From Guest contributor, Jim Ingraham
Our speaker for Rotary's ski day was appropriately Sunlight's CEO, Cindy Dady. She shared her life's professional background with us. It is fair to say that she has a truly impressive background in youth winter sports programs and ski management. She explained how a confluence of her life journey and the business life journey of Sunlight Mountain brought her here. We are fortunate to have someone of her depth and breadth running our local ski mountain.
One of Dady's mottos is, "First we crawl, then walk, then run." Sunlight is small, faces unique challenges, but has great potential to serve its local community and the broader ski community as well. Its uniqueness is its strength. Dady noted two major accomplishments this past year (the crawl stage): 1) physical upgrades to the facility, from access to the lodge to the lodge itself; and 2) the new card/pass system. It is updated to the latest technology like we all see at Aspen and Vail. This allows Sunlight to get accurate customer counts, collect customer demographic and usage data, and use the data to better manage the resort.
Future plans for Sunlight include major lift improvements. Capital improvements are really hard, not only because of the need for investment capital, but because of the both permitting hurdles and pulling together a team of contractors/employees able and willing to work together to install previously-owned lifts. These won't be high-speed lifts, according to Dady, not because of the cost, but because of the desire to preserve the unique small scale and family-friendly environment.
Lastly, she described Sunlight's devotion to serving its community (kind of like us). Among a whole host of community projects, they do these: 1) programs to bring kids from places that don't typically have access to mountain sports and get them skiing; 2) involvement with injured veterans' programs which are done in Aspen and heavily supported by the Elks Club; and 3) involve indigenous Ute descendants in Sunlight.
Sunlight is an extremely popular wedding venue; its sold out for the summer! Thanks to all the Rotarians who came to the "meeting," and to Dave Alcott for making the arrangements. It was a great day with great people on a great mountain. Didn't get enough? GS Rotary is a member of the Glenwood Chamber. Sunlight is hosting Chamber on the Chair on March 8.