What's Next For Mt. Holiday? New Leader Talks Upgrades, Future Programming

Chris Remy is the new director of operations at Mt. Holiday, a beloved community ski hill on the east side of town. He joins Seanan Culloty as the new director of food and beverage. Together they replace the functions and duties of former Executive Director Jim Pearson, who relocated this year to Grand Rapids.

The Ticker caught up with Remy to see what’s on his mind as he steps into this role – and what's next for Mt. Holiday.

Tell us about your professional background.

I’ve spent most of my career blending hospitality and the outdoors, from managing bike trails and ski races to keeping a mountain resort running year-round. Before Mt. Holiday, I spent over a decade at Crystal Mountain helping grow their recreation and event programs. As director of operations at Mt. Holiday, I get to do a little bit of everything: Running lifts in winter, events and weddings in the summer and everything in between. My favorite thing is being out on the hill with guests and keeping them smiling, no matter the season.

What is Mt. Holiday doing really well right now?

Reengaging with our community and starting to develop a vision for the future. We’ve built a really strong executive leadership team, and I’m super stoked to get to work with the people I do. I feel like we’re really coming from a place of openness and honesty about the work ahead.

What does Mt. Holiday need to improve upon?

Communication. We’ve haven’t been great at sharing our story or asking for the things we need from the community. Mt. Holiday has such great history. I love this history and it should be a bigger part of our story. We also need to speak up about the things that we'll need to keep this gem going strong into the future.

What are the biggest challenges facing Mt. Holiday?

Infrastructure, and we have some seriously big projects ahead of us. We’re currently upgrading on-hill lighting and our outdated bathrooms. Next is our on-hill infrastructure, lifts and terrain. After that, we’ll start addressing the lodge. So, we’re looking at several multi-million-dollar projects spread over the next five to 10 years while still righting the ship and becoming financially solvent. Such big fundraising lifts will likely necessitate multiple capital campaigns. 

What are immediate priorities for the upcoming season?

I wanted to ensure we had some tangible deliverables so the public could see our genuine commitment to making changes, so I wanted to focus on a few projects that I felt were straightforward and easy to accomplish. One of these projects is remodeling and updating our downstairs bathrooms. They haven’t been touched in ages. We’re still in the fundraising phase for the bathrooms, but I’m confident that we can deliver before the winter season begins.

Another project that was important to me was the installation of lighting on the west side of the hill. This area hasn’t had proper lighting in a long time, and now that we have the yellow chairlift up and running after many years, I want to maximize its potential. To achieve this, we’re installing all new LED lighting. This project is now getting underway, and we have the light poles, lights and wiring on property. Our mountain operations team and engineer are working with our friends from 45th Property & Power to get the project rolling in the next few weeks. Guests will then be able to ski and board arguably some of the best terrain at Mt. Holiday both day and night.  

What new ideas for opportunities or programs would you like to see implemented?

We’ve been working on our mission and vision, and really it’s about getting back to what Mt. Holiday has always been about: community, keeping things affordable and being a resource for Traverse City. So many people grew up learning to ski and board here, and we want to bring that sense of belonging and connection back to the mountain.

We’ve got some really exciting plans ahead, including new ski programs and opportunities for at-risk youth. This winter, we’re really leaning into lessons and programming – getting more people on the snow and involved in the mountain. As the season goes on, we’ll roll out our plan for improvements across the hill, from lift infrastructure and trail design to snowmaking. From there, our focus will shift to the lodge and what we can do to bring it up to the same standard.

It’s important for us to have a clear three, five and 10-year plan so we can keep moving forward, stay true to our mission and secure Mt. Holiday’s place in Traverse City’s future. It takes both vision and execution to make all of this happen, and we’ve got an incredible executive team in place. I truly believe we’ve got the right crew to carry this forward.

Editor's Note: This is a condensed version of a story that appears in the November issue of the Traverse City Business News (The Ticker's sister publication). Click here to subscribe, and click here to see where you can find it on newsstands.