Jay Peak Week 2

On Friday I was supposed to be working in guest services and food&beverage. The weather was bad and icy so we could not make it. On Saturday I was in the Tram Haus Lodge observing people check in and out of the lodge. The lodge doesn't do anything out of the way for safety, the hotel has a fire system, housekeeping, inspected elevator, and the lisence to operate that expires every November, so the inspectors have to come in yearly before the ski season kicks off to make sure everything is safetly operating.
As far as the service for our guests, the hotel provides valet parking and they have employees that will bring the luggage to their room. The employees must be patient and friendly to all of the guests even though some of them may be difficult or not in a good mood.
For sustainability, the keys for their room is also their lift ticket. The RFID cards saves them from printing out tickets and key cards. The RFID cards are also erased when the guest leaves so that the same card could be used again. Each card is about $2.00 so it would add up quickly if you had to order more every time.
The hotel managment must keep everything on file so that they have the correct information for billing and what rooms are vacant. Their is a computer system that the front desk employee can use to check what rooms are vacant or occupied. VD means "Vacant Dirty". VC means "Vacant Clean" OD means "Occuiped Dirty". The housekeepers will change VD to VC when they are finished cleaning the room. That way the front desk employee can assign a room number to a new guest coming in.

Jay Peak Week 1

On the first day we met up with Tom McGrail. He gave us our schedules and told us a good overview of what we'd be doing here. We got a quick tour around the lodges and got to see the pump house up in action. Then we boarded the tram and shredded the pow. It was nice to be riding in the trees again.
On Saturday we were put to work. The rental shop may not be everyones preffered department to work in, but its an important one. Just in that one shop people are coming in and out all throughout the day. Getting rentals, returning them, boots are not feeling right after a run, somethings breaks, attemping to get deals/discounts, and other small things that keep the employees on their feet. It gives a pretty good contribute to the resorts profit. The shop isn't a huge contribute to sustainablilty, but all of their Burton LTR equipment users a safe plastic, and they also rent and reuse.
An employee that can test skies before giving it out to every skiing customer must be certified. That makes sure every guest is safe with the proper equipment. The snowboareds have safe Burton LTR strap-in bindings, so the leases are not needed anymore. All of the employees must work as a team to get the customer all of their equipment. The cashier would hand down the form to the boot person who would find the proper size in stock and then give one boot to the customer to make sure it fits. The other  boot was giving to the next employee would looked at the height and weight so that he/she could get the correct skies or board. Then they would use that boot to make sure it is properly adjusted and mounted. The employees must smile and be patient to all of our guests because most of the crowd will be beginners.
From the management side of things, Jason and Rebecca must make sure that the whole shop is running smoothly and correctly. The managers have a budget, just like every other department. The shop has to order new equipment every five years. That is the maxium amount of years they are allowed to use it. Equipment, tools, and wax for the repair shop is also part of the shops budget. They also have to take inventory of all of the equipment and file the form to make sure everyone returns the equipment.
 Doing payroll for all of the employees is another task that needs to be done daily. The manager would check the punch in/out clock and make sure that the employees are doing that properly, and when to go on break. If its a slow day the manager will have to send a couple people home so that payroll doesn't get high.
The managers and employees are pretty laid back and have a great sense of humor when appropriate. I think you'll see that in many departments.

Stowe

Today we went to stowe for the second time. This time we were put to work. We cleared all of the leaves out of the water bars along the toll road. We had a few people on backpack blowers and the others operating the rakes. We worked together and got the job done by lunch time. After lunch we hayed the summit around the new dopplemayr lift and patrol building. Then we got a tour of the new lift and patrol building. We saw it during construction earlier in the season so it was pretty cool to see the before and after. The new lift is top drive, has one electric motor and two diesiel motors for back up. It was cool to be able to go under the motors at the summit terminal. We were able to see a lot more of the parts of the lift and how it works. Can't wait to start working at Stowe for one of my practicum mountains. It should be a exciting and eventful winter.

Burke - Willoughby work

Today we went to Burke and put all 328 pads back onto the seats of the willoughby quad. One person would run the lift and then stop it so others could bungee the pads back on. We were able to complete all 164 chairs in an hour and a half which was a new record for the practicum students. Team work was key because it got the job done much faster. The towers for the new lift were looking good. The helicopter for the rest of the towers is scheduled for Monday, so that should be an exciting day.

Bretton Woods

Today we went to bretton woods resort. We were able to meet the general manager, director of guest services, human resource manager, head snowmaker, operations manager, and other important people that work at the resort. It seemed like all the managers had advice about teamwork and the customers. No matter what department you are working in, all of the employees are working bretton woods resort. All of the departments need to work together in order to have a successful business. James, guest serive manager, was saying that you can never yell at a customer, but they are not always right. Don't take any of it personally because they are not mad at you, they are disappointed at the resort. You escort them to what they are looking for, and calling the manager of that department to let him/her know the situation. The customer gets more frustrated the more they have to tell their story. Then we went over to the massive hotel for a tour. It'd be a nice place to stay...if I was rich. After seeing all 4 of the practicum mountains, I know that its gonna be a good winter.

Jay Peak

Today we traveled to Jay Peak and it was probably the best hard hat tour so far. Jay is currently doing a huge expansion with a new ice area, water park, and hotel. The lighting in the buildings are on dimmers so they will dim and save energy when the sunlight is providing enough light to the facilities. It was awesome to get a behind the scene look before everything is done. If I end up going there next semester, which hopefully I do, I'll already of had a good preview of where I am going to be working. Walter showed us Jays master plan and it was great to see what is going to be happening in the future. They are adding a whole new section of terrian called the west bowl. They'll also be building more condos, but they are going to have to change in the location for the condos because they cannot disturb the bear habitats. I really like how Jay staying envirormental safe and sticking with there motto "If you can't hack it, don't hack it." They're adding more glades, but they are barely going to touch the woods...the way glades are supposed to be! The new tram house lode was neat and I liked the theme they had in the bar. They used pieces of the old haul rope and had them up in the beams. It was cool how they could still use parts of the lift. I really hope I go there in the for one of my practicums...it is the place to be.

Burke Mountain

This week we traveled to Burke Mountain. Burke has been very busy with their new wind mill and high speed lift. Dick Andross, vice president of mountain operations, showed us Burke's master plan, which was very impressive. It showed two new areas to add trails. It also showed new lifts and moving chair lifts the willoughby quad near the Cutter Inn. If Tim McGuire, General Manager,  is going to do all of this while he is the GM this would probably take a good ten years, but it shows that there is always some project or expansion happening at Burke every year. I'm sure that Burke will be needing help with this in the future....job oppurtunities? We then went up to the summit to check out the new wind mill. The massive wind mill provides 15-20% of energy annually. Burke will get there money back in 2 years. I am looking forward to riding the new lift and seeing what happens to Burke in the future.