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Burke Mountain Swallowed Up By Jay Peak? Is Burke Becoming "Jay Peak East"

halfpintvt

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Headline in Cal Rec for Monday, July 15th
"Burke Resort Cuts Management Jobs. Owner says necessary part of restructuring, plans still a go."
According to the article , four (4) of Q Burke Mountain Resorts management team lost their jobs on Friday.
The story in the paper doesn't mention any names but someone close to the organization said that Dick Andross, Joe Kasprzak, Hannah Collins and Cathy Roy have been let go. I guess it was inevitable; Burke has become a satellite of Jay Peak. Not sure that I'm looking forward to further "improvements". Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
 
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thetrailboss

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They also let go of their mountain ops director Jack Savasta earlier this year.

It's sad to see, but not all that surprising considering that Jay probably had duplicates for these folks at JPR.
 

halfpintvt

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I find it very disappointing that some of the people who kept the mountain going, thru thick and thin while dealing with the madness of owners who wanted to build Bavarian Castles and French Chateaus are now being jettisoned at a time when it seems like Burke is finally in a position to make a little money. So much for hard work, loyalty and commitment. Evidently the only jobs good enough for locals are those that pay just above minimum wage with no real future.
 

ss20

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This is no surprise. They share the same marketing views and are trying to attract the same customer group. Well, maybe Jay is aiming more towards families, but still mostly the same- tree skiers and experts. Why have 2 groups with one goal?
 
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from_the_NEK

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If those 4 named above are the ones that were let go, they were some of the most recognizable faces and voices at the mtn for a long time. Sad that it it happened but sometimes cuts a necessary when there are duplicated positions.
 

thetrailboss

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I find it very disappointing that some of the people who kept the mountain going, thru thick and thin while dealing with the madness of owners who wanted to build Bavarian Castles and French Chateaus are now being jettisoned at a time when it seems like Burke is finally in a position to make a little money. So much for hard work, loyalty and commitment. Evidently the only jobs good enough for locals are those that pay just above minimum wage with no real future.

Well, to be honest, if you know the history of the mountain than you know that Jack Savasta is probably the only guy that fits this description.

Dick Andross was hired by Burke 2000 (in 2000) and was near retirement. Hannah Collins was not brought on board until maybe 2004 or so. She did a good job, but Jay has its own marketing folks and probably felt that she would not fit in with their team. As for Cathy and Joe, I don't know, but I doubt that they were at the mountain in the times you cite, which was way back in 1991-1995 or so.

Does seem odd and sad that they did dismiss the folks who had the most recent experience with the mountain. We'll see what happens.
 

halfpintvt

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Well, to be honest, if you know the history of the mountain than you know that Jack Savasta is probably the only guy that fits this description.

Dick Andross was hired by Burke 2000 (in 2000) and was near retirement. Hannah Collins was not brought on board until maybe 2004 or so. She did a good job, but Jay has its own marketing folks and probably felt that she would not fit in with their team. As for Cathy and Joe, I don't know, but I doubt that they were at the mountain in the times you cite, which was way back in 1991-1995 or so.

Does seem odd and sad that they did dismiss the folks who had the most recent experience with the mountain. We'll see what happens.

Thanks Trailboss, I was thinking of Jack........I think Joe Kasprzak has a wealth of experience too but I don't know how long he's been an actual employee ( I think he came pre-Ginn, they were the Chateaus aficionados.) I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. Once I got a look at the architectural renderings of those tacky hotels I had a feeling that Burke would never be the same. It will be interesting to see what kind of jobs all that EB5 $$ produces. Will they have livable wages or just be the usual " I work 4 jobs" to make a living in the Kingdom type. I wonder how much Ari Jr gets paid?
 
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thetrailboss

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Thanks Trailboss, I was thinking of Jack........I think Joe Kasprzak has a wealth of experience too but I don't know how long he's been an actual employee ( I think he came pre-Ginn, they were the Chateaus aficionados.) I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. Once I got a look at the architectural renderings of those tacky hotels I had a feeling that Burke would never be the same. It will be interesting to see what kind of jobs all that EB5 $$ produces. Will they have livable wages or just be the usual " I work 4 jobs" to make a living in the Kingdom type. I wonder how much Ari Jr gets paid?

Yeah, most, if not all of these folks, were there during the Ginn management and that whole Bridgemor thing. I figured with the Bavarian Castle reference you were thinking of the infamous Bernd Schaefers who ended his reign at Burke with a visit from Interpol.

We will have to see if this was a good move or not. Stenger is certainly no fool, but he had worked pretty closely with a lot of these folks for quite some time. I wonder if this was something that was determined a year ago and folks were informed or if it was performance related because I know that JPR had high(er) expectations for Burke this season in terms of skier days. Then again wasn't there a recent Cal Rec article touting how (relatively) well Burke did this season?

It seems odd to be talking about Ginn failing when in 2005 we all thought that change was inevitable and that something was "finally" going to happen to the mountain. Well, eight years later there are two new HSQ's in place, a renovated Sherburne Lodge, some wider trails and a few more snowguns here and there, but not much in the way of real estate development except for Masskier having a few new units. No complaints. I wonder if they have seen any change in the number of skier days or if it has remained flat?
 
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from_the_NEK

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Burke's numbers were up this year but I still think they struggled to pull in the snow chasing crowd. It is a hard sales road to hoe when you get 5 inches and everyone else in New England is getting 12+" per storm. I ran out of fingers to count the number of times that happen last winter. The hotel is sorely need to get the multi-day skiers up here that don't want to rent a condo.
 

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There's a certain mountain in Southern VT that i'm familiar with ;) , that is looking for folks for many of those positions, since the folks that previously held those positions were either promoted to other, more significant jobs at other resorts that the parent company owns or took similar jobs with other ski resort companies.....

Resort ownership consolidation has it's pros and cons for sure. In this case the redundancy issue is a con, but in other cases, that exposes the main management team to the work of certain employees and then the ability to promote to other areas within their resort holdings and becomes a pro. At Mount Snow for example, 2 guys out of the marketing department and 1 guy out of lift ops/snow surfaces have been promoted to GM's at other Peak Resorts properties in the last few seasons. It can work both ways....
 

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We ski Burke a few times each season and we have always enjoyed our trips there. The top half is where we spend much of our time. The only runs in the bottom half are to get to the Tamarack or to boot around a bit on easier trails. We like the rustic feel of Mid-Burke Lodge and the bar there but the food - well forget it! The Mid Burke are is where the first construction project is to start so we shall see what comes of that.

I do hope change the run out from the Sherburne Express Quad to Mid Burke Express!

As far as those let go - well if there are redundancies it makes sense. I have been involved in mergers/acquisitions and most often that is how the game is played. Nothing to hold against Bill and Ariel.

I grew up skiing at Jay Peak and did not like the initial changes there but now find myself enjoying them - I am sure the same will apply with respect to Burke.
 

Masskier

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Well, to be honest, if you know the history of the mountain than you know that Jack Savasta is probably the only guy that fits this description.

Dick Andross was hired by Burke 2000 (in 2000) and was near retirement. Hannah Collins was not brought on board until maybe 2004 or so. She did a good job, but Jay has its own marketing folks and probably felt that she would not fit in with their team. As for Cathy and Joe, I don't know, but I doubt that they were at the mountain in the times you cite, which was way back in 1991-1995 or so.

Does seem odd and sad that they did dismiss the folks who had the most recent experience with the mountain. We'll see what happens.


All great people. Kathy was more recent. (Ginn era). Joe's been at the mountain since his days at Lyndon State, going way back to the early 80's
 

crank

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I met Joe when he hired my old band for a mountain biking event at Burke last year. He is a really good guy. I believe he was mountain operations manager so no crossover with JPR's marketing dept. Corporate takeovers are never a fun thing for those being taken over. I have been caught up in 2 of them and was part of a management team that was treated as though we didn't know what we were doing despite having built a successful/ profitable business. I sincerely hope Joe and the others let go land on their feet.

Burke, IMO, will always have the combined problem of not getting a ton of snow and being sort of out of the way. The sort of out of the way can be construed as a benefit but the lack of snow is very hard to overcome and hotels won't help with that.
 

thetrailboss

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Burke, IMO, will always have the combined problem of not getting a ton of snow and being sort of out of the way. The sort of out of the way can be construed as a benefit but the lack of snow is very hard to overcome and hotels won't help with that.

The last two years have been thin for sure, but generally Burke gets more snow than a lot of places in Central and Southern New England. It does get less than the places in the Green Mountains proper (and namely Jay).

As to the out of the way comment, that always makes me chuckle because yes it is north, but it is very easy to get to and the drive is really a breeze.
 

dlague

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BTW isn't it Q Burke now? According to the Website - it is owned by Q Burke Mountain Resort and Florida based LLC who Ary (Burke's new CEO) works for.
 

thetrailboss

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BTW isn't it Q Burke now? According to the Website - it is owned by Q Burke Mountain Resort and Florida based LLC who Ary (Burke's new CEO) works for.

Yes, it is a new entity that Bill and Ariel created. Q=Queros.
 

SIKSKIER

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I thought Dick Andros was the mountain manager.At least he used to be and I don't see that job as being redundent.I know Dick from his time managing Cannon before moving on to Burke.I beleive he was at Loon before that.
 

thetrailboss

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I thought Dick Andros was the mountain manager.At least he used to be and I don't see that job as being redundent.I know Dick from his time managing Cannon before moving on to Burke.I beleive he was at Loon before that.

Yeah, it looks like they eliminated the mountain operations folks and are either going to put Jay guys down there or have other folks at Jay do it I guess.....

Paging Steve@JPR to get us some info.
 
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