people will quietly say "good riddance to bad rubbish" on June 28th, when Mr. Aron wraps up a decade at the helm of Vail Resorts and departs.
Those people saw these mountains not as little pieces of the earth that had no other useful economic function except as luxury homes sites, but as a natural whole, a forest and a land whose economic value was far outweighed by its spiritual and recreational value to residents and visitors alike. That value, the spiritual and recreational possibilities that brought them here, has been diminished if not lost entirely.
In the press release announcing his retirement, Mr. Aron boasts of "going out on top." In many ways, he is going out on top; in many ways, however, he'll be leaving before the going gets tough.
The number of skiers has grown only marginally over the past 10 years, despite a 75 percent cut in the cost of a season pass, and population growth in parts of the Front Range that has rivaled the growth rate in Summit County. Snowboarding is carrying the day in terms of skier numbers; without it, participation would have fallen. Telemark, the past and briefly the future of skiing, has remained a niche.
Moreover, the number of little pieces of earth that can be bought and sold for homesites is dwindling. The low-hanging fruit, as a friend of mine likes to describe it, has already been picked. Making money from real estate speculation will be much harder in the future, and while the ski areas can be expanded to offer new challenges, many vacationers are not the least interested in taking up those challenges. And even if land were available for either, finding folks to hammer the nails and man the lifts will be harder and harder to attract to the area.
So who will the money guys on the East Coast who run Vail Resorts select to replace Mr. Aron? I think we can bet that the new CEO will be white, middle-aged, male, a recreational skier at best, a businessman. Somewhere, though, there's got to be a minority, young, female snowboarder who's got serious business savvy. We need her, soon, by June 28th at the latest, here in Breckenridge.
There's no one way to evaluate Adam Aron's tenure as CEO of Vail Resorts, a job he's leaving in June after 10 years. By Wall Street standards, he's done a creditable job, growing the company by 400 percent, increasing revenues and managing costs when his competitors are bankrupt or struggling.
Frankly, though, it's hard to know whether Mr. Aron has been good, or just lucky. The financial future of Vail Resorts was secured, though no one knew it at the time, one year prior to his arrival by the Buddy Pass. Vail Resorts was able to secure before the first snow fell a year's lift ticket revenue, and increase revenues from lift ticket/Buddy Pass sales to dollar amounts undreamed of.
Without the Buddy Pass, Mr. Aron would not have been able to spend the kind of money on capital improvements for which skiers and snowboarders must revere him as a godsend. In 1996, no one expected Vail Resorts to spend the millions on lifts and terrain parks, especially at Breckenridge, that have substantially improved the on-mountain experience for the destination skiers that are the financial foundation of Breckenridge and Vail.
The Buddy Pass has also put every Summit County business in the debt of Vail Resorts and Bill Jensen, Mr. Aron's predecessor, who introduced the Buddy Pass. The Buddy Pass amounts to a free gift of $750 per season per employee to those businesses, a nice addition to retained earnings that required no effort at all.
For real estate speculators, Mr. Aron and the company's financial backers have been a gold mine. The wealth if not value created through the buying and selling of small pieces of earth that have no useful function other than to hold the foundation of a 5,000-square second home is an economic marvel. The construction of those homes and the influx of people that have doubled the population of Summit County in the last decade have changed the area and a few pocketbooks irrevocably.
Which is exactly why so many people will quietly say "good riddance to bad rubbish" on June 28th, when Mr. Aron wraps up a decade at the helm of Vail Resorts and departs.
Those people saw these mountains not as little pieces of the earth that had no other useful economic function except as luxury homes sites, but as a natural whole, a forest and a land whose economic value was far outweighed by its spiritual and recreational value to residents and visitors alike. That value, the spiritual and recreational possibilities that brought them here, has been diminished if not lost entirely.
In the press release announcing his retirement, Mr. Aron boasts of "going out on top." In many ways, he is going out on top; in many ways, however, he'll be leaving before the going gets tough.
The number of skiers has grown only marginally over the past 10 years, despite a 75 percent cut in the cost of a season pass, and population growth in parts of the Front Range that has rivaled the growth rate in Summit County. Snowboarding is carrying the day in terms of skier numbers; without it, participation would have fallen. Telemark, the past and briefly the future of skiing, has remained a niche.
Moreover, the number of little pieces of earth that can be bought and sold for homesites is dwindling. The low-hanging fruit, as a friend of mine likes to describe it, has already been picked. Making money from real estate speculation will be much harder in the future, and while the ski areas can be expanded to offer new challenges, many vacationers are not the least interested in taking up those challenges. And even if land were available for either, finding folks to hammer the nails and man the lifts will be harder and harder to attract to the area.
So who will the money guys on the East Coast who run Vail Resorts select to replace Mr. Aron? I think we can bet that the new CEO will be white, middle-aged, male, a recreational skier at best, a businessman. Somewhere, though, there's got to be a minority, young, female snowboarder who's got serious business savvy. We need her, soon, by June 28th at the latest, here in Breckenridge.
