Week Two at Stowe

Well, our practicum class enjoyed what Sean Doll calls a "rare" cancellation of our class on Friday.  However, it came with good reason as most of Vermont was slammed with freezing rain on Thursday night.  Better safe than sorry never hurts when talking about icy roads.
Saturday was still on and as usual, we took off for Stowe.  When we got there, we took a look at our sign-in sheet for where we would be working that day, as well as the supervisor we'd be reporting to.  Mike Manley told us where to go, who to meet up with, and told us he'd be bringing us Stowe jackets to wear while working there.  We met up with a woman named Lauren, who was in charge of the bus and shuttle part of Guest Services.  Our job for her was to assist in the unloading and parking of the tour buses that were coming to the mountain that day.  There was an estimate of about 20+ buses for the day, so it was important that we parked the buses as close as comfortable in order to fit them all within the designated parking space.  Parking and controlling the flow of traffic can be an important job at a resort.  This is particularly important on a day when it is very busy, as customer satisfaction can definitely be affected by a lack of parking.  Luke and I directed other traffic around the designated parking zone and directed the buses where to go as they arrived there, while Dom helped corral the buses into their parking spaces.  We successfully parked and unloaded about 20 buses in a relatively short period of time, as well as providing simple directions to some of the guests as they unloaded from the buses.  Once we were done with that, Lauren said that we were no longer needed and free to do whatever else Mike needed us to do.  We went back to the administrative offices, and Mike told us that we would be sitting in on the morning meeting with Scott Reeves and the heads of the various departments of the mountain.  I found this to be one of the more informative things we had done at the mountain yet.  I am hoping to eventually be the head of a department or work in some form of upper management at a Ski Resort, so to see all of them in one place, getting an overall view of how things were across the hill, was pretty cool.  I also took the opportunity to catch up with Kurt, the head of Stowe's terrain parks department, about holding an interview with him to use in a project for my Risk Management course this semester.  He was happy to help and gave me his business card so that I could reach him. Once the meeting was concluded, we were told that we could go skiing for the rest of the day.  Since Stowe uses an RFID system of ticket checking, we need to recharge our lift cards every week.  Scott Reeves, the General Manager of the mountain, wrote us up the vouchers that we would bring to the ticket counter in order to recharge our cards for the day.  Its hard to not appreciate the opportunity to ride a mountain as nice as Stowe for free.  We had a great time and I was even able to meet up with a friend from back home, who was riding that day with his girlfriend who attends UVM.  Overall, despite a day off and a pretty easy Saturday, I'd still say that there was plenty to take away from our experiences. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait until next week!