The team just had a lousy season. The fans are grumbling. Season ticket sales are down. What do you do?
The standard response if you’re running a football team is to fire the coach. That’s pretty much what Powdr Corp., which runs the Mt. Bachelor ski resort, did last week by firing General Manager Matt Janney plus three other members of the resort’s top management.Things haven’t been going smoothly at the mountain since Powdr took over. Complaints about lift breakdowns, inadequate grooming, poor food, early closures and high prices have multiplied. To some extent, these may be just the predictable gripes from locals who are angry because “their mountain” has been taken over by “outsiders” from Utah. But people who spend a lot of time skiing and snowboarding at Bachelor say there’s considerable substance to them.
In the 2007-’08 season other ski resorts in Oregon broke all records for attendance, but Bachelor’s ticket sales actually dropped 7%, in spite of one of the best snow years in history and aggressive marketing. Shortly after the disappointing numbers came out, Powdr announced it was firing Janney and the others.
We’re not privy to the inner workings of Powdr Corp. or Mt. Bachelor. For all we know, Powdr made the best decision it could have. But there are some things about the move – particularly the firing of Janney – that worry us.
Janney started his career in the ski industry as a lift operator at Bachelor and rose through the ranks to become director of operations there in 2003. After a stint running three Powdr resorts in the Lake Tahoe area – where by all accounts he did an outstanding job – he returned to take the top job in Bend. Janney had been manager here for only 10 months, hardly long enough to turn things around. It’s also difficult to believe that a guy who had been a stellar performer for so many years suddenly became incompetent.
Who will Powdr pick to replace Janney? When he was selected for the top post at Bachelor last summer, Powdr touted his connections with the Bend area as a big asset – which they were. Will Powdr find someone else who knows the mountain and the community like he did, or send in some drab corporate bean-counter with no local ties?
It’s easy and convenient to make the coach the scapegoat for poor performance, but when a team is losing it’s not always the coach’s fault. Even a Vince Lombardi or a Bill Walsh can’t win if the front office doesn’t give him the support and resources he needs. Is Powdr prepared to give Janney’s successor what he or she needs to get the job done – or in another year will we be reading about another manager getting booted while the mountain’s problems remain unsolved?
Defenders of Powdr will point out that it is, after all, a private corporation and it has the right to run its affairs its own way. That’s true, but any corporation – and this one in particular – has public as well as private responsibilities. For one thing, Powdr does not own the mountain; the U.S. Forest Service (in other words, We the Taxpayers) does. More importantly, the long-term survival and success of Mt. Bachelor is vital to the economic health of Bend and Central Oregon.
When Powdr took over we waited to see whether the corporation would fully understand its public responsibilities or simply treat Bachelor as a cash cow to be milked for as much and as long as possible. We’re still waiting.
This article appears in May 29 – Jun 4, 2008.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
I don’t think anyone believes that Janney, et al, was let go because of poor performance–turning around the performance and public relations catastrophe that Mt Bachelor has become could never be accomplished in ten months. What then could Powdr’s motive be for letting him go?
How about creating more chaos and thereby creating an environment of reduced expectations and continued lack of accomplishment next season. After all, it will take some time for the new team to get in place and ‘develop a plan of attack that they can use to solve the myriad of problems facing the ski area.’
Once again there will be a ski season highlighted by higher prices, poor service, lousy public relations and a pissed off skiing public. What will Powdr do then?
Doesn’t seem to me to be a position that a reasonable person would want to take regardless of the reassurances of Powdr Corporate.
JoJo, you really are a fool. What are your qualifications to rip these people? No pride in their jobs? Please explain how you came up with these conclusions?
This is what is wrong with this community, these are members of our community who have tried to make this a better place and for you to talk about them like you know them is laughable. Lets follow you around for a week and see how good a job you are doing and then I will report back to masses for some “constructive” critism. I am sure your shit doesn’t stink.
People in this town will never no what really went down on these firings and never will. There is a reason why none of the people who were let go are talking. JoJo, you seem to have all of the answers so why don’t you tell the group why?
I say good move. They have alot of safety issues to deal with – that place is terribly run down, improperly maintained, run by a bunch of P** smokin patrollers and kids (go to the patroller shack on the hill and see what they do during breaks??) They need to get experts/professionals who know what they are doing to get that place back on its feet. It is an ok mountain with mediocre intermediate terrain but it is all Central Oregon has. Let some Safety Inspectors in there, well at least the Forest Service should demand it, but hey they are just another link in the good ole boys network in Bend that is…… finally…. fading. Sell it, who cares. It doesn’t matter who owns it, it needs to be safe!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stop picking on managers, stop whining about Powdr Corp as they deserve to make as much money as possible. They are in their right to raise ski pass prices to whatever they wish. They should raise the ski passes to 1500 per season and weed out all the whiners who have entitlement issues about being treated like royalty as if they bring something to the ski area other than their bong haze. Why should they do a thing special for the locals at all? They do not benefit from this at all. They are out of state and chose their managers for their great personalities and ability to rule with an iron fist. The owners want to make as much money as possible so they can take their kids to ski areas in France and other exotic ski areas, wine and dine with the jet set. This is America. If you do not like skiing at Mt. Bachelor then do not ski there. But stop the whining. No one cares and especially not the people at Powdr as they should not listen to whiners. They paid 27 million for this resort and in addition to this price had to pay off 11 million in debt which Randy Pape had accumulated to dilute the shares so he could steal it from the other share holders. So if Powdr wants to charge 80 a day to ski, then they have a right in a free market economy to do as they please. They are the only game in town and get used to it. If not move to some other ski town or ski elsewhere.
It makes me sick to listen to the locals who assume they are Picabo Street or Tommy Moe and contribute anything at all to this community. Most are chronic malcontents who sit and whine all day. If you are unhappy then seize your ski pass buying trend and take up bowling. When Powdr bought this ski area for an inflated value they did not buy it to turn it into a local charity. It is not Mt. Freebie! The pass prices should be raised to top dollar and weed out all the free loaders and cry babies. No one should get a deal at all.
Having read the original editorial and the comments I am pleased that there is still a lot of resistance to Mt. Bachelor. I really have to admire those who stick up for the people who were fired. The comment of Matt Janney only having had 10 months to fix the issues is funny. Matt knew the problems when he left here in 2001. The problems continued to escalate for another 7 years. He did not walk in blind into this position like any possible new manager from outside of Bend. If the poor guy had been thrown in here with never having been to Bend, then I would stand by his side and support him. Janney had years of experience in creating the problems. Like someone else pointed out this man lacked education, communication skills, fired all competent people working at the mountain, kept those he could continue to dictate over.
So I have to ask this GET A LIFE person a few questions as his comment comes across as being very personal and angry. What did Matt Janney and “people” do to solve a single thing this last season? It is an honest question. JoJo is not in the public eye and does not have to answer to anyone. Rather than put JoJo on the spot, please come up with what they have done? What is your position in relation to this commentary? Give all of us a list of what Matt Janney and his managers did which was any different than last year? Give us lipservice about a five to fifteen year plan? What plan? Was any of the plan implemented this year? To find the problems would have been an easy task. All one has to do is walk into any bar, restaurant, ski shop, board shop and start interviewing people and taking this to management and come up with solutions. It seems Matt and Carly did not want to lower themselves to this level and actually examine the root of the problems, find a solution and put them into action. Talking about the problems and putting them in a neat folder for the future does nothing. Being entirely objective is very tough considering the facts of year after year of mismanagement. So when GET A LIFE falls off the lift or is seriously injured due to no maintenance for the last half of a decade, lifts that are running on ten year old parts, the services and community relations at an all time low, how is one supposed to react? Once again it is a question.
I am puzzled by comments from the likes of GET A LIFE as I have to ask where this person was this last winter or last decade? In prison? Locked up in a mental hospital? The questions should be why this has happened, identifying the problems and issues and then HOW do they get fixed. How do we get the community involved? My fear is with gas hitting 5 bucks a gallon by thanksgiving we are going to see less visitors than ever before and the mountain is going to have to rely on locals. Without the local support this mountain will suffer again. I predict with no changes this mountain will lose another 40% over this year.
GET A LIFE needs to support his own thinking as this is an open forum and if you do not like the comments, then ask yourself why people feel this way instead of some verbal assault. Matt Janney is a public figure no different than BUSH.
to the get a life dude…..chill out man….go take a bong hit and suck down a few brewskis. You need to go watch ” The Secret” and pump some positive energy into your body. I would think from the way you spell that you may have gotten to be so pissed off as you were the child left behind in the Bush education program. Know is not spelled NO. So three people left behind in the no kid left behind education program, get a life, George Bush and Matt Janney.
The last two decades have been an insult to the ski industry and we are the laughing stock. Our community pays for their mistakes year after year. No marketing worth a damn. Tell me what great marketing campaigns you have seen? Food service? Skier development? Working with MBSEF? school programs to market the sport for the future generations? All cut due to budget cuts. Further no locals nights with bands in the lodge and some ski friendly ambiance? No brand name recognition, no marketing to the local hotels and travel businesses to get out of state skier visits. The list is long. Why? Closed minded managers, cutting budgets to make fat bonuses at year end, tripping over dollars to pick up pennies.
Tell the group Mr. Get a Life list me ten things positive about the ski area and managers. You cannot do it as there are no ten things and probably not three things.
Get a life yourself. There are some good meds and psych docs out there to treat people as angry as you are.
As far as my job, I am retired and do not work at all. I ski all over the world and in my free time hang out in Bend. Cannot be blamed for having been born rich. Commen sense is the only forumula for good business and Mt. Bachelor seems to miss this year after year.
It seems we are at a standstill. Corporations struggle in times like the ones we currently live in. If a product or service is not a good one, then boycott it by not spending your money on it. This is simple economics. Mt. Bachelor should not deserve your money if you are not happy. Ski other ski areas, buy some skins and hike for your turns.
However rather than be upset, pissed off and hate the mountain I will not buy a pass there again, breaking my 20 year plus cycle of buying a pass and go ski backcountry. For a grand I can get into some nice gear at a local shop and hike for my turns. I can take some of my money and rent a snowmobile and do some real backcountry. Mt. Bachelor may be the only game in town, but we have millions of acres of skiable terrain that has fresh snow. 200 bucks, four skiers, fresh snow and a rented snow machine will make for some great skiing. Cheaper than MT. B. and no bad vibe, no waiting for four hours on a chair that is about to derail. The solution is in all of us. We as a community will not be heard until we strike. Teachers, Pilots, longshoremen, teamsters, auto workers strike and hold the strike until they get what they want. Why any different than for us?
If everyone in Bend, lets say 90% of skiers do not buy season passes this coming season and we are patient and hold out all season with no money given to the mountain, then the shift in market becomes obvious that we do not need Mt. Bachelor, but they will need us and want our support. Right now we are just numbers on an income statement and we remain this as long as we keep giving them our cash.
They have modelled their ski area on a cash making basis for the last 8 years, now lets show them who is in control. We, the locals are in control and it is our turn to voice our lack of support thru our unspent hard earned dollars. The local ski shops will get my season pass money this year and I will get into great shape by hiking for my turns. Taking a sabatical from paying Mt. Bachelor will be good for them.
We all need to get away from the obligation we have to spend our money year in and out at Mt. Bachelor. Hoodoo and Willamette Pass are only an extra gallon of gas away and with a full car it is cheap and we can ski at areas where the spirit of skiing is alive and well. Pulling into Hoodoo and seeing the owner parking cars, greeting people with a friendly hello, being walked into the lodge and met with smiling happy faces who live for the stoke of skiing, this is how it should be. Willamette Pass also has the good vibe, great lodge, great terrain that is not flat as a pancake, great ambiance as well.
DO NOT BUY A PASS FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS AT MT. B. AND THEY WILL BE SCREAMING FOR OUR ATTENTION AND SUPPORT AND THEY CAN “EARN” OUR BUSINESS.
Whoever comes up with a bus to take people to Hoodoo and Willamette Pass this next season will have a great business.
You want to support the local community, buy your gear in Bend and ski at Hoodoo and Willamette Pass as they really do appreciate their customers. Let Mt. Bachelor figure out their problems with no revenue. This will certainly get the attention of the guys at Powdr. I feel sorry for the new manager coming in green with no local support at all.
Funny how we all whine about Mt. B.
We are not forced to ski there, yet year after year, including myself I/we are not happy at all with their performance.
So stop giving them your money. With a few friends taking turns driving to other ski areas as well as to some great backcountry skiing, we do not have to be whining for a whole winter.
The damage will not repair itself if we keep giving them our money. Our money is their sole measure of success. As long as they are making money hand over fist, they are assuming nothing is wrong and have no incentive to change a thing.
Earn your turns this coming winter, ski the other great areas in Oregon, Washington, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho and our own backyard full of great skiing. Nordic ski at Virginia Meissner as it is free and small donation to the club which grooms the trails there.
At mt. baldy in the season 1994 had the worst turn out ever. They fired the whole crew, every manager was sent down the road. Their story the same as the last 20 years of incompetency like our ski area, run by morons.
Their pass prices were at $1000 per season and they sold 1800 passes.
The new educated, smart, daring, enthusiastic managers and owners agreed to sell season passes at 299 no limits passes and in one month, the month of July sold 25 000 passes. Their plan was to get the whole Boise community back on skis as they had essentially boycotted the mountain for a decade. They set the pace for the whole industry and every ski area in the country followed suit and they all prospered beyond their wildest dreams. Besides the low pass prices, the community bent over backwards to support the ski area, wages at the ski area went up to a livable wage, they fired all the dead weight and this same energy is still alive and well at MT. BALDY.
A lesson for us. Up to that point the ski area had been run by people with no clue. Sound familiar?
I don’t know what everybody is bitching about. As far as I can tell the decision to not run Pine Martin was a fantastic way to develop the mt flatular mystique. Next you will be wishing they would go back to giving every fifth day of skiing free and extend the ski season to July. Then where would we all be?!!!
I bottom line is Customer Service. All of this boils down to how you treat your customer. If the customer is not taken care of, they will go find another place. Word of mouth is the best referral a business can get and Mr. Bachelor did not get good referrals this year. The management needs to get back to the basics of taking care of the people wanting to ski the mountain, starting with the locals first. If the locals are bad mouthing the mountain and going to another place to ski, what does that say to non-locals wanting to come to Bend to ski and enjoy the area.
It was time for a shake-up.
These comments are excellent. Of course they can’t talk, it would most likely be part of their severance package to keep their mouths shut. Why not talk to being who worked there forever and were fired in 2007 – people like the Director of Ski Patrols. He was in a management position and worked there for what 17 years and got canned by Matt Janney. He might talk and shed some light on what he knows to be going on. Dude, you are so right about Janney knowing Bachelor had these problems when he worked here before. They were nothing new to him but giving him 10 months to fix things doesn’t seem like good business snese. That is why he was the axe man and then he was to get axed. They had a plan all along. The PR gal, she needed to go. She was squirelly and unrpofessional. Used to many “like”. A very unprofessional image for a mountain that has struggled probably before it was sold. The community doesn’t call the shots, nor do the locals. Day passes are the gravy to any ski resort. And of course Whistler is awesome – they are professional right down to the chefs (not line cooks) who work there. They pay their people decent wages too! If you want to be the best you have got to hire the best. Whistler takes safety seriously and doesn’t fool around when dealing with their customers safety. I heard Bachelor was dropped from their liability insurance company this year. Anyone else hear that? That would be a HUGE indicator of the realy deep seeded problems they have all over that mountain, including their stupid ass slap together terrain parks. Anyways, people are in business to make money-plain and simple. Janney didn’t know how (he got a GED??) He was hired to wear the black hat and fire people what he must not have realized is that his role in that realm was limited. He just wasn’t the man to get it done. They will do fine. So what if it takes years, how unrealistic is that? They will produce great improvements to the intermediate resort Bachelor is. Only time will tell.
discover the party responsible for the sunrise debacle, new year’s eve, and the cascade of collapse across the mountain as lift after lift failed mechanically. Discover the party responsible for the huge oil spill at northwest the scope of which was covered up completely. discover the party responsible for the rot caused in the nothwest terminal by the residue of the spill as it degraded the bull wheel leading to another catastrophic failure a week later.
discover who juumps out the emergency systems risking the safety of guests and employees daily…discover these things and you will find the source of the malaise
Lifty, please tell us more. How about those useless terrain parks. What a joke they are for design and safety. The guy went to school to design furniture etc not jumps. I wish the EPA would get up there and see the results and go through Bachelor’s files. They hurt people, they piss off the locals, they add damage to a fragile environment and they can’t maintain lifts? Why is there even a ski area around here if they can;t do it right? Lite up a bowl and meet me with the patrollers at the shack. That’s why…..
Lifty – TL?
Lifty = Worthless employee who would have been fired if they had not quit
No I didn’t mean who was lifty I was asking about the person he was alluding to as the underlying problems at Bachelor – maintenance and safety – initials “TL”?
We are all suckers for spending our hard earned cash on this ski area. Nothing will change as long as they are putting money in their pockets and having record profit years.
So this fall when the passes go on sale just simply do not buy one. Join the hundreds of people who are not going to buy passes this year. When their local skier count drops by 80 percent this year from the local community then they will be all ears and actually take some action. American car makers for years have built a shit car and now that we are all starting to see the energy crisis they are building shit cars that are now hybrids. Still they are not getting that their cars are shit and people still will by hybrids from reputable manufacturers.
Bachelor has shit food, shit lifts, shit pay, shit lines, shit transportation and shit grooming and yet we all buckle and buy a pass there year after year of being slapped in the face.
Best way to reach a corporation since media does not work is to cut off the flow of cash and leave this area to figure it out on their own. they have “Experts” running this place so lets let them use their expertise.
I am spending my dough on other ski areas, buying some racks for my car and skiiing the backcountry as I will at least have some good zen like feeling. I see no difference in hiking an hour than sitting on a broken down lift…I still get to make turns.
Who the hell cares about your fucking mountain? More folks in Oregon don’t ski than do. You want thrill and exercise? Take a shovel and a bucket of hot asphalt, and go start patching our failing infrastructure on a holiday weekend. Just because you are cowards does not mean you can’t be useful.
With the local real estate market, fuel costs, and a shrinking local population, then why would any business invest into the equipment if they have no pending suits or USFS action against them. If the USFS has any complaints concrning the equipment, they are required to file reports accordingly. Is anyone locally following up on these (if any) complaints and what has been required of Powdr ? I would not be surprised if within a couple of years that there will be a November that the place is for sale and does not open at all !
Bring back the talent of Ray Brooks and Rick Brooks. They knew how to keep Mt. Bachelor’s lifts running.
The Brook’s were a disaster and are responsible for the lift shamble we have now!! Did that womanizer RB tickle you Rosie?