Courtesy of the New England Ski Museum
SE Group Will Receive Spirit of Skiing Award
Franconia Notch, NH -- SE Group, a mountain and resort planning and design
firm serving the ski resort industry for 50 years, will be honored with the
New England Ski Museum’s Spirit of Skiing Award at the group’s 31st Annual
Meeting on October 25, 2008 at the Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods,
NH. The company, originally named Sno-engineering, was founded in Franconia,
NH, home of the Ski Museum, and has since become an international presence,
designing mountain and resort communities all over the world. Some of the
firm’s recent projects are in such exotic locales as Ping Tian Mountain
Resort in the Tianshan mountain range in northwestern China, and Palandöken
and Konakli, the skiing venues for the 2011 University Games in Turkey.
The Spirit of Skiing Award is intended to recognize a person or group whose
work exemplifies the memorable adage that ‘skiing is not just a sport, it is
a way of life’, and has influenced skiing in a positive manner that enables
others to benefit from the sport. This will be the first time the Ski Museum
has presented the award to a group rather than an individual. Tom Corcoran
of Waterville Valley and Stein Eriksen are the two previous honorees.
SE Group will be represented at the event by principals Ted Beeler, Kent
Sharp and Chris Cushing. Beeler will speak about the company and its
history, current initiatives and outlook for the future. In its earliest
days, Sno-engineering’s Sel Hannah and Joe Cushing promoted concepts of
sound design and construction techniques such as erosion control at a time
when there was little knowledge about what constituted a proper ski area.
Ted Farwell and Jim Branch of the company introduced formal economic studies
to a field that had been intuitive at best. It isn’t much of an exaggeration
to say that the company invented the profession of ski resort planning.
Also on hand will be the authors of three recent books on skiing history to
sign their works. Jeremy Davis, author of Lost Ski Areas of the White
Mountains, is a Ski Museum board member and one of the founders of the
www.nelsap.org website, which documents the hundreds of ski areas which have
closed in past decades. John Christie will sign copies of his substantial
book Sugarloaf, which details the history of the Maine resort of which
Christie was once general manager. Robin Morning of Mammoth Lakes, CA, will
sign her voluminous new book, Tracks of Passion, a history of Mammoth
Mountain and its founder Dave McCoy. A former US Ski Team member, Morning is
the co-organizer of a ski history conference to be held in the spring of
2009 at Mammoth, and she will brief the group on details of that gathering.
An added highlight of the annual meeting will be the auction of a five-night
winter ski vacation at Deer Valley Resort for four people including lift
privileges. Deer Valley was recently named the #1 ski resort in North
America by Ski Magazine.
The event is open to members and non-members alike. Dinner price is $75 per
person, and reservations can be made by calling New England Ski Museum at
800-639-4181.
About the New England Ski Museum
Located in Franconia Notch next to the Cannon Mountain Tramway, NH, the New
England Ski Museum is a non-profit, member-supported museum dedicated to
collecting, preserving and exhibiting aspects of ski history. The Museum is
open from 10 AM to 5 PM seven days a week from Memorial Day through the end
of March. Admission is free. For more information call 800-639-4181 or visit
www.skimuseum.org.
