Beth Howard, now serving her fourth year as the COO of Vail Mountain, said that when she entered the ski industry in 1985 as a college intern at Beaver Creek, there just weren't a lot of other women around.
"I never felt it was impediment. It just wasn't the culture in the ski industry to have women at the helm," Howard said.
Fast-forward to now, and things have certainly changed, especially at Vail Resorts, where Howard has spent her entire career.
With the beginning of Amy Ohran's tenure as general manager of Northstar mountain in North Lake Tahoe this past July, Vail Resorts now has 10 ski areas run by women, including Park City and Vail, which are two of its largest.
Deirdra Walsh
In fact, five of the six ski areas Vail Resorts owns in the Mountain West region are now run by women, with Howard and Park City's Deirdra Walsh being joined by Nadia Guerriero at Beaver Creek, Jody Churich at Breckenridge and Tara Schoedinger at Crested Butte.
Such progress in gender equity probably shouldn't come as a surprise for Vail, which last fall tapped Kirsten Lynch to be CEO and therefore the most prominent leader in the U.S. ski industry.
But for an industry built mostly by thrill-seeking men during the 1940s through the 1960s, the progress isn't to be pooh-poohed. Even last year, 63% of U.S. skiers were male, according to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA).
At Vail Resorts, women now run just under a quarter of the company's 41 ski areas worldwide, which include 36 ski areas in the U.S. And the progress women are enjoying on the mountains isn't only within the Vail organization.
Amy Ohran
Indeed, Northstar's Ohran said she took heart when she attended a ski season kick-off event in the North Lake Tahoe area in early November, where she was joined by the women who run the region's two other largest ski resorts, Palisades Tahoe COO Dee Byrne and Sugarbowl CEO Bridget Legnavsky, who just took over that position in October.
"It was not lost on the room," Ohran said.
Sugarbowl is an independent mountain. Palisades Tahoe is owned by the Alterra Mountain Co., which, with 15 North American properties, is the second-largest operator in the U.S. ski industry. Byrne is one of three women who run an Alterra mountain.
Mentors mattered
Beth Howard
At Vail Resorts, Howard and Walsh credit important female mentors as crucial helpers in their careers. Walsh, who began her ski industry run in the food and beverage department at Park City in 2007, before it was purchased by Vail, said that her boss at the time, Jenni Smith, encouraged her to apply for the position of F&B director when it opened. Smith eventually ran Park City from 2010 to 2014.
"Sometimes as a female you are a little less apt to go for a role that you feel like on paper you might not have the resume for," Walsh said. "I always look back at the moment when Jenni said, 'I'd really like you to apply for this role.' She had every confidence in me, and because she did, that gave me confidence to take the next step and led to this incredible progression that I have had in my career."
Similarly, Howard credits Pat Campbell, a former head of Vail Resorts' mountain division, for empowering her to pursue opportunities in mountain leadership after 18 years running the F&B department at Beaver Creek.
Howard, Walsh and Ohran all offer sharp praise for Vail Resorts' present-day efforts on gender equity.
"I think our company in the industry is unmatched as far as focusing on leadership in general and then allowing women in leadership to have a path toward these bigger roles in leadership over the entire resort," said Howard. "That is a big part of our culture. It wasn't that way when I first joined the company. But it certainly is a significant part of our company culture now."
Work to do
Still, leaders say that the ski industry at large has more to do when it comes both to gender equity.
Kelly Pawlak
"There's definitely more room for female leadership at resorts," said NSAA president Kelly Pawlak, who took her current position in 2017 after a 12-year run as general manager of Vermont's Mount Snow. "There are some resorts that don't have any women on their senior team."
Pawlak and others say that, in particular, women continue to be underrepresented in on-mountain positions, such as lift operations, snowmaking and grooming.
She said that in her own experience running Mount Snow, she believes she brought a perspective that male general managers weren't likely to offer. While the ski industry still likes to market itself toward risk-takers looking for what she called "steep and deep" on-mountain experiences, Pawlak said she put a particular emphasis on restroom cleanliness at Mount Snow. Other women, she said, might be apt to focus more on dining or staff development or on having a relaxed on-mountain experience.
"I think that having different voices represented when you're planning really helps round out your ski area and helps you cater to people who are looking for more than steep and deep," Pawlak said.