Groomed for success

Schweitzer Mountain Resort is teaming up with North Idaho College to offer an accredited class on terrain park management.

In addition to classroom instruction, students will put in 30 hours of fieldwork, including building half-pipes and logging time on Snowcats.

“It’s pretty highly desired for kids who ski and snowboard to get a job at a terrain park,” said Dan Nylund, construction and grooming manager for the terrain park at Schweitzer. But most of them start out the way he did: shoveling snow and working their way up.

Terrain parks are one of the fastest-growing areas of the ski industry, credited for invigorating a stagnant market and bringing a younger crowd back to the slopes. The class will give students an overview of what running a park entails, including putting on freestyle events, attracting commercial sponsors, keeping maintenance logs, managing liability and building runs.

“It’s very holistic,” said Sandy Chio, Schweitzer’s marketing manager.

Seven people have signed up for the class, which begins tomorrow. The curriculum was the brainchild of Nylund and Richard Rominger, Schweitzer’s terrain park manager. The two men attend a terrain park clinic on Mount Hood every year, and they wanted to offer something similar here. The timing coincided with the development of NIC’s resort management degree.

During focus-group meetings with NIC, local ski resorts, golf courses and casinos said one of their biggest challenges was getting trained supervisors. That led to the resort management degree, a two-year program that will debut this fall.

The terrain park class is jump-starting the program, said Judy Parker, division chair for business and professional programs. Obviously, the class has to be offered in winter, when there’s snow, she said.