Oral history interview of Nathan Rafferty, conducted by Matthew Green (transcript)

Nathan Rafferty, president of Ski Utah, discusses his involvement with the sport of skiing and the ski industry. He discusses his position with the Ski Utah organization. He discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the ski industry and details how Ski Utah has communicated COVID-19 precautions to skiers.

NATHAN RAFFERTY Salt Lake City, Utah An Interview by Matthew Green 21 October 2020 Utah COVID-19 Oral History Project J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections Department University of Utah Salt Lake City, Utah Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 SUMMARY: Nathan Rafferty b. circa 1972 Since the time his parents moved the family to Salt Lake City from the East Coast, Nate has had a passion for skiing. In this interview, he discussed a range of life experiences from growing up skiing at Park West through a lifetime working in the ski industry. As a student the University of Arizona, he found work as the student ski trip coordinator. During college summers and after graduation, he worked various jobs in the local ski industry. He recounted his impressions after first being hired by Ski Utah as an unpaid intern in 1998. He then worked as the organization’s Director of Communications before being named President and CEO of Ski Utah in 2005. Nate described Ski Utah’s mission, the company organization and some of the work they do as a 501 c6 Business Association. Ski Utah’s three pillars are marketing, public relations and then government relations. Ski Utah’s board members include a mix of independent individuals as well as representatives from the state’s ski areas. Much of his work has involved either content production or lobbying and relationship-building. In this interview, he discussed the departure of the “Outdoor Retailer” industry show from Salt Lake City, saying it appeared to have few ramifications on the local ski areas, which operated either at or above record numbers of skiers in the years leading up to the COVID pandemic. Nate also discussed the dramatic effect of the COVID pandemic on the entire Salt Lake City economy. In March 2020, Utah ski resorts shut down on the busiest day of the year, at the very start of the Spring Break travel season. This year, he expected a different approach: “Instead of turning it off at the source, we will be a little bit more strategic.” Nate discussed the relative strength of the local economy and the potential durability of the ski areas to withstand the financial losses of a much slower COVID ski season. He also described Ski Utah’s educational role in communicating COVID procedures for skiers. 1 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 GOOD AFTERNOON. MY NAME IS MATT GREEN. TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2020. I’M DOING AN INTERVIEW FOR THE COVID-19 ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ON ZOOM WITH NATHAN RAFFERTY, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF SKI UTAH. MJG 00:23: So, Nathan, would you like me to call you, Nate? NR 00:28: Sure, that’s easy, yeah keep it easy. MJG 00:30: Alright, so thanks Nate. And could you just begin by telling us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you ended up working in the ski industry? NR 00:40: Right, so I grew up here in Salt Lake City and started skiing fairly late in life by Utah standards. I didn't start until I was in, maybe, junior high school. And I started, ah, my parents are from the east coast. They did a little cross-country skiing. My dad moved out here to go to get a second degree at the University of Utah in meteorology, and they moved out here. All my friends in elementary school were downhill skiers. And I felt like I was kind of missing out, and I took some lessons from a program that started “Sports Den,” which is near Foothill Village in like a “9-iron” from the house I grew up in, and we’d go up every Saturday to Park West and learned to ski there—lessons in the morning and then ski with your buddies in the afternoon—and the morning lessons were actually with my buddies’ little sisters that were all like six and seven years old, because I was a beginner, and I had to start with them. Then we had lunch. And then my buddies would drag me around. They were all great skiers, but I ended up learning pretty fast, because I wanted to hang with them. So trying to keep up with them kept going. Love skiing—skied through high school and then went down to school at the Ivy League of the Southwest—the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona—and went to school down there, and you know I guess, kind of fatefully, ended up kind of working in a ski business down there. I was living in our fraternity house at 2 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 the time, and a guy walked in the house and he was looking for somebody who is a skier who was going to run these big all Greek ski trips Greek meaning the fraternity and sorority houses. MJG 2:45: There are a lot of Greeks in Salt Lake (laughs) NR 2:48: Yeah, right. So a couple people pointed this guy to my room in the house, because I had a bunch of ski posters on the wall and was a big skier, ended up being a representative for our fraternity house and got 30 or 40 guys to go skiing. And the guy was like, hey, this is just great. You know, you're doing a good job. Why don't you do the same business for the entire school, for the whole school? And I said, “Yeah, sure, see if we you can get 100 people ago or something.” So I, I got a bunch of people to go on this ski trip, and we joined other colleges. And I can't remember, I think we went to Durango and Lake Tahoe, and a couple other places, but I got 700 people to go on this ski trip, and I called the guy, and I was getting paid $1 a person plus a free ski trip. $700 is a lot of beer money, and I just thought it was the best deal ever, like all I have to do is talk about skiing, and I get a free ski trip and a couple bucks. And it got me thinking that maybe there was some kind of future in the ski business. I love to ski and didn't have a plan for after school. As I was a junior or senior, I came home one spring break. And I did a little job prospecting and I went around to some of the skiers and I interviewed directors of communication or marketing people at these ski areas just to learn more about their job. When I was finished with school, one of the guys that I interviewed was a director of communications at the time, his name was Mark Menlove. He was working at Park City Ski Area at the time. After I had graduated, I was still kind of on the hunt for a job. And I went, people pointed me towards Ski Utah and I 3 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 came down here to the office at the time it was downtown in the Sheraton and I walked in the door and realized Mark Menlove, who I had interviewed at Park City was now the president of Ski Utah, and so they gave me, or I interviewed, he had me an interview with a woman named Raelene Davis, who was the Director of Marketing at the time. She gave me an unpaid internship position in the summer of 1994. Fast forward a few years and couple jobs later I bounced back and forth up at Park City Ski Area again a little bit in their sales department, but I've been the president here at Ski Utah for, I think it’s fifteen years, let me see ‘98. I have an anniversary coming up and it's actually 1998 so 22 years at Ski Utah, seven years as the PR guy and whatever the balance is, 15 years as the president, and the person who hired me Raelene Davis is still here at Ski Utah. She's the Vice President of Marketing and we work closely together. But she never lets me off the hook. She always reminds me that she's really the boss. I'm just here, the pretty face to look good, make the organization look good. She runs everything, which is not too far from the truth. But, uh. MG 6:19: So I have a question about that. Yeah, when you were an intern, unpaid intern, how long were you unpaid and how did you make that work? You know, how did you, how did you support yourself? NR 6:33: Yeah, I'm not even sure that was legal. I can't, you know and we have paid interns now and I remind them all the time your base. Sorry, you know they get tired of hearing me say “Back when I was an intern.” You know, it was an unpaid internship. I was living at home, my parents, you know, and so it was only for a few months, but I went down there and helped do stuff around the office. We did a lot of mailings and stuff, way back when and that that translated into a job. I was actually originally hired at Ski 4 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 Utah to be an intern. And then I was the office manager or receptionist essentially for a couple years. And I remember getting my first check. Back then, and it was for, I think I got paid $19,000 a year, my first check was for 500 bucks. And I looked at that thing, and I thought, “How in the world am I going to spend all this money in two weeks before I get another check for 500 bucks?” And I couldn't believe they're paying me to talk about skiing, and being in the ski business. You know, there's a lot more to the job now and a few more bucks than that. But, um, you know people that are in this business, I think, start and stay in it because they have a passion for skiing. And you know, at the end of the day, we're just introducing people to something we love. More often than not, it does feel like a job, but you know, not a day goes by that I don't remind myself that there are a lot of people that have jobs that don't have the passion and are, you know, their second office isn't standing on, you know, one of the magnificent peaks here and skiing down. Yeah it turned out to be a pretty good gig and I'm still here as long as, as long as they'll have me. MG 8:29: Yeah. Could you talk a little bit about the organization—what Ski Utah does and maybe the workings of a day or a week or a season over the years? NR 8:44: So we are a 501 c6 Business Association. There are nine full time employees here at Ski Utah, including me. We also run the Ski Utah Interconnect Tour, which we have seven part time guides that all trade around and run this kind of backcountry tour that starts at Deer Valley and ends at Snowbird. We ski through six different ski areas. That's a pretty small part of the business. But at the end of the day, our mission is to inspire people to ski Utah and choose Utah over Colorado or California or Disneyland or the beaches in Florida, come here to ski. We have roughly three, three to 5 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 three and a half million dollar budget in a good year. This COVID year is a little bit different. A lot of people think we're publicly funded, but that's not the case. We're almost exclusively privately funded. We do partner with the state on some matching grants that they have available to promote skiing around the state and around the world. But we, you know, our three pillars are marketing (one of our main focuses)—marketing, public relations and then government relations. So a lot of lobbying work that I do and then all the content we produce now in the form of marketing, whether it's blogs or print ads or digital ads or podcasts--that's been pretty fun to see that change over the years, you know. It used to be—what print ads are you going to buy—and now there's so many places to spend your money. MG 10:38: Yeah, as those three pillars play out within your mission, could you talk a little bit about how they're different? What is the marketing angle? What is the public relations, and then what is the government side? NR 10:56: Sure. So, marketing, we pool a chunk of our budget, maybe not quite a third and, through Raelene Davis, who's our VP of marketing, she puts together a plan that is really a high level “come to Utah, ski the greatest snow on earth” thing. We have great access, you know, those are the two things—snow and access, but she really works with the ski resorts to come up with a plan, and it changes from year to year, like I said, it’s more from lots of print advertising to a whole lot more digital, very little print, if any. And again, just add that talk about mostly our snow and access. Those compliment all the advertising the individual resorts do because they have a little bit more focused angle on whether you know you're trying to get somebody to come to Deer Valley or Snowbird or Snowbasin. 6 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 Then the public relations (PR) side is our PR person talking to journalists who are writing stories about skiing or travel or whatever it is. Local journalists—Salt Lake Tribune, KSL TV—talking about, “Hey, what's the upcoming ski season going to look like, what's new, what are the best deals?” And all that. And then the Government Relations side is mostly me and Des Barker who's been our long time lobbyists on the Hill. Mostly plant a lot of defense and just watching the legislative session that runs from generally middle of January through the middle of March, and keeping an eye on legislation that's in the makings and how it might affect our business here. It's mostly defensive, but sometimes it's proactive like last year we successfully ran a bill that turned into a law that helps to indemnify ski areas from frivolous lawsuits. Just put a cap on the damages. And as you might imagine, as our industry grows here there comes a bigger bigger target. And there are some unscrupulous lawyers out there who tried to make a quick buck on you know somebody goes skiing and they get hurt, and they, you know, by their own fault generally, and trying to get somebody else to pay for it, or somebody else to take the blame—and try to create a business environment that makes that less desirable for somebody to make a ton of money from doing that. MG 13:44: That part gets me thinking that within each of those areas, there's quite a bit of legal, not only legal (knowledge) but just expertise, and so my question there would be twofold. One is, what kind of relationships have you had to build—maybe personal or professional—with the resorts, or with legal experts, just maybe across the board, what are some key relationships that you can speak about in your position? 7 Nathan Rafferty NR 14:16: 21 October 2020 I would say it's all the above and a ton of what I do are relationships, from the lobbying side, getting to know and understand and have relationships with our publicelected officials, whether those are the governor of the state of Utah, the mayors in cities where we have skiing, county officials, state legislators, there's a long, long list of people that you need to get to know and because you're, you know, you're working with them over years and you don't, you know, to get the best results. You don't want to walk up and say, “Hey, Matt, I need you to do this and here's why.” And they say, “Who are you, and why do you, why do you want this?” And you know somebody knows and trusts you. You have a better chance of, you know, getting what you want at the end of the day. So I spend a ton of time doing that, and then, you know, our organization only works well when we have good relationships with all our key stakeholders, which are our board of directors and our ski areas. Our board is made up of mostly scares or a good chunk of them are ski areas. So there are 21 members of our Ski Utah board. I think our bylaws say we have to have a minimum of seven ski areas on that board. I can't recall off the top my head how many are on there now, but, you know, our organization depends highly on the funding from these ski areas and also the membership, so I spend a lot of time talking to them and working with them on issues they have, whether they are political, government issues, or marketing or, you name it. So, I do spend a ton of time, just with these people. And you know I don't like to think of it as, you know, strategically creating relationships as much as I do, just, you know, get some kind of a people person. And then ski people in this business are generally pretty fun folks and fun people to hang out with. So helping them do their job well comes pretty easy to me. 8 Nathan Rafferty MG 16:39: 21 October 2020 Can you maybe tell a story or two maybe about, you know—the ski business is a business (corporations and so on). It can be a tough racket. Do you have any stories about how there may have been some challenges over the years? NR 17:00: You know, it feels like there are daily challenges in the ski business. There are a lot easier ways to make money than running and building a ski area. The challenges are many, you know. The weather is probably one of the biggest ones. You know, most businesses, you only have to worry about the economy. There are a ton of weather challenges in the scheme business. You need it to snow a lot, but not too much, not too early, not too late. Traffic! You’ve got all sorts of employment issues where you know these bigger ski areas are staffing up to several thousand employees once a year. And then holding on to them for a couple months and then they go away over the summer and then you got to hire people back and it's a constant battle to keep a great and plentiful supply of good employees. You know, and the mountains present just challenges in themselves. It's, you know, skiing has some inherent risks to it. And I'd say that, Gosh, a lot. Some of the majority of the time these ski areas spend is making sure that they're running safe operations. You know, you invite 10 or 20,000 people to come skiing at your resort on any given day, and put slippery sticks on their feet and pushing down the hill. There're bound to be some incidences from time to time. And I think the ski areas all the GMs would have story after story after story about interesting times that happened. But, uh, you know, I wouldn't even know where to begin, to be honest. MG 18:47: I have three kind of big challenges in mind, but I'd like to know. I'm sure I'm missing a whole bunch, just based on what you just said with, you know, it's a big business for Utah, so probably just many, many challenges, but three that kind of stood 9 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 out in my mind, and maybe if you could speak about each of these was the outdoor retailer departing Utah recently and curious about how that affected the ski industry. Also, the big one, I think that you already brought up in passing was the transportation issues in the Wasatch. Yeah, and then a third is where we are right now—COVID. So if there are others that are big ones that you'd like to talk about, I'd be happy to do that as well but it. Yeah. Could you talk about each one of those? NR 19:40: Sure. Those are three separate conversations. Those are three separate two-hour long deals. MG 19:47: Sure. NR 19:48: I'll knock out the first one to tell you, I just don't know a ton about it, which is outdoor retailer leaving Salt Lake City. It was a bummer for lots of reasons. You know, we have all these outdoor professionals that come to our state and our city. And I know for a fact that they love the venue, because it had such easy proximity to what they like to do, what they got into the business to do, which was be outside and recreate, which was either hiking or climbing or mountaineering or skiing or whatever it was. I think the show, from what I understand—and again, I don't know, tons and tons about this—was kind of outgrowing their space the Salt Palace, anyway. And I know they created this huge tent to accommodate more and more retailers. You know the show organizer, they were in constant negotiations with the Salt Palace and the, you know, Visit Salt Lake, which is the organization that hosted. And I don't know all the details about why they left. I know there was a big political hoohah with kind of a handful of organizations that said, “Hey, if you don't “governor of Utah” if you don’t do what we want, and I don't remember exactly what their demands were, I know it all had to do with 10 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 Bears Ears, then you know we're out or we're going to boycott or whatever it was. Now ultimately they left to go to Denver, which had a bigger space, but not as close to the outdoors as probably some people would like. Denver is a great place, just a different city than Salt Lake City. I’m sure there’re a lot of advantages for Denver, too, but I do hear a lot of people loved being back here. So, I don't know the details there. I know it left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths and you know, I was just sad that it did give Utah a bit of a black eye in that industry that are, you know—it was perceived that our governor or legislators here weren’t taking care of the land properly—and that may be the case. I'm sure it was to some degree, but I just don’t know the details. MG 22:08: So do you think that it hurt the ski resorts very much or just a little or not at all? NR 22:15: If you look at our skier days and the numbers over the last couple years wouldn't seem to be the case. You know, to some small degree, maybe, but you know we've had record years. If the coronavirus hadn’t chopped our season short, we would have had two of the best years on record, the last two years in a row, so hard to make the case that that show leaving hurt. I think where it really hurt was the downtown businesses—the hotels, restaurants, bars that really depended on or took advantage of that, you know the several days of that show. MG 22:56: Do you think it was? That's interesting. Yeah, as an economic issue you think that it was mainly just tied to some of the local tourism industry like hotels and restaurants, more so than the general economy or the outdoor recreation industry as a whole? 11 Nathan Rafferty NR 23:17: 21 October 2020 Well, I think you can just draw a straight line from, you know, however many thousands of people showed up for that show and how much they spent on overnight lodging, bars, restaurants, that kind of thing. And it's harder to draw that line and say the ski industry. You know, I know a lot of them did ski at or just, you know, their influence in this world. And a little bit murkier to say “Hey, we left Utah, we don't agree with their politics” and how that hurts us in the long run. I don't know. I don't love it, of course, but you know, you also look at the numbers that we had in the last couple years in terms of skier days. And like I said, didn't seem like it affected our business much. MG 24:06: Yeah. That leads me to maybe asking about the mountain transportation, but I want to kind of frame it in a certain way. That got me thinking, because the outdoor retailer and our discussion there was that it might have had a kind of, well it's difficult to gauge the impact on the local economy in general. So I'm thinking—now, how do you think the ski resorts themselves connect with the local community in general? You know, the mountains are a part of the local environment intimately? You know, it's interesting if you take a picture from like the hill right above the University of Utah. You've got the city there and the mountains and literally wilderness areas right there. NR 24:50: Sure. MG 24:51: And so with the Interconnect. I know it's generated a lot of heated discussion about crowding and protecting. Some people are very concerned about not doing any more development, because they want to leave it wilderness, and backcountry skiers are a part of that community. So I'm curious, just from that point of view—the relationship of the ski resorts to the city—is an interesting discussion to have there, but 12 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 I'm framing it within terms of this Interconnect. What are your thoughts on mountain transportation? NR 25:25: Well, again, we just need a couple, three hours to discuss this issue. Yeah, you know, so I grew up here. Like I said earlier, I'm a product of being able to take the bus from the house I grew up in on Foothill Boulevard and taking it up to this gear is and I'm, you know, probably I’m here today because of that bus service. And as our industry has grown and we've grown dramatically over many years—but the roads, the transportation infrastructure moving into the mountains has not grown, has not grown at all. The same roads are leading to the same—we’ll call them the foresty areas—because you know, I will say the majority of those traffic issues are in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons. And you could copy and paste a news story from the Desert News from 1985 saying that the canyons are too busy and too crowded. Fast forward to 2020 and multiply that that issue by 10x or 20 or 100x, I don't know. But you know people want to ski. The ski resorts are busier than they've ever been. We still get tons and tons of snow and gotta move lots of people into and out of those ski areas. You know they are connected to the community. A lot of people feel like, you know, if you're an Alta pass holder or Brighton season passholder. You know, that's part of your identity. That's why you put a sticker on the back of your car that says Brighton, and everybody knows who you are. You're a snowboarder that rides a Brighton or a Skier at Alta or whatever. And people are pretty proud of that. And so there's a, you know, they're understandably, really passionate about that and feel like they have some ownership, in a way, of the ski areas there. There are a lot of different opinions on—new people come to the state and you know how it is, anywhere you live where: “I've been 13 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 here for 20 years and, you know, new people showing up and clogging up the ski areas.” The reality is that the ski areas have a ton of capacity still remaining. They're busy on Saturdays. They're busy on powder days. But, you know, go to a ski area on a Tuesday in January and not many folks around. The capacity issue really comes into play with the transportation and there's just not a good way to move that many people into and out of those campaigns. It's this mountainous environment, you throw three feet of snow into that equation and things go sideways pretty fast. So it's frustrating because there's you know a ton of technology around the world that could help make this easier. And I participate in the term of like— not 10s of hours, not hundreds of hours, but literally thousands of hours of meetings on this—and the meeting that I have to hop into in 20 minutes is a Central Wasatch Commission meeting where we're talking about transportation. So we're still talking about this. And there are a lot of plans. Currently UDOT (Utah Department of Transportation) is taking a really hard look at some improvements for Little Cottonwood Canyon that range from some improved bus service to, on the higher end, a large-scale 3S gondola system that would move people more efficiently. I personally, and Ski Utah, is in favor that plan. We just want to be able to move people safely, environmentally friendly, and rapidly and comfortably into and out of the these mountains, and there's no silver bullet that takes care of all the dispersed users, and the ski areas, and summertime, and hikers and bikers, you name it. Meaning that, but we're kind of just aiming for the lowest hanging fruit. And those are the thousands of people that come to ski resorts on a daily basis or hike there in the summer, and we feel like if we can tackle that issue with a 14 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 good transportation solution like a gondola, then that frees up the road systems for tons of other people who want to either backcountry ski, backcountry hike, ride their bicycles, picnic, whatever it is. But it's an issue that is impossible, I will say, to get a 100%— what's the word I'm looking for—100% buy-in from all the different users. MG 30:19: So maybe if we have some limited time, it'd be good to talk about the next one, COVID. Last year the ski resorts shut down and so probably something few people could have expected when all the attention was on the crowding, on the transportation, even though, as you said, it's a bit more complex than that, but with a community that does rely on tourism, it's a big issue. And for just our society, for people who might watch this video in 10 or 20 years—who knows what they remember about COVID—just framing it from that perspective, that this is going to go into a historical archive, how would you talk about the COVID impact to the local ski industry? What are your thoughts on it? NR 31:08: It had a pretty dramatic effect on March 15 when the resorts shut down. It went from, it was literally the busiest check-in day of the year. So we were just kicking into spring break, and tens of thousands of people had just arrived in Salt Lake City, and then dispersed to different ski areas around the state to spend their spring break with their family, and resorts were forced to flip a switch and turn off skiing, right at the busiest time of the ski season. And you know, it was so early in the pandemic that we really didn't know exactly how to, you know, the only thing we knew what to do, was we knew there was a leak in the house and we knew we'd better stop it. We know for sure the way to stop that was walk out to the curb and turn off the water at the source, which was the skiing. And you know you turn that off, it doesn't affect just the ski area. It affects 15 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 everything from the ski area to mom and pop restaurants, rental shops, car rental, transportation companies, Starbucks, Costco, gas stations, Walgreens, Walmart, anything that runs their business from or is affected by these 10,000 people that come skiing here in Utah, not to mention stranding the ton of people who had just arrived and now had to get out of the state. You know, I think things are a lot different. Today, we would, we strategically know a lot more about the virus. And I think instead of turning it off at the source, we will be a little bit more strategic about what you do to mitigate those things if there was an outbreak again, which is the plan moving forward into this season. It affected last season and it is certain to effect this season as well. I think we're going to see some great participation in skiing, snowboarding from locals, but the destination guests who are understandably, a little reticent to hop on a plane with their family of five and fly crosscountry like they normally would. I don't think those people are going to show up like they did last year. So there's going to be a bit of a hangover from this last season, and we'll see how long into the season it goes but it's, you know, it doesn't seem like it's slowing down anytime soon. As we're doing this recording Utah's at the highest point it's been since the pandemic started in March, or before that but we'll see where it goes. The ski areas have spent, you know, since the day after they closed, they've been plotting and planning for this season and have a lot of procedures in place to make skiing a healthy, safe activity for both their employees and for the guests. So we're going to have a ski season and it wouldn’t surprise me if it's actually not a bad one in terms of visitation, but it's hard to imagine that it would match the records that we've had the last couple years. 16 Nathan Rafferty MG 34:32: 21 October 2020 Yeah, that leads to a couple of questions for me. What your hard time for stopping? NR 34:39: Three o'clock. MG 34:40: Okay. First, I just like to ask- how do you think that's going to affect the ski resorts—the lower, the potentially much lower, but the lower attendance, and the new procedures? NR 34:59: It'll just mean that the skiers aren't going to be able to make as much money as they have in the past. It's hard enough to run these ski areas in the perfect situations. You know, it'll be interesting. You know, I think some of these smaller ski areas don't have the exposures that some of the big ones do. They don't have hotels. They don't have tons of restaurants. They're just providing skiing and some limited food and beverage service. I think they might fare well. In fact they might fare better than some of the big ski areas. If you have a hotel attached to your ski area, or several hotels, let's take snowbirds, for example. You know you're providing skiing, but you also have to run these other facilities like these hotels that are likely not going to be filled to the degree that they have been in the past. So that's a drag on your bottom line. I don't get the sense, knock on wood, that any of them are in the position that they're going to not be able to stay in business because of this. I think they've all done really well with their pre-season pass sales and they're going to be able to provide skiing. But it just, it's not an ideal situation if you're, you know, from a financial perspective when you're thinking about running a ski area. You know, you need to be hitting on all cylinders and serving lots of food and giving lots of lessons and you know what that involves. All these things are going to be mitigated are happening in a reduced fashion this year, and they're, you 17 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 know, they're having to spend a ton more money either on extra employees to do table service instead of kind of buffet style, renting, tents and heaters and software systems and you name it to accommodate things. You know I think they're going to survive. No problem. But it's not making life easier, I’ll say that. MG 37:04: How long do you think the ski industry could withstand these kinds of procedures if they were to remain in place for another season? Right now, I think everybody has a hopeful vision that this is going to go away soon. What if it doesn't? How do you think that affects the ski industry? NR 37:22: That's a great question. I don't have the answer to that, you know, I don't know what the financial stability is of all 15 of our ski areas. Like I said, I think the smaller ones that have less exposure, I think they could do pretty well, even in a scenario like this, you know, golf courses here in Salt Lake City had either record or near record revenues, because people want to get outside and you think the ski areas, especially the medium and small sized ones that have less exposure, are going to see a lot of visitation this year, and they could do quite well actually. And the big ones are well financed and, you know, I think they'll be just fine, also, but it gets a little bit more complicated when you start throwing in hotels, lodging, ski school, you know, these, these big ski areas that have these other revenue sources that might be affected by the by the plan that you have to use to mitigate that. MG 38:28: And what is Ski Utah's message working with government and the concern for the spread of the virus? With Ski Utah's standard mission involving trying to draw people here to enjoy the resorts, how do you work within that dynamic? 18 Nathan Rafferty NR 38:47: 21 October 2020 Right. That's a good question. Well, we really pivot to an education role. So we work with all 15 skiers to compile on our website a list of how you ski at these ski areas, and you know, or anybody else who is watching this, that's going outside today, everything you do today is different than it was pre-March. And whether that's going to the restaurant or to a library or the DMV or, you name it, there are different procedures that are in place. So we're trying to explain that to people to let them know ski areas are open and operating. The skiing itself is incredible. And in fact, from the second you get off the chairlift at the top to the bottom of your run—that's 100% the same as it was preCOVID. Where it's different is when you hop back in that lift line, you have to pull up your mask. There may be different lift line boarding procedures or whatever. But the reason you're there, which is to make awesome turns in deep powder, is going to be exactly the same. MG 40:13: So this connects to maybe the last question I had. I don't want to make you late for your next meeting, but—lifestyle—maybe if I could get you also to tell a little bit about your own kind of lifestyle. You talked earlier about what brought you into working in skiing and this love for skiing and a dream job. But one thing you just said brought me to this—about how the experience from the top of the mountain to the bottom would be the same. With, you know, the issue is if you get hurt, you know, and people concerned about spreading the virus in that kind of manner. Is there a push for pressure to, you know, being more careful? How is that messaging? Then maybe if you're done talking about that, I'm curious about, if you just want to speak a little bit about the motivations for skiing in the first place? You know, it's not an ordinary activity, you know, to support your family. It's something we do to kind of experience life, you know, and do something 19 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 that makes us feel more alive or something. Yeah, we're in a weird, a weird moment where your whole career has been about kind of generating this awesome life experience, but the virus is kind of reminding us of some very basic life and death issues. Does that makes sense where I'm going with that line of questioning? NR 41:33: Yeah, I think so. You know, your first question was about getting hurt and and obviously, like I said earlier resorts focused on safety from square one. And it is a good question. You know, when we were early on in the pandemic, I remember there was a real concern that people shouldn't be doing risky activities because you're going to take up rooms in ICU. And I think that we haven't heard much about that. It's definitely a concern. No question about it. I hope, I hope we have it in such a way that it won't be a concern, and I, I probably don't know enough to answer that question as to whether somebody who falls and, you know, gets a knee injury or breaks their leg skiing and they need to go to the emergency room, whether they're taking the place of a patient who might be there suffering from COVID-related issues, or whatnot. So I don't really know the answer to that one. I like to think it's not as big as an issue and, like I said, skiing can be a risky sport, but mostly, mostly it's very, very safe. And I think there are riskier sports like riding a bicycle than skiing. We just don't send that many people to hospitals. I know skiing gets a bad rap sometimes, and it can seem risky, which is also part of the sport, but we just don't send that many people to the hospital. So I'd like to think it's not a big concern, but it's certainly one that is going to be at the top of the list for any of the resort operators. And then the motivations to ski, maybe I'm not totally clear on what you're asking. But what I will say is I think certainly during this COVID time, people need 20 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 skiing, more than ever, right now. People are looking for a release and being outside in a safe environment. You know, skiing, definitely fills that need. And it's a great and safe way for people to be together outside, distancing, where their opportunity to catch the virus, like this is greatly reduced. You know, I think people see it as the same activity, and, man, people need to get out of their houses and have some kind of release and skiing is going to be great for that. So, you know, I think we feel really good about being able to provide that release in a safe way. MG 44:12: Yeah, I understand that you do some pretty interesting stuff with motorcycle touring around the world and other things. So I was hoping that we would have time to let you talk a little bit about that, your own personal kind of mindset. My question was related to that, like what motivates you to go beyond and do these kind of discovery tours or exploring—with working and skiing, how does it fit into that mentality? NR 44:43: Yeah, well, you know, from a young age, you know, my parents. I grew up in the back of a Volkswagen van. My parents bought a brand new 1978 VW pop up camper. And we went all over the US, I think 41 states and all seven Canadian provinces and in this four-speed, no air conditioning, AM radio—maybe it had FM actually—and you know that started kind of a Wanderlust. I do love riding motorcycles, and I actually really try to keep it 100% separate from my skiing world, and it's just a great release. It's a great way to explore, you know, travel the earth and meet lots of people. When you're riding motorcycle, for whatever reason, people love to come talk to ya. I think they're wondering where you came from. A lot of times I think people are thinking, “Gosh, I wish I could be that guy on his bike,” and it's just a cool way to explore and meet people 21 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 and I've done some big races around the world. And just seeing some amazing terrain that you'd never get to see out of the window of a Honda Accord, maybe, some sand dunes and some really far off places. And that's led me to meet some amazing people. And I think skiing and that kind of venturing all kind of morph together a little bit, this feeling of freedom. And I think there's something in just the movement of your body that produces some kind of euphoric, I don't know what, in your in your brain. But, uh, you know, the same feeling—I get the same feeling skiing powder that I do riding dirt bike over an endless sea of sand dunes that are uncut, and it's just this cool, flowing feeling, and it's an amazing sense of freedom. Yeah, I've been really fortunate. I'm really lucky to be able to have a lot of both of those things in my life. MG 46:52: Yeah, we've just hit time. I would like to ask you more about those experiences and also how the virus, maybe, making it harder to get on the slopes could push more people in the back country, just a lot of other questions, but this has been a kind of good start. NR 47:10: Yeah, you know, maybe we'll schedule some more time with you if you want to. MG 47:15: Okay, yeah, I'll be in touch. And are you ready to close it down, then? NR 47:20: Yeah, I probably should. I've got to get on this other call and talk about transportation in the Wasatch for the thousandth hour, but it's an important, important subject, so I’m happy to spend time on it, but it’s been fun chatting with you and let's just stay in touch over email. I can make time to do more of these interviews and you can think about, you know, some of the stuff we talked about today and where we want to dive in a little bit more. It’s fun for me. 22 Nathan Rafferty 21 October 2020 MG 47:54: Awesome. I'll stop the recording here. Thank you. NR 47:57: Okay. END OF INTERVIEW 23