On Thursday I’ll have my usual Thanksgiving shout out, but before I get there I wanted to lead into the week with a couple quick rounds of appreciation first.

Today, I want to talk about Joe Hession and team and expound on this tweet from the other day.

I say this every time I see him, but @Joe_Hession (and Hugh, Evan and the rest of the @SNOWOperating crew) are hands down the best thing I've ever seen happen to the ski industry. https://t.co/JfaRB1dzae pic.twitter.com/332tXIiF4t

— Gregg Blanchard (@slopefillers) November 12, 2018

But to understand why I feel the way I do, I need to set the stage a bit and talk about two unique aspects of our industry.

“We’re All in This Together”
As I’ve dabbled in the golf space or with attractions, I’ve been blown away at how those stand in contrast to ski. Yes, there’s competition, but in the ski industry everyone knows each other, everyone cheers each other on, and it’s amazing how rarely you hear about bridges being burned despite the fact the day jobs of those two people at the bar may depend on them stealing market share from one another.

We’re Kinda Stuck
But being friends, being “in this together”, I wonder if sometimes that closeness has hurt our ability to actually do what we need to do to move forward as an industry. We don’t want to piss our friends off and be seen as “that guy” in a close-knit group. So instead of doing or saying “A” (which we really feel is the solution), we do or say “B” (which may not be).

That’s a natural human thing and we all do it for very valid reasons.

But as we think about how often we’ve turned to Plan B because of the interpersonal impacts of Plan A, I want to share a quote from Joe Hession from a recent SAM article aptly named, Positive Disruption:

“Trust me, I haven’t made a lot of friends in the last few months, because I’m taking…what…about five companies now do at the resort and doing it with one.”

Today, I want to thank Joe for three things.

#1) Dreaming Big
First, I want to thank Joe for dreaming big. For not just trying to solve problems within the system, but the entire system itself.

#2) Actually Doing Something
We can all come up with big ideas, so my second “thank you” is for actually hustling and trying to make it happen. Heaven knows the ski industry can talk. Joe’s “let’s do this” mentality is a breath of fresh air.

#3) Sacrifice
But most of all I want to thank Joe for what he’s had to sacrifice along the way. Whether that’s friendships or lifestyle or sleep or time or a healthy dose of all of those things, I don’t take that lightly.

A decade from now Rob Katz could be reporting to Joe or Joe could reporting to me (that’s the best opposite-case scenario I could come up with), whatever the result, we will all benefit from what he and his team are doing now.

So to Joe and Hugh and Evan and Halley and everyone working with them I say “thank you”. Keep it up.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.