Newsletters

Newsletter III

Ski New Mexico
News Letter III
April 25, 2008

“The 2007-08 season has just wrapped up with a banner year”

Ski New Mexico is please to announce the statistics for the 2007-08 ski season. The ski industry saw a 4% gain over a very successful 2006-07 season. The number of skier visits to Ski New Mexico resort members were up from 689,244 in 2006-07 to 716,477 in 2007-08. The resorts were blessed with great snow fall ranging from 93inches locally at Sandia Peak to 293 inches at the northern ski resorts.

Ski NM and KOAT TV re-introduced a new but previously done program (Kids Learn to ski/ride) which was extremely successful. Over 730 New Mexico kids took up the sport over a three weekend program. “Developing new and younger skiers are a focus of Ski NM” said newly hired Executive Director George Brooks. “Kids are our future and also the future of our sport”, a big thank you to Mary Lynn Roper and KOAT for helping with this program.

Ski NM is also pleased to announce the “Best of the Best” winners. This program recognizes the best individual in seven different categories in the State of New Mexico’s ski industry. Winners are as follows:

Best Alpine Ski Instructor: Sara Nora Red River Ski School
Best Nordic Ski Instructor: James Hampton Enchanted Circle Ski School
Best Ski Patrol: Jack Dant Santa Fe Ski Resort Ski Patrol
Best Ski Racer: Tucker Van Ormer Junior Racers Red River Ski Team
Best Mountain Operations: Mike Green Pajarito Ski Area (Los Alamos)
Best Customer Service: Ana Hayden Red River Ski Area
Best Skier of NM: Jeff Speck Albuquerque –Jade Enterprises

The “Best of the Best winners” make the ski industry of New Mexico better for everyone involved. They make your day better, the sport more fun, and your experience of skiing better that anywhere else in the country. Ski New Mexico salutes these individuals for the outstanding efforts which go above and beyond.

Another huge event which received national and international attention was the opening of Taos Ski Valley to snowboarders on March 19, 2008. This event went without a hitch and from March 19th until the closing of Taos Ski Valley on April 6, 2008 the mountain, the skiers, and the snowboarders were in perfect harmony.

Sipapu enjoyed the longest season in New Mexico opening November 9, 2007 and closing April 13, 2008. All planned events at all Ski New Mexico ski resorts were conducted as scheduled with great enthusiasm and attendance.

Ski New Mexico will continue to be an innovator as they did this year with the first “Community Employee Education Seminar” which was designed to educate business employees about the ski industry in their town, and hosting the first New Mexico Winter Tourism Summit attended by Dept of Tourism Commission, Tourism Assoc. of New Mexico Board, and Ski New Mexico board among others. A big thank you for both events is extended to Red River and the leaders of that community. These events were pilot programs and very successful. We will continue them in the future and add additional sites.

We also made a few changes to the Ski NM web site: snow reporting procedures and times and increased the web site a few additional pages.

Even though the business year for Ski NM remains July 1 through June 30 the membership year will be ski season to ski season thus ski ticket membership cards will not be carried over season to season. Several other projects were completed during the year and details can be found in the two previous news letters.

I would like to thank everyone for your patience, help and understanding during my first year as you Executive Director. During the year I made some mistakes and did some good things but regardless this group stood behind me. As we go into the future, to move the organization forward we must take some risk and I hope I will receive the same support and understanding I have up till now!

As you can see things have been happening and good results are expected. If you are not part of Ski NM now is the time to get involved. Remember Ski New Mexico is the voice of the Ski Industry of New Mexico.

George Brooks
Ski NM Executive Director
“Ski and Ride the Winter Sun”

Ski Apache

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