Mike Shannon moved to Vail in 1985 — the year that “Back to the Future” was a box-office smash. In April of 1986, Shannon was featured in the Vail Trail newspaper as the 28-year-old wunderkind president of Vail Associates under new owner George Gillett. Now the man who’s the S in KSL Ca pital Partners and still an honorary chair and a major shareholder in Alterra Mountain Co. says the nation’s ski industry may be facing its own “Back to the Future” moment 40 years later in 2026. In an interview with the Vail Daily following the death of his mentor Gillett last month, Shannon remembered that before Gillett bought Vail, closing on the deal in the fall of ’85, Wall Street sharks had been circling the company after it lost touch with its ski-town roots. “Vail had an experience where it was being attacked by corporate raiders with the Harold Simmons days in the’ 70s,” Shannon said of the late leveraged-buyout pioneer. “And, at the time … Forbes had an article saying skiing is this weird little niche industry that should best be bought by loving families who have a passion for skiing because it may never produce the right kind of income.” That’s exactly what happened with Gillett buying Vail for $110 million in ’85, Shannon said. “I think you’re seeing these resorts go through arcs of history,” Shannon said of the current uncertainty in the industry. “Chrysler had a number of ski resorts (in the ’70s)  … and ultimately these large public companies lost track of the individuality and the authenticity of these western-oriented ski resorts that really were a combination of a great town and a great mountain.” Shannon, no longer on the board but still a shareholder in Alterra — the Denver-based Vail Resorts’ rival that launched the Ikon Pass in 2018 — declined to comment on the record on the ongoing Oasis Management shareholder proxy battle for seats on the Vail Resorts board. But he said there’s more than just a nostalgic push for a return to the roots of skiing. “George brought back that local ownership hero that was represented by Rod Slifer and Pete Seibert and Earl Eaton,” Shannon said of Vail’s first local realtor and two-time mayor and the ski area’s two founders in the late 1950s. “And after a generation of sort of Wall Street approaches, attempts at it, George really brought back that family element. And at the end of the day, the buck stopped with him because he lived 100 yards from the lift.” Critics say the disconnect in today’s modern era of corporate consolidation in the ski industry may be as simple as where the owners live and play. “That accountability, where the owner’s kids are going to the same schools, they’re going to the same churches, they’re filling up at the same gas stations, that local accountability, I think, really created an incredible dividend for Vail because George Gillett cared about the place,” Shannon said. “If anything, he overspent his resources to make Vail great.” Gillett lost Vail in bankruptcy to Leon Black and Apollo Global Management in 1992, and the company went public in 1997 as Vail Resorts. In 2006, current CEO Rob Katz moved the company headquarters to suburban Broomfield between Denver and Boulder. Katz, in remembering the Gillett years in Vail, gave a nod to the former owner’s passion for the hospitality and outdoor recreation business. “Above all else, George believed that how you treat people, guests and employees alike, is what matters most in business,” Katz said. “Many skiers and riders may never know the full extent of George’s influence and impact, or just how much they have benefited from that philosophy.”  A photo of a photo of Mike Shannon, left, and George Gillett, circa 1986, hanging on the wall in the Red Lion. Credit: Mike Shannon photo for the Vail Daily Shannon and his wife, Mary Sue, like Rose and George Gillett, continued to live in Vail even after their tenure was over, putting down deep roots and serving on countless boards. The Shannons owned local businesses until fairly recently, despite starting a rival ski company . “I think Vail was better because George Gillett and his family moved to Vail,” Shannon said. “We’re very lucky that he did come here. He reinvented that local charisma that Pete Seibert and Earl Eaton and Rod Slifer brought when they built Vail originally.” Pete Seibert Jr., a local realtor, ski industry veteran and former Vail Town Council member, credits Gillett with hiring is father away from Arrowhead — a separate ski area at the time before it was ultimately connected to Beaver Creek. He, too, laments the corporatization of skiing. “The best ski area ownership has proven to be the individual or family that has their heart and soul into it,” Seibert Jr. said. “You look at Dick Bass at Snowbird, you look at George Gillett at Vail, you look at the Crown family in Aspen and the Holdings in Sun Valley, and then (the Kemmerer) family up in Jackson. They go the extra mile to make sure that it’s the best it can be because they’re so proud of it.” Looming over the Vail Resorts’ proxy battle is tech billionaire and Park City resident Matthew Prince, who is trying to pry that resort away from the ski company. Prince points to Alterra’s nearby Deer Valley ski area in Utah as the pinnacle of customer-service-oriented skiing. Shannon credits Gillett with fostering that same level of skiing back in the late ’80s. “At Beaver Creek, creating a whole new competitor to that upstart Deer Valley, (Gillett) matched it with a five-star service resort that had a wonderful destination brand hotel at its base to build off of and created all sorts of amenities like Beano’s Cabin and the like to kind of differentiate it as a European-style ski experience, where you could go from place to place and eat in these wonderful restaurants,” Shannon said. Merv Lapin, a Vail resident and local investor who was on the Town Council during Gillett’s bankruptcy, has been outspoken during the current board battle, seeking greater town benefit. He was disappointed by the ski company’s response to the latest round of headlines, including its contention that all is well because of the partnership in developing West Lionshead. That partnership stemmed from litigation over Vail Resorts’ Booth Heights housing project that was never built and resulted in a $20 million settlement from the town to the ski company. “It was a settlement that was very favorable to Vail Resorts,” Lapin said. “I find it interesting that the response was a public relations response with how great the relationship is with the town and talking about the Lionshead project rather than anything of substance that shows a concern for the past deficiencies and obligations of the company.” Lapin is looking for much more from Vail Resorts on the workforce housing front. “What I would like to see from Vail Resorts is how they’re going to make up for the lack of housing for their employees,” Lapin said, adding the company should not benefit from the “subsidization of what the town has done in order to provide employee lodging.” The post As corporate boardroom battle looms for Vail Resorts, observers call for return to ski-town roots appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less