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http://timesunion.com/AspStories/st...egory=BUSINESS&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=1/16/2007
At 89, still master of slopes
Orville Slutzky hasn't skied Hunter Mountain in 20 years, but he still runs it
By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Tuesday, January 16, 2007
HUNTER -- There are probably men as old as Orville Slutzky who still work 13-hour days. But it's unlikely any of them is president of a leading New York ski area.
Slutzky, 89, owns Hunter Mountain in the Catskills. He goes to the office at 4:30 a.m. and stays until 5:30 p.m. He's there seven days a week: summer, winter and all months in between.
"When my friends turned 60, they retired and did nothing," he said. "In a couple of years, they were gone. I took my last vacation in 1963. You've got to keep your mind busy and your body busy or the ghosts will carry you away."
If there are ghosts in Slutzky's office, they're buried somewhere under paperwork.
Slutzky spends his days there sitting in a wheeled office chair, lording over the business he created. He swivels to the left, where a television screen shows him everything going on at the mountain. He reaches behind his desk to change cameras. Click: He can watch the vending area. Click: Now he's looking at the chairlift. Click: the locker rooms. Click, click, click.
He swivels to the right as an employee delivers him a printed weather report. He puts it into a time-stamp machine and it snaps. Every piece of paper that comes to his desk gets a time stamp. It's all piled on his desk.
"I got a letter from President Bush," he tells a reporter at one point, and fishes around to find it. It's a holiday greeting card from the White House. The time-stamp says "06 Nov. 27, 10:39 a.m."
"I'm a saver," Slutzky admits.
He doesn't get up much during the day -- bathroom, lunch, occasional meetings. Here he approves how Hunter's money is spent. Here he continues to keep his mind sharp.
"A lot of the world comes to see him here," said Russ Coloton, the mountain's general manager, who has been here since 1979.
So does Orville's wife, Ethel, who also is 89. They've been married 65 years, and she still maintains a desk in a corner office, although she only comes in for a few hours a day.
"I think he's crazy, but he wants to do it. I can't stop him," she said of her husband's work ethic. "He doesn't do as much as he used to, but he still takes charge."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Slutzky's Eastern European-born parents ran a farm deep in the Catskills, on property that included the face of Hunter Mountain. In the 1950s, Orville and his brother Israel "Izzy" Slutzky ran a construction company. They decided it would be good for this tiny village to get a ski area. So they invited the state to build one, and offered to give New York the property.
The state declined. So the Slutzkys then persuaded a group of New York City theater investors to build the ski area, which opened for the winter of 1959-60 for 30 days. But after three years, the financiers ran out of money, and the Slutzkys took over.
Last year, Hunter Mountain got 300,000 skier-visits (the number of skiers who visit each day for the season). It has 900 employees.
Orville Slutzky declined to discuss revenue. But based on the industry average of $65 spent per skier-visit, the privately held resort would have had revenue last year of about $20 million.
Running a ski resort was a learning experience for the Slutzkys. They taught themselves how to make snow, first by using lawn sprinklers that left only ice on the slopes, then by mixing water with air pressurized by a giant air compressor bought from a coal mine. Slutzky said Hunter was the first mountain in the nation with snowmaking on all slopes.
As the operation expanded, adding new lodges, lifts and trails, Orville and Izzy defined their territory. Izzy took charge of snowmaking and the lifts. Orville, who hasn't skied since knee surgery in 1987, ran the lodge and business office.
Occasionally, they fought. One year, some seasonal workers with cartooning skills drew a caricature of the two brothers duking it out in a boxing ring. Drawn on the inside of a garage door, it's still there.
Bruce Transue, snowmaking manager at the mountain for more than 20 years, remembers one battle in 1987. Izzy wanted to install a new detachable quad, a ski lift that was faster and easier to get on. Orville, however, wanted to extend the lodge.
"They went at it, the usual arguments," Transue said. "And they did both. They spent millions that summer, because they couldn't agree. But it was better for the area."
According to the National Ski Areas Association, a trade group in Denver, Hunter is one of 490 ski resorts in the country. Half of those are family-owned.
"I would say almost without reservation that Orville is the oldest owner/operator who is still involved in daily operation," said Michael Berry, the association's president.
Orville, who turns 90 soon, has no plans to retire. Izzy died last year at the age of 91 after suffering for years from Alzheimer's disease. Orville now shares ownership of the mountain with his three children and Izzy's two sons, all of whom meet regularly with Orville and his wife.
"He says he's never going to retire," said nephew Charles "C.B." Slutzky. "I respect that."
Even after all these years, a lot of longtime Hunter skiers have never met the man behind the scenes.
"I don't actually know who he is," said Al Gordon, a retired school teacher who has been skiing here since the 1970s. "But he's made me happy for many years." Alan Wechsler can be reached at 454-5469 or by e-mail at awechsler@timesunion.com.
Orville Slutzky Age: 89 Born: Hunter Family: Wife, Ethel; three children Quote: "You've got to keep your mind busy and your body busy or the ghosts will carry you away."
At 89, still master of slopes
Orville Slutzky hasn't skied Hunter Mountain in 20 years, but he still runs it
By ALAN WECHSLER, Business writer
Click byline for more stories by writer.
First published: Tuesday, January 16, 2007
HUNTER -- There are probably men as old as Orville Slutzky who still work 13-hour days. But it's unlikely any of them is president of a leading New York ski area.
Slutzky, 89, owns Hunter Mountain in the Catskills. He goes to the office at 4:30 a.m. and stays until 5:30 p.m. He's there seven days a week: summer, winter and all months in between.
"When my friends turned 60, they retired and did nothing," he said. "In a couple of years, they were gone. I took my last vacation in 1963. You've got to keep your mind busy and your body busy or the ghosts will carry you away."
If there are ghosts in Slutzky's office, they're buried somewhere under paperwork.
Slutzky spends his days there sitting in a wheeled office chair, lording over the business he created. He swivels to the left, where a television screen shows him everything going on at the mountain. He reaches behind his desk to change cameras. Click: He can watch the vending area. Click: Now he's looking at the chairlift. Click: the locker rooms. Click, click, click.
He swivels to the right as an employee delivers him a printed weather report. He puts it into a time-stamp machine and it snaps. Every piece of paper that comes to his desk gets a time stamp. It's all piled on his desk.
"I got a letter from President Bush," he tells a reporter at one point, and fishes around to find it. It's a holiday greeting card from the White House. The time-stamp says "06 Nov. 27, 10:39 a.m."
"I'm a saver," Slutzky admits.
He doesn't get up much during the day -- bathroom, lunch, occasional meetings. Here he approves how Hunter's money is spent. Here he continues to keep his mind sharp.
"A lot of the world comes to see him here," said Russ Coloton, the mountain's general manager, who has been here since 1979.
So does Orville's wife, Ethel, who also is 89. They've been married 65 years, and she still maintains a desk in a corner office, although she only comes in for a few hours a day.
"I think he's crazy, but he wants to do it. I can't stop him," she said of her husband's work ethic. "He doesn't do as much as he used to, but he still takes charge."
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Slutzky's Eastern European-born parents ran a farm deep in the Catskills, on property that included the face of Hunter Mountain. In the 1950s, Orville and his brother Israel "Izzy" Slutzky ran a construction company. They decided it would be good for this tiny village to get a ski area. So they invited the state to build one, and offered to give New York the property.
The state declined. So the Slutzkys then persuaded a group of New York City theater investors to build the ski area, which opened for the winter of 1959-60 for 30 days. But after three years, the financiers ran out of money, and the Slutzkys took over.
Last year, Hunter Mountain got 300,000 skier-visits (the number of skiers who visit each day for the season). It has 900 employees.
Orville Slutzky declined to discuss revenue. But based on the industry average of $65 spent per skier-visit, the privately held resort would have had revenue last year of about $20 million.
Running a ski resort was a learning experience for the Slutzkys. They taught themselves how to make snow, first by using lawn sprinklers that left only ice on the slopes, then by mixing water with air pressurized by a giant air compressor bought from a coal mine. Slutzky said Hunter was the first mountain in the nation with snowmaking on all slopes.
As the operation expanded, adding new lodges, lifts and trails, Orville and Izzy defined their territory. Izzy took charge of snowmaking and the lifts. Orville, who hasn't skied since knee surgery in 1987, ran the lodge and business office.
Occasionally, they fought. One year, some seasonal workers with cartooning skills drew a caricature of the two brothers duking it out in a boxing ring. Drawn on the inside of a garage door, it's still there.
Bruce Transue, snowmaking manager at the mountain for more than 20 years, remembers one battle in 1987. Izzy wanted to install a new detachable quad, a ski lift that was faster and easier to get on. Orville, however, wanted to extend the lodge.
"They went at it, the usual arguments," Transue said. "And they did both. They spent millions that summer, because they couldn't agree. But it was better for the area."
According to the National Ski Areas Association, a trade group in Denver, Hunter is one of 490 ski resorts in the country. Half of those are family-owned.
"I would say almost without reservation that Orville is the oldest owner/operator who is still involved in daily operation," said Michael Berry, the association's president.
Orville, who turns 90 soon, has no plans to retire. Izzy died last year at the age of 91 after suffering for years from Alzheimer's disease. Orville now shares ownership of the mountain with his three children and Izzy's two sons, all of whom meet regularly with Orville and his wife.
"He says he's never going to retire," said nephew Charles "C.B." Slutzky. "I respect that."
Even after all these years, a lot of longtime Hunter skiers have never met the man behind the scenes.
"I don't actually know who he is," said Al Gordon, a retired school teacher who has been skiing here since the 1970s. "But he's made me happy for many years." Alan Wechsler can be reached at 454-5469 or by e-mail at awechsler@timesunion.com.
Orville Slutzky Age: 89 Born: Hunter Family: Wife, Ethel; three children Quote: "You've got to keep your mind busy and your body busy or the ghosts will carry you away."
