More Than a Mountain: Bogus Basin and the Community Behind It

This week on Nobody Knowz, we sit down with Brad Wilson, General Manager of Bogus Basin. We talk about what it really takes to run a mountain, why Bogus is such a special part of the Treasure Valley, and how it’s adapting to changing seasons and a growing community. If Bogus has ever been part of your story—this one’s for you.

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Welcome to the Nobody Knows podcast with Callie Zamzow. Join us for conversations with local changemakers and hear the stories that don't always get told. It'll be honest, messy and beautiful. Touching and humorous. Slow down for a glass and pull up a chair. This is the Nobody Knows podcast. Welcome to Nobody Knows. I'm your host, Callie Zamzow and happy Cinco de Mayo, everybody. Great day. Hopefully you have some fun plans. You can enjoy the outside. Something fun, I hope. And speaking of outside, I want to suggest in a very, suggestive way that you consider planting marigolds, zinnias and petunias in your yard. And I'm going to suggest that because first of all, they look festive and beautiful and wonderful. But they're also hard working. Marigolds can help deter common garden pests. And then colorful annuals will bring in pollinators like bees and butterflies, which will help support your pull. You know, all of your plants in your yard. So that was not the tip of the week. You thought it was, but it was not. It's like a bonus tip. It is a bonus to love it. This is Mother's Day weekend. Oh that's right. Yes. Thanks for the reminder. Yes. I'm Chris, this is perfect. Lead in, so we're recommending that you obviously, if you haven't gotten your mother's hanging basket yet. Still plenty of baskets still to, to choose from at all of our 12 stores. And, you can also pick up fertilizer and soil and mulch and those sorts of things, all to help with all of your blooms in your yard. And, and remember I mentioned this last week, but remember to get your mom one of those long watering ones so it makes it easier for her to water those hanging baskets. Not as entertaining for those of us watching, but more effective. Yes, indeed. It is sort of fun to see it running down your arm and into your armpit. The water that is not the flower. Thanks for the clarification. All right, Jodi, I have a question for you. Yes, ma'am. Were you or are you a skier or snowboarder? I was a skier, and then I turned into a snowboarder. Oh, really? Yeah. And are you still. No. It's been a while since I've been. Why? Why? Well, I have this ability to injure myself most every time I go. So you'd still be doing it? I love, I love to snowboard, but every time I would go, I would inevitably be like, this is a great idea. And then my body would be like, no, it's not. I get that. So if I would just like, not try and do stupid things, it would be a blast. Yeah, but I do love to snowboard. Well, I tried snowboarding a little bit. But I skiing always been my thing. I also have hung up my skis and I hung up. I think they got sold at a garage sale, but I had my grew up doing it, and I. It started with some. There was a school after school thing. Like the school all went up as elementary school. We all went up to bogus and had an evening skiing session and I immediately loved it. I thought, first of all, I think the thing I liked was the freedom because I was like, Holy cow, once I can figure out how to do this, I can go up on that chairlift with friends and ski and like, know parents. Like it was really kind of a cool thing. And my parents leaned into it. My brother and I would take I don't even know if they still do it. We'll probably find this out. But there used to be a bus. The bus? Yeah, you could pick. Oh, yes. So we picked up the coal, I don't know, was it coal? And you stick we picked it up there and we would ride up. And my brother and I were pretty young. We were the young kids on the bus. And so these were like teenagers and we were not yet teenagers. So we learned all sorts of fun things on that bus. And my mother would probably be very upset to know. But anyway, it was really fun. Then we would spend the day skiing. She made us take a lesson, so we would take a lesson that she signed us up for, and we always did that. We never skipped learn the lesson, and then the rest of the day, freedom on the mountain. We got to eat lunch when we wanted and ski when we wanted. And you know, it was just so much fun. All we had to do was be back on that bus by 4 p.m. to cut our butts back down, because they were not coming together because they ever missed the bus. We never did because the threat was, we aren't going to come get you, so you will. So you must make that, you know. And at the time, I wasn't thinking about how they probably would have come and got us now that I think back on it. But yeah, anyway, it was a good threat, though. I like it. It was very good. It was effective. It was effective. So the reason I bring all this up is that we today have Brad Wilson with us. He has the Bogus Basin general manager, and I'm very excited to talk with you about that because so much has changed since the mid 80s when I was doing that as a young kid. So welcome. Welcome to the studio. Well, thank you. So glad to have you here. It's great to be here. And so much has changed and so much has stayed the same. It's true. We still have those ski busses that come up every weekend. You do and every day during the holidays, and we still have after school ski programing that comes up in the afternoon early evenings. We teach about 5000 kids a year in that after school ski program. So yes, things have changed, but we we haven't forgotten the essence of who we are and that is get kids up on the mountain. So cool. So the busses, are they all just like they were back then where you would pick up at various different you pick places, they actually start in Eagle and they go through Meridian and they end up, picking up right at the elementary school at the bottom of the Hill and Bogus Basin Road is last pick up and they head up the hill. So cool. Yeah, it's really $10 round trip. I it had to have been like, I'm I'm sure it was probably less than that then, but but had it been close to that then like, that's, that is very inexpensive. We subsidize it. I mean we fill the bus, we still lose $500 a day. So it's just enough so people, appreciate it, but not so much that actually pays for the bus. Can I get that? I get that I remember that there was a bump, and I don't even know if it's still is that you're almost to bogus. And our bus driver, I we thought her name was Bonita because it said a name up above, but then we weren't sure. We never wanted to ask. We think her name was Bonita. Anyway, she would yell, harassed at the home, but every time they got to the bump and we would laugh and laugh, and then you'd hit the bump and we would shoot up in the air like it would catch. We would fly. It was kind of fun. I'm sure some of where the trolls live, that's so that's the cattle guard. So there's a whole nother. We can have a whole podcast on the trolls, but then we'll save that for later. I you know, we were talking about that just the other day about because now because we haven't the cattle guards, they've changed. Yeah. They took them out. But then they put in like fake cattle guards. So the trolls felt like they still had a place to go. Well, I like knowing that. I know that's really kind of silly, but I did love ACHD for that. That's that's fair. We've already jumped into this. I like you already. This is great. Do you want to, just kind of quickly tell us about you, just a little background about you and who you are. Sure. I've just finished my 11th season at bogus, and I'm still the new guy. I mean, the amount of years that that team has under their belt up there, it's just amazing. I inherited an incredible team of people. Virtually these same people were there when I arrived. And we've just grown up together and over the last 11 years, so it's been terrific. But I've been in the ski industry, if you will, all my adult life. I mean, I started working at a ski shop when I was 18 years old and worked through that through college, opened up my own ski shop for seven years, then became a ski patroller. And that's what got me really hooked into the ski resort business was from ski patrolling, and I knew I couldn't go to high end ski patrol unless the three guys above me died. So I figured, well, there's got to be another route. So I figured that out. Interesting. So are you. When I think about people who have done this for a good chunk of their life, I think there are different, like, types of people. Yeah, stereotypes do fall into any of the stereotypes. That's a really awful question that somebody. But I'm just. That's a good question. You may have asked my wife that question. You know, I fall into the stereotype that I am a passionate skier. And I still have that passion. I mean, I mentioned earlier, I just got back from a weekend I skiing Grand Targhee and Jackson Hole, fantastic skiing. And I was thinking my head wife skied here before, and I was trying to do the math. What? How long ago was it? I realize it was 50 years ago that I had skied there. Nothing had changed, of course, but no. So it's just. It is. Yeah. To even be able to say that, I'm like, wow. And yet I'm still skiing. Skiing hard, skiing well, having fun and still have the same passion for this sport as I did back when I was 22. You know, just for the younger people listening, saying, oh well, that will never happen to me. You're wrong. If you're lucky, it. Well, I guess we should say that if you're lucky, you get to live long enough to do that. And I'm telling you that when you have those moments where you're like, thinking, my dad told me this, when I meet people, when I see people, I'm like, I haven't seen you in 25 years. It's like, how the heck did that ever 30 or now? I can definitely say 40 or longer anyway, but I don't feel any older. It's not like, I mean, it really does feel like yesterday in a lot of cases, it's crazy. And the one thing that I do appreciate is the fact that I've taken care of myself so I can do this, these things at my age. And, you know, you don't have that appreciation when you're young. Yeah. You don't you don't have that measurement like, oh, geez, if I'm 70, can I still know you're just going, you know, where am I going to have a beer next? Yeah. But I mean, it's it's really, you know, important, I think, for the young people to realize it will catch up with you. So take care of yourself. Such a great message. You're exactly right. You're probably not listening, but I know I wasn't. I was not paying attention to that kind of stuff, but it's great advice. So what what first drew you into it? Was it that you were a skier and then you decided, okay, I think I want to do this, or was there like an opportunity that what? Well, I think initially it was just, I learned to ski in the, in the early 1970s and it was skiing was the fastest growing sport in the world at the time. And you had hot dogging. You've probably heard of that. Freestyle skiing was new, and Wayne Wang and all these crazy guys, and I just got hooked into that in high school and then went to college and I was probably skiing more than I was going to school, going to class. So I was skiing 100 days a year in high school. I mean, in college. And it did take me five years to get through it. But but I enjoyed the heck out of it. So I was really hooked when I came out of college and then tried to figure out a way to stay within the the or get into the the ski industry. And I opened my own ski shop and I had that for seven years and and then ski patrol as well. But then I did get a really good, opportunity to interview for a position I never expected to take or get, have it offered to me. And it was at heavenly in Lake Tahoe was a national sales manager's position, something I had really no experience doing other than I had my own my own, business. And I went up there with 400 other people that were, applying for the role. And so now they offered it to me. Wow, I was shocked. I was shocked, and but I accepted it and that that was the start of my career within the ski resort industry. And then ever since I've been plugging along. Well, what did that entail? Was that that first job? What? That's interest. It was crazy. It was, I knew the the vice president of marketing just slightly up there. So he knew who I was from my ski shop. That got me in the door. But I had the interview with there was like 12 vice presidents. And then the owner. And there was a lot I never forget this long table with the vice presidents on the side and the owner, who's kind of a short guy like me with an elevated chair at the end. So you kind of had to look up at him, and they just threw questions at me and, it because I wasn't, didn't go up there with this guy. I got to get this job. I was very relaxed and, and I guess it came through and they liked me. And next thing I knew, I was moving Lake Tahoe. Wow. That's that's a there's a lesson in that for our listeners. If they're, Yeah. Getting nervous about going into something that take a deep breath and relax. Yeah, I like that. That's a very good. Okay, so you've had a long career in Idaho tourism. So have you seen, you know, have you seen that change over time? Have you seen it kind of. Yeah. Let us know. What do you think? Well, you know, the big change was Covid. You know, the big change was, you know, we were we were doing well pre-COVID as far as visitations were concerned. But Covid just put everything on fast forward and people just got out. Yeah. And just wanted to be in the outside. Mainly because they could be in they could be around people outside versus inside. So, you know, the Covid year after the Covid closed down, we were super busy. And then we have just stayed busy through that. So, you know, there was a silver lining to that mess. And it is that more people are outside than ever before. So I think that really, you know, changed and put a lot of pressure on us. We went from being busy to being too busy and having to really adjust how many people we want on the mountain. Before it was like, everybody come up, we're happy. Anybody wants to come up, come up, and then all of a sudden after Covid, it's like, you're going to, you know, you're going to need to stay down because we don't have any room for you. Yeah. And the last thing we wanted to do is get greedy and have too many people on the mountain have, you know, parking lot filled and people driving up and having to turn around and go home. So we instituted, you know, some programs like, cutting off lift ticket sales, ahead of time and, and asking people to buy in advance. We actually limit the number of season passes we sell now. Wow. So we can control those that big population of season pass holders as well. So we really had to do a lot to protect what makes bogies so cool and unique. And that is just the experience on the mountain. Right. And the one thing that is really the limiter to the numbers of people on the mountain is our parking. We have a limited amount of parking, and we know if we expanded our parking, we could put more people on the mountain, but then you end up kind of killing the golden goose. Now you have this great experience, short lift lines and you just mess that up. Right? So we're not adding parking until we can add more ski terrain and more lifts. So we're kind of in this balancing point right now where we feel good about it, but we still are turning people away virtually every weekend of the winter. Wow. Yeah, things certainly have changed. That's interesting. So you you got the job maybe five years before Covid hit. So you had just a little bit of a lead in that. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So so you kind of have you really had enough time to get your sea legs and then boom, like all hell broke loose. Oh my god. Yeah. We we joke our, my team, we still have PTSD from, you know, the whole mask thing and, you know, asking people to, to wear them. And we closed all the base facilities and we operated in tents with open air. And it was really I look back on, I don't know how we did it. And, and we being upper management, actually did all the hard work. We were the ones talking to customers. We couldn't we just didn't feel good putting, you know, hourly, seasonal people out there with angry customers. Yeah. So we, the four of us really Nate Shake. For instance, Jamie Zover and and, we all just spent every weekend and every holiday outside and talking to people and, and I think it had a big effect because when you hear it from, you know, the people that are running the place, it has a better it resonates better than, you know, some 18 year old kid who's just up there so he can go skiing on his break. Right? Right. You mentioned Nate. Can we just talk about him just briefly? I'd love to talk about. So I went full disclosure. I went to high school with him, and, great guy, great guy. And then so I was talking about both before we got turned on the microphone. So let's talk a little bit about, the, the legacy there with his father and now what he does and how long he's been there. You bet. So, Steve Shake, Nate's dad, was the director of mountain operations for years and years, 20, 25 years. Nate grew up coming to work with his dad on weekends. And he and his brother, and then when Nate turned 14, he could actually work at Bogus Basin. So he started work at a bogus basin at 14. And so now he's been there for 37 years, and now Nate has the same job his dad had. He is director of Mountain operations. So, so it's a second generation Shake for, mountain operations. And it's a wonderful legacy. His dad still comes up and helps us with heavy equipment, frequently does snow removal. So he technically works for his son, but. Oh, man, we'll let that go. So incredibly cool. They are just a little shout out to them. They were always, you know, like anytime that there were dances or whatever, Nate's parents were like, right there. I think for prom, they brought out their big boat and took us up to lucky Peak. And like, they just made things seem like a fairy tale or such good people. So anyway, thank you. If you're listening, I hope you're listening. For all that you did for us crazy kids when we were in high school. Okay, so the interesting thing, I think that some people know, some people do not know is that bogus operates as a nonprofit. So can you speak to that? Because that is a whole different ballgame. Well, it it is. And, you know, having worked, this is the ninth ski area I've worked at. Wow. So I have a little experience with other, for profit ski areas. This is the first nonprofit I've ever worked for, and it is a unicorn within the ski industry. There are other nonprofits. Most of them are nonprofits because they couldn't make money, and they needed to become a nonprofit to take donations to stay in business. We're different. We have been a nonprofit since day one, since 1942. And so it would be impossible to actually start something like Focus Basin from scratch nowadays. But the fact that we've grown with the with the community and, and started 83 years ago, it's just an amazing place to be because technically we have no ownership. We have an association that oversees the, I would say the broader operation. And from that 100 person association, we they choose 13 board members, and those board members have a nine year stint as a board member. And those are the people I report to. And so, and they're all volunteer part of the community from vast areas of the community, from lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, skiers, of course. And so it's really, really unique. And what that does for us is everybody is kind of pulling the same direction. We all they're there on the board because they want to see us do well. And of course the the management team, we are all pulling the same direction. So it's really, the, the consistency and, and the, the teamwork involved between the board and my and our team at Bogus Basin is really quite remarkable. And, and probably from my perspective, the most unique thing about being a nonprofit is every dollar spent at the ski area stays there. We don't have to share our. And there's a big misnomer. If you're a nonprofit, you can't make money. Well, you can. It's just that money has to stay within the organization. It can't go outside to shareholders, which we have not, of course, or owners or anything else. It stays within within the operation. And for us, we've been very successful the for the time I've been here and I'm sure there's a lot of luck involved in that. It's not all me. Mother nature has been quite kind. And so we've done very well, and we have been able to, reinvest back into the operation over $80 million in the time that I've been here. And that's new. Three new chairlifts, it's new trails. It's bringing snowmaking, which was the one thing that kept us alive this year. Yeah. It's, instituting summer activities with the mountain coaster and all the activities we have, mountain biking and things. All of that is because all the money that our our user group, our season passholders and our ticket people that, the by lift ticket basically invest in Bogus Basin and we make sure that we continue to improve the operation. So can we talk about, this winter that this winter, that wasn't winter. That wasn't. Yeah. At that because I don't remember the last time that we had a winter that was quite like this. There's ever been one. No. Well, that's why that that's. Yes. Unless you, you go back to prehistoric times. No. It is, as far as we can tell, it was the warmest up there, particularly the warmest winter in history. So starting in November, it was warm, and we had five days of snow making in November, which is just historically bad in itself. Yeah. And then you had not just warmth, but you also had rain. So if we would have gotten snow when we got rain, we would have had 300 inches this year. And but if we were just on the cusp of the warm and if you look south of us, to Utah, to Colorado, to California, they are they were in the same boat. We were I mean, they struggled, you know, Deer Valleys closed, Park City is closed. So many of the big ski areas, even with big snowmaking systems, huge snowmaking systems have had to close early. So we weren't alone. You know, misery loves company, but it didn't. It was still made it a tough winter. Yeah, but one of the things we could that we could take away from this winter is one it is totally unique. So we actually opened on the Saturday of Thanksgiving holiday. We opened on snow that we had stored from the year before. What? How is that even possible? Well, nobody thought it was, we through just kind of being in, in the industry, I realized that in Scandinavian countries they were doing world Cup ski races in the fall on snow that they had saved from the year before. So Nate, Jake and I, we're looking like, how do they do that? And so Nate found online, this company that specialized in making these covers where you build the snow up huge piles, you cover these with these special covers, and you end up with about 80% of the snow that you stored. That's wild. To me. It is. And we were the first ski area to do it from one season to the next. In the United States, there was one, ski area in Canada that did it the same year we did. And this company, it's called Snow Secure. They're from Finland. They were just entering the United States when we called them. I mean, we called them in Finland, and we had to do all that time change stuff, like how do you get Ahold of somebody from Finland? But it worked out amazingly well. They came up, they helped us put the the covers over the pile, and we uncovered it in late October. And lo and behold, 80% of the snow was still there. And then when Thanksgiving rolled around, we pushed it out and we opened one of our conveyor lifts, one of our carpets with that snow from last year. That's and we're doing it again right now. So we just have a giant pile up there. That is I that's I think a couple of different things. Very cool. Number one, just in general. That's cool. It's particularly cool that it's happening at our mountain. Our little mountain, like you guys did something entirely unique. And and like you, I love that. I guess there's a part of me that is thinking sometimes when we aren't one of the big guys, we think, well, we can't do some of the things that big guys and you did things that big guys weren't doing, which is really cool. Well, we you know, it's funny because we're just more limber than the big guys are. We can make decisions and it kind of comes back to that nonprofit. We're not looking for a quick ROI return on our investment, on doing things so we could take some risks like snow secure and and we could do it. And we did. I mean, we got national notoriety. We are on NPR, national, we just did an interview with, with NBC. It's really blown up because it's so unique. People like you. I can't believe you did that. Yeah, well, we do, and and we actually had planned on expanding it dramatically this year. But the one thing we realized is you need to have snow to start. Either we did not have enough snow to expand a great deal from last year, but we have the we have more of the covers now. So next year, our our long range goal is to open coach 100% on stored snow every year. Oh that's cool. And that saves us water because we need to make that snow to open coach and and other trails early season so we don't have to make that snow again. The snow sits there. And it's a substantial amount of water equivalent under those covers. So it's a it's a it's another step in, in trying to protect ourselves against climate change. So we have the snow storage and then we have snow making. And so those two things are really the two elements that we feel that we can help guard against seasons like we just had, our little mountain is, it feels like a bigger deal to me. Maybe just because I grew up here, but it than it does maybe for like, my cousins live, you know, grew up near a different mountain in a different state and they don't have the same sort of passion I think that we do for bogus. There's something about this community that just loves our little mountain. Why do you think that is? I, you know, I really go out of my way. I love to ski. I already told you that, but I go ski by myself, so I can ride the chair with our customers, and it's like an elevator speech for six minutes. Would you get on the chair with three people you don't know? That's cool. But I learned so much from, you know, from our season passholders and our skiers up there that, it it's just remarkable. And the thing that's really, really cool and unique about Bogus Basin. And we have the same customers. We our market is the Treasure Valley. That's it. We don't advertise anywhere else. I mean, great, somebody comes from Chicago, wants to ski here. Wonderful. But we don't depend on it. We don't need it. We have plenty of people within the Treasure Valley, and those people are repeat customers. So, I mean, over the course of the time I've been there, I mean, thousands of people know me because I probably read the chair with them. Yeah, or they've seen me on TV or heard me on podcast, but, and it's just, it's it's remarkable. And for that reason that we're a local, we're a nonprofit. They feel by it and we we want them to feel like this is their community mountain. And our mission statement is to provide affordable, accessible, fun, mountain recreation and education. So everything we do, we run through that filter of that mission statement to make sure that we're not doing something that's off topic for the community. So everything we do is to try to benefit the community and of course, the ski area and same time. Yeah. Will you talk a little bit about the summer, summer mountain? Because I think, I mean, we all kind of understand the winter part of it, but I full disclosure, I had people talk to me about going up to the summertime. I assumed they just were going up there to hike around or whatever. And then last summer, actually, my girlfriends from high school said, for your birthday, we want to take you up there. And I was like, all right, you know, and I didn't realize when I got there, I was like, Holy cow, this, this, there's this is the whole thing. So you kind of just talk about it a little bit like what, the summer? What goes on up in the summer? Yeah, it's kind of it's interesting. One of the reasons I was hired is because I just finished, master plan development at the ski area I was at. That included summer activities. So I was fresh off of the research for that. So when I came on, it was one of the first things we did was to institute summer activities. And, you know, being 100% dependent on winter is a risky proposition, as you could see this year. And so trying to spread out the, the, the visitations and the revenue over summer and winter is really it's a healthy thing to do. And there are now as you can see it, Vogue is based on a lot of summer activities that, that people love. The mountain coaster is kind of the it's the big anchor for our summer activities. It's, high, high thrill. Activity with low skill. So that's all you do is hold on to the and push it forward. And it's really you don't have to be able to balance or anything. And it's it's just a great activity. And we we have we have kids come up and your ticket includes unlimited rides. I think we had a kid who wrote it 43 times in one day. Love that. So yeah, it's wild. And then we and then we have a new aerial adventure course, which is a three level, challenge course. It does take some, I would say skill, patience, perhaps balance. And it's super fun to do. And then we have summer tubing where you see it on the inner tube and go down an artificial sliding surface. And, you know, you can race your mom and dad on it. And it's really fun. And a bungee jump and a rock climbing wall and all these activities really family focused, is you, I'm sure you saw when you're up there, it's just all kids, families. There was music going on the day that we were there, which is fun. And then we have music once a month. We have multiple bands up there, and then every every weekend, Saturday, Sunday we have somebody playing on the patio. So we're just, you know, what we want to provide is just an outlet for people in the Treasure Valley to come up, get out of the heat. You know, it's warm in Boise. It's 15 to 20 degrees cooler up in the mountains at 6000ft, and just provide them an outlet. And the beauty of what we're able to accomplish is you don't need to spend a penny. We we encourage you come up with your ice chest and your blanket, put it on the lawn, enjoy your lunch, go for a hike. And have fun. Tell people how much fun bogus basin was. We're not grabbing you by the ankles and shaking the money out of your pockets. You want to spend it? That's great, but we're not. We're not requiring that. And that's exactly what we did. I did a couple of my friends brought their kids up, and their kids stayed busy because they had fun things they were doing, and we just picnicked and hung out and talked about what it was like when we were teenagers. You that's what you do in your 50 kids. In case you're wondering. How far in advance do you have to to plan things for the mountain? Like like, for instance, like when you decided that you were going to change and do some summer thing, how far do you have to be thinking, well, you know, all depends on how, how large the, you know, the, the program you want to put together is, you know, it could be anywhere from just a year, to multiple years. You know, we're we're looking, at cutting two brand new trails in the Pine Creek side of, of the ski area, top to bottom trails and putting, taking showcase, which is the last of the double chairs and removing that and realigning it up to go up, Tiger, and kind of get you direct access to the backside. Oh, interesting. And, it's probably taken us two years, through the Nepa process with the Forest Service to get approval to do that. And we now have approval to do that. Now we just have to figure out how we can afford to do it. But so, you know, the planning is, the scope of, of the, the the plans really is dictating, you know, how much time it has if you if we're doing things on Forest Service land, there is a process we have to go through from an environmental perspective, which is great because we want to protect the environment. Right. If it takes a couple of years, so be it. On our private land, which you'll see, the coaster and all of our lodges and things are on private land, so the planning could be a little shorter for that. Okay, that makes sense. I'm just I'm thinking, as you look out on, I mean, even, like 5 to 10 years because this valley continues to grow in population. What must that be like? Or can maybe I'm just asking you that. What is that like to think about this mountain that I mean, it does have its limits meant so many square feet, right? And so, yeah. What does that we have a plan for that. Yeah. We do. Yeah. I love hearing that. So we, we have a, long range plan, and I say long. It could be 3 to 5 years or longer, to open up a new area of terrain, about 600 acres, which were 2600 acres right now. So that would put us at 3200 acres, which would be in the top, I don't know, 15 ski areas in the country, believe it or not, much acreage. But it's an area that's directly off of the Deer Point chair. Okay. And you basically go do east from the top of the and down into this area called Clear Creek. We have spoken to the Forest Service about it. We they know that we would our intentions. We just haven't, pulled the trigger yet formally with them. What we really want to do in the community is talk to them before we go out, and try to formalize, expansion down there to make sure the community supports it. And that's just not the ski community does. We know that they're all they are all about it. But yes, you know, there there are hunters and fishermen and hikers. And although the area is very remote, there's really no roads down into that area. So it's not like we're, you know, taking somebody's camping site or anything, but, but still, we want to talk to the outdoor community and make sure that they're okay with this before we really get into it, but it provides just an amazing amount of additional skiing. It can be accessed by one long, high speed detachable quad, for instance. That would give us plenty of, upward mobility and, and, really completely change the whole way. The ski area would ski. Why? Yeah. Like I said, I like. So we have a plan for that. That. Yes. I like that. Let's just say that one of our listeners is listening in and they're like, I want that dude's job. What advice would you give them? Let's say their let's say they're just finishing high school. They're they're just kind of, you know, that late teens and they're the whole they've got the whole world ahead of them. Well, what sort of advice would you give them, boy? You know, I wish I could give us a sink. The answer to that. So my one of my best friend, was a professor at a small college in, in Lake Tahoe, Sierra Nevada college. And he he taught ski area management and he would bring all the gems from the ski areas around Lake Tahoe in to talk to his classes. He'd always save me for last because it took me 25 years to get from the director of marketing position to a GM position. Wow. And I wanted to be GM shortly after I became a director of marketing. Absolutely. So I, I stuck with it. He used me as an example of somebody who really, you know, had the patience to stick with his, convictions long enough to get to that point. So it's it's, it's an interesting business because it's, a lot of people end up in my position because they've just been at a ski area for a very long time, and they kind of move up slowly. I don't have the patience for that. So I had a tendency to ping pong back and forth, trying to move up with each change in, in employment, moving up the ladder that way. And, you could do it either way. You need patience either way. Yeah. So it but I would say before you consider this as a vocation, work at a ski area, you know, get your college degree. It's it's really important, study leadership. You know, marketing is a good avenue to get in as well, because you learn the whole operation from the marketing side. And, and then give it a little time. Don't get out of high school and think you're going to be general manager, and it'll take a while. Oh, we all want that, right? I'm a graduate. And it's a it is amazing still speaking to this person that's listening. It is amazing how as time goes by, you do get there and it doesn't feel as long as you think it's going to take like it probably is. As long as that, you just it doesn't feel like it once you're there. Well, and what I, what I used to tell those students is enjoy the journey. Yeah. I had a I mean, it took me a long time, but I had a wonderful life in the business and I enjoyed everywhere I was. I mean, I was everywhere, including Catalina Island. That's right. She wrote on your notes, I did I was all excited, which was my only departure from the ski industry in 50 years. Was was that interesting? What did you do there? I, did you run? Tell me you ran the Catalina wine mixer. No, but I heard it yelled at me. Does. And please, if you know anybody on the mainland heard you from Catalina like a little white big turd, like, we're so unoriginal. Oh, yeah. Now, I ended up there. I'd. So I was a I was hired as a chief marketing officer for, basically for the Wrigley family. Wrigley chewing gum that owned 80% of the commercial land on the island. The family used to own the entire island. Willy William Wrigley, who started Wrigley chewing gum, bought the island in 1919. Wow, right. Owned the whole thing. And, And so the family still owns the lion's share of all the developable land on the mountain, on the island. So I was head hunted to there, and it intrigued me because I was struggling, trying to move up the ladder from marketing to management. And I thought, well, this will give me an opportunity to get more hospitality experience. So they offered me the job and I pushed back. I said, look, you need to give me more management experience. So they agreed to, to provide that for me. So I was hired as chief marketing officer and after two years, I became chief operating officer for all of their lines of business. They had liquor licenses, which included golf course and the Brown building. You see in all the pictures. Again, it's called the casino building. It never has had gaming. Its casino means gathering place in Italian, so it's a gathering place, and then beach clubs and restaurants and all that. So I oversaw all that and the marketing. Lots of hats when you live on an island. Yeah. And I gained a tremendous amount of experience and probably for the first time in my career, it actually was just the decision making that the people had that hired me in Lake Tahoe. That's what separated me from everybody else, was that I had that unique experience and that got me through the door. So I, you know, I've tried every I tried a lot of different things in trying to move up. And it actually worked. So pretty cool that that's fantastic. Really, really good advice there. Just try things sometimes. Get out of your comfort zone. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Move to an island. Yeah. That's so great. I'm going to take a quick break and thank our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Zamzows, your local source for garden, pet and planet friendly products. As a thank you to our Nobody Knows listeners, use Code Bogus at checkout at Zamzows.com to receive 10% off your online order. The discount applies automatically and is valid online only and does exclude lawn programs, and it runs through August 31st of 2026. You can buy online and pick up in-store at any of our 12 locations and visit Zamzows.com. Let's throw something good. Nobody knows like Zamzows. All right, now we're going to shift gears to a section I call Sharing is Caring. Oh, or rapid fire. Answer how you like. So here we go. You ready? Sure. All right. How about a favorite way you personally like to experience Bogus Basin? It can be summer or winter. It is summer. In winter it is skiing in this mountain biking. So those are the two things I go out and experience almost daily. I mean, even this year, I got 50 days of skiing in this year. Wow. Now, that's not all day. That's a two hour lunch break. But but nonetheless, I want to be on the mountain in the winter. And then in the summer, I mountain bike a ton and ride all over Bogus Basin and enjoy it. I love it, it's so fitting. I, I mean, I would think that that is what makes you a good leader of that particular, that you have that mountain because you do it. You you mountain, you use the mountain, you. It's really important that everybody sees that I'm engaged. Yeah, absolutely. And I you know, I joke there used to be a management saying that management by managing by walking around like if you had a manufacturing plant, you'd manage by walking around and saying hi to people. Well, I manage by skiing or so and it works so great. Okay, how about a local spot in the Treasure Valley that you always recommend? You know, I recommend people come downtown. Yeah. And walk around downtown because it's it is just so unique. It's so clean. It's, you know, it's unique. Walk down by the river. It is truly. But Boise is... It's one of a kind. I when I first moved here, I lived close to the co-op, and I would walk downtown, you know, for dinner and, you know, walking home. It's just it's just such a cool place. Yeah, I agree, it continues to be cool. And I like the way that we're growing. I think it's an interesting downtown, and I think it's being thoughtfully developed and absolutely I think it's very cool. All right. How about a leader or mentor that has influenced your leadership style? Well, yeah. Fortunately, early on in my career, I, I was recruited to a ski area in all places southern California. Wow. Who even knew they had skiing down there? Who knew? I didn't know at the time, but, I ended up with this working at this ski area that was owned by a fairly large conglomerate out of, out of Vermont. And, we are going to take over the world, so to speak. They're going to put all this money into the ski area. And, you know, you have 30 million people at your back door. So you have a pretty large audience. And but I, worked for this team of people that were just absolutely remarkable, this organization that bought this ski area, they went out and spent as much money as they thought they needed to find the best people. I was like, one step below those people, by the way. But I learned a lot. And the president of the company was a gentleman, that had just come from Aspen. He was the youngest president of Aspen Ski Corp, and they hired him to to run this ski area and to develop the ski area. His name is Jerry bland. He, he went on, to be the CEO of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort for years and years. He just retired in 2018, but he really showed me what it was to be a leader in the ski resort business. He was a great mentor. I learned so much from him and everybody within his management group, became general managers every year, whether it was a lifts manager, the the marketing manager, the CFO, every single one of our team members became general managers of ski areas. And guess who was the last one? Me. But as soon as I did, I shot Jerry A note said, okay, last one standing. And we joke. We've had reunions and we call ourselves Jerry's Kids. So I love that. Oh what a yeah, what a guy. Yeah, he's he was a great mentor. Awesome. Okay. We're at the part of the show where I ask the same question to every guest. Oh, boy. And there are no rules. Okay, so answer it. However, you like. The question is, why does something that nobody knows? Well, for the first 35 years I was alive, my birthday was January 25th, you know, had an on my driver's license, and, yeah, I was born January 25th at 35 years old. I finally went to get a passport, and I had to go get my birth certificate. So I was in Lake Tahoe at the time. I drove to San Francisco. I was born in San Francisco, got my birth certificate, got it out, looked at it, it said January 27th. What was it? I was like, wait, I'm two days younger than I. So, you know, I held my mom's signature on it, my foot print on it, all that, I mean, it was legit. So I call my mom, and of course, she denied it. Would they? They were wrong. It. But it was just the weirdest thing. It was like, really, I'm two days younger. And then of course, I had to deal with, how do you change your birthday? Right. And yeah, I won't tell you how I did it, but I did well. So I mean, do you do you which one do you think is correct or do you know. Oh, it's the 27th. It absolutely. Okay. So it's just that you're in the way that well enough. Okay. Was that it was that birth certificates. Right. And my mom was. Yeah. She was. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That is really something. I've never even heard of that. No I had neither. Oh that's incredible. This is a that was a great answer. The crazy thing is. So I had a passport that said 1/27. And I had a, my driver's license. 1/25 so if they ever asked for two forms of ID, they didn't match up. Oh, boy. So this was before 911. So I wasn't arrested anywhere. But it was like people were wondering, what would this guy. But yeah. So I eventually got my driver's license changed. And, now it's all so great. Yeah, that was a great two days younger. I feel great. I'll take it. Right. That's right. All the days we can. Yes, exactly. Before we wrap it up, if people want to learn more about bogus, understand more about what's going on, how would they learn that? Well, two ways. One is the website are actually three ways. One is the website has. Yeah. All the information you might want to learn about Bogus Basin. Social media course is really the ongoing conversation. We are adamant about how we respond to social media. We literally, if you ask a question, you have a comment on any of our posts on social media. We respond, wow, I can almost say day or night because our marketing team is like they're all over it. So it's really cool if you if you it's not a chat bot either these this live people that we'll, we'll comment and we'll we'll answer questions. That's awesome. Yeah. It it's really and our, our director of marketing innovation and innovation is Austin Smith, an incredibly young guy. And he's he has just perfected this and he has a great team that works with him. So it's just super lively and functional and feels good. Yeah. You know, and if people have complaint they deal with it very, very well. And you know, we don't defer, we don't block, we don't erase. We answer questions. And sometimes they're hard and sometimes they're, they're, compliments. Good for you. Compliments. Good for you. They're good for you. I mean, that's hard. That's very hard to do. It is tough. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So, so did you say it also? So it'd be a social via the website? Yeah, I'm missing one. So what was that third one? What would it be? Well, if maybe they'll if they go to one of the other two, they'll learn about the third. Exactly. I had it there, but, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This has been a delightful conversation. I, I still want to talk to you about mouth taping, but I guess we'll have to do that another episode. If we did. But thank you. Thank you for your time. Thank you for what you're doing with this treasure of our valley. We just we love the. We love Bogus basin. We love the mountain, and we love what you're doing up there. So thank you. Well, all I can say is it is an absolute pleasure to work at an organization like Bogus Basin. And to provide this to such an amazing community in the Treasure Valley, I mean, I it's an honor for me to be there, and I don't take that lightly. And we will continue to do what we've been doing and continue to reinvest in and make sure that bogus is always a better place than the last time you were there. And thank you for inviting me here. This has been really fun. Absolutely. The very fun. I agree, it's it's nice to get to know you. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. Well, if you enjoyed today's conversation, please follow the podcast and leave a review. Next week we'll hear from another incredible voice shaping the Treasure Valley. And until then, thanks for listening.