New England Winter Sports Summit

This past thursday the 15th our practicum class traveled to Sunday River in Maine for the annual New England Winter Sports Summit. The tradeshow had numerous ski resort vendors advertising products like Pisten Bully groomers,  Neveplast artificial snow surface, and  several sustainable energy companies. Even though none of us were potential buyers the reps at each booth were very informative and passionate about their products and didn't hesitate to answer all of our questions, and fill us in on anything we didn't know about what they were selling. Among the companies we spoke to were Sustainable Energy Developments, responsible for Jiminy Peak's groundbreaking wind turbine, Leitner Poma, and Rossignol. In addition to talking to individual company's reps, we attended several seminars that were all interesting and concentrated on improving the ski/snowboard industry for the future. In particular I thought Michael Berry's presentation on growing the sport was incredibly well put together and made a lot of sense. It seemed like he knew everything there was to know, and displayed a true passion towards the sustainability of the winter sports industry. I took several pages of notes during his presentation because I felt that everything he was talking about was true and would definately be applicable at some point down the road. Overall, I absorbed a lot of information at the NEWSS, and felt at home talking to people with a common interest in skiing and snowboarding.