I was talking to Dave Meeker the day after the SAMMY awards party and he was surprised I didn’t say more during my acceptance “speech”. If I’m honest, I was too. But I was at a bit of a loss for words. I’d never experience that kind of rallying support from a group of people in my life. It was a truly amazing moment and one I’ll remember for as long as my brain lets me.

But now that I’m home and have a few quiet moments, let me share what I would have said if I had been better at gathering my thoughts in the moment (and thanks again to Dave Gibson from Propeller for capturing that moment).
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The other night I added up how many words I’ve written about resort marketing. The total was well over 1,000,000. Some I’m extremely proud of, many were kinda “meh”, but there were plenty I cringe at when I look back.

What’s amazing to me is that so many of you looked past those feeble efforts, saw what I was trying to do, and supported those efforts. You read and shared my words, even with the imperfections.

That means the world to me. Sincerely.

I grew up in a small community that taught the classic idea that the world is a scary place full of bad people.

The irony, of course, is that the best people I’ve ever met in my entire life aren’t the ones who said that, they’re the people in this room. You are some of the most supportive, the most complimentary, the kindest, the most thoughtful human beings I have had the chance to meet. You have taught me so much about this industry and about how to be a solid person.

So to all of you down there, thank you for nominating me. And to the team at SAM up here, thank you for creating ways to recognize people trying to make a difference and making this moment possible.

Thank you.

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.