March 22, 2006
Clark steps up to Mt. A management
Hanson’s replacement has a lot of experience with expansions
By Robert Plain
Ashland Daily Tidings
Kim Clark, who has extensive experience in facilitating ski resort expansion projects, will replace Jeff Hanson as Mt. Ashland Ski Area’s general manager and expansion expert, the local winter resort announced on Monday.
Hanson, the man that many in Ashland associate with the Mt. Ashland Ski Association, said in a scheduled press conference, “After 28 great years, I will be retiring from the Mt. Ashland Ski Area at the end of this ski season.”
“It may be cliché, but I truly am looking forward to spending more time with my wife,” Hanson said at the press conference.
Monday’s announcement updates a previous management change Mt. Ashland announced in October. At its annual board of directors meeting, the resort said Hanson would be concentrating on expansion plans while Clark would take over Hanson’s role as general manager.
In 2004, Mt. Ashland was given U.S. Forest Service approval to expand its ski runs onto 71 acres in the forested Ashland watershed. These plans are currently being contested in court by the Sierra Club, Headwaters and local environmental activist Eric Navickas. The plaintiffs say the expansion will adversely effect Ashland’s drinking water. Mt. Ashland says the Forest Service has determined it will not. They say they need the new runs to have more appeal to beginner-level skiers.
The court case is scheduled to be heard in Medford this spring.
“I knew [expansion] would be part of what [my new job] involved,” Clark said on Monday. He has been in management at three other western ski areas that underwent expansion projects. “With my background in the construction development end I was looking forward to being involved in it.”
Mt. Ashland Board of Directors President Bill Little said the news is both “sad and exciting.”
About Hanson, he said, “Speaking for the entire board of directors I want to say that we are sad to be losing Jeff, a good friend and a very dedicated manager. Thank you for your energy. Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for all the things you did that nobody at the time seemed to have noticed. We have noticed, and we cannot tell you how much we appreciate everything you have done.”
Hanson, 54, said he and his wife Deb have been “working towards this for the last couple of years, and the timing is right now.” They said they plan to drive cross country for six months this summer.
Once their vacation is over, Hanson said he and Deb hope to open “a small resort with cabins, on a lake, near a wilderness area.” He said his new business venture could be in Southern Oregon but, he added, it could just as likely be somewhere else, such as Vermont. As an avid kayaker, he hopes to be the water somewhere. “Our options are open,” he said.
He said he will be still be available as a part time consultant on expansion matters.
Hanson added that, more than anything, he is looking forward to spending more time with his wife. “For years, I have left home before she’s up in the morning and come home after dark. I think she came today just to see what I look like in the daylight.”
Deb Hanson joked, “For years, our friends have often joked that the ski area has been Jeff’s mistress. Well, I’ve actually been the mistress. I’m looking forward to being a wife again.”
Jeff Hanson moved from New Jersey in 1978 to work for Mt. Ashland. He began as a snow cat operator and worked his way up through several different positions before being named the general manager seven years ago.
About his role in the expansion project, he said, “I’m proud to have been instrumental in working through the long Forest Service and public process to gain approval for mountain improvements, and now it is time for others who have comprehensive expertise in construction planning and execution to take the reins of the organization and move the improvement plans forward.”
Clark, 49, came to Mt. Ashland from Arizona Snowbowl, where he served as manager of that resort for five years. Snowbowl, like Mt. Ashland, is operated on public lands. Also like Mt. Ashland, it took on a controversial expansion project recently — for which it is still in litigation. The Navajo Nation has sued the U.S. Forest Service for approving the ski area’s use of treated wastewater to make snow on mountains they say are sacred to them.
Prior to Snowbowl, Clark was in management at Angel Fire Ski Resort in New Mexico and before that at Silver Mountain in Idaho. Both resorts, he said, underwent ski run and infrastructure expansion projects.
Being familiar with the National Environmental Policy Act process under which the Forest Service can approve ski expansion projects, Clark said, “I very much believe in NEPA. It answers all the questions up front. Litigation doesn’t bother me,” he added. “It’s part of the process.”
Staff writer Robert Plain can be reached at 482-3456 x 226 or bplain@dailytidings.com.