John Cumming: Passion for Utah and Outdoors

 

Transcript | S2 Ep1 John Cumming

Tom Kelly:|00:00:00| We're with John Cumming here today, the chairman of POWDR Corp. here at the POWDR office in Park City. And John, thanks for joining me today.

John Cumming:|00:00:06| Thank you.

Tom Kelly:|00:00:06| So I know that the world's been crazy the last six months. How have you and your family been holding up through the pandemic period?

John Cumming:|00:00:15| You know, I mean, I think as well as anyone, human beings, like predictability and there's been a lack of that in our lives lately. So but it's been nice to spend time with the family and not travel and, you know, be in the mountains full time. It's nice.

Tom Kelly:|00:00:29| Now, you showed me your T-shirt earlier. What does your T-shirt say?

John Cumming:|00:00:32| This, too, shall pass.

Tom Kelly:|00:00:33| And it will

John Cumming:|00:00:34| It will.

Tom Kelly:|00:00:34| Hopefully we'll have a good winter.

John Cumming:|00:00:36| That's why I wear it. I look in the mirror every morning and say, OK, this too shall pass.

Tom Kelly:|00:00:40| It will pass. We're going to talk in more detail about POWDR, but I think to start things out, start things out here today, John, if you could just give us a quick nickel description of what POWDR is and we'll talk about the formation of it a little bit later.

John Cumming:|00:00:52| Ok, we're a ski resort holding company, I think we're one of the big four ski resort holding companies in the country where private owned by mostly my brother and me and Nicholas Badami, the grandson of my mentor. And we also have some summer camps and action sports facilities and a media company and an events business.

Tom Kelly:|00:01:16| Yeah, what's the media company?

John Cumming:|00:01:17| Outside Television.

Tom Kelly:|00:01:18| Cool, a lot of people probably don't know that.

John Cumming:|00:01:21| Well, that's that's my bad, right?

Tom Kelly:|00:01:23| No, that's why we're here.

Tom Kelly:|00:01:24| Good. That's why we're here to tell

John Cumming:|00:01:25| I wish more people subscribed. So anybody hearing this should subscribe to OTV, please.

John Cumming:|00:01:30| Thank you.

Tom Kelly:|00:01:31| Thank you for that pitch, John. I've known you for some years and know a lot about your background, the passion that you bring into this. And one of the interesting things about POWDR is it's really is truly a family owned company and there's a lot of family passion in those roots going all the way back to your childhood. And I know that you moved here as a young boy and the outdoors quickly became your playground and a time where you had wonderful activities with your father. And tell us a little bit about how you got introduced to the outdoors and developed that passion for skiing.

John Cumming:|00:02:03| Well, thank you, you know, yeah, my father was a Wall Street guy, he spent a lot of time his whole life really trying to build and preserve capital. And and as a result of that, he was gone a lot. He he would work and worked on Wall Street. I was he actually worked he was going to Harvard Business School when I was born. Then he moved us to Tarrytown, New York, when he worked on Wall Street and made an investment in a company here in Utah called Terricor???? a real estate development company. And I think he probably made that investment in the early to mid 70s and started commuting to Salt Lake City when I was a very young kid, three years old or so, he discovered that Utah was a really terrific place and a better place to raise his family. So he moved us here. My brother was born here and he lived here working on real estate development, took us skiing at Alta the year before, snowboard open, and then ended up reverse commuting when he started working on Wall Street. But the point really is that when when we were young, my father ended up being a single parent, commuting to New York from Salt Lake City. We were raised by basically by a nanny.

John Cumming:|00:03:33| And the only times that we really had the opportunity to just spend time with my father was when he came into town on Thursday night from New York. And he'd scoop us up. We'd go to bed, pretend we were asleep and scoop us up, put us in the back of the car and drive us up to Snowbird, where he had a place in what's now called the Inn, but was at the time called Turramurra Lodge. And we'd wake up in the morning. He'd inevitably be on the phone to Wall Street. And David and I would slide on our we called him. I have long johns and my brother David had long David's. We'd put our long underwear on come out. Dad would have made us breakfast. And Bob was on the phone and and he he'd just point out the window and say, I'll meet you at noon. And so David and I would grab our stuff. And two little kids, you know, he's call it for nine or five and ten and we'd go skiing. It's snowboard all day long. Meet at it at the plaza for lunch, unless that we saw the chalkboard at the bottom of one of the lifts. It says, you know, John David, you know, meet your father at 3:00 or whatever,

Tom Kelly:|00:04:46| No cell

John Cumming:|00:04:46| No cell phones back then, nothing, you know, but but the but the community of Snowbird really helped raise us the you know. Ian knew Dick Bass well, my dad, Ian, knew Dick Bass well at the time. And so when he would call dispatch, they'd be happy to pass it on to David and I by writing the message on the chalkboard. Anyway, long story short, the quality time that my brother and I spent together and with my father just had this incredibly indelible impact on me and the contrast of that life to what I knew my father was living at the time as a Wall Street investor. You know, it was basically he was doing what, you know, the early an early version of private equity, you know, created a contrast to me that I still carry with me to this day. I believe that my life was incredibly enhanced in the mountains. I learned independence and mastery and family, you know, community and just an appreciation for nature. And I really developed almost a resentment for that other model, even though that I knew that he was being successful and and it was self actualizing for him to make money and preserve capital. And he was being very successful from nothing and all that stuff. I, I set out an early age not to do that.

Tom Kelly:|00:06:02| Did you take your younger brother, David, into some gnarly places at Snowbird a few times?

John Cumming:|00:06:07| Yeah, actually, Dad and I so I don't know I don't remember how old David was, he was probably six. You know, this is one of these this is probably about a conglomeration of memories. Right. But there's a run at Snowbird called Great Scott, which is right up by tower four of the tram and it's got a cornice at the top of it that can be, you know, six feet vertical. We skied it all the time because my father was fearless, if not a wonderful skier he was fearless. And and so, David, by the time he was four or five years old, six years old, was able to ski that kind of double black diamond, upper cirque terrain. And I'll just never forget the first time we took him in there, I kind of scootched my way in. It was vertical. And I look up and my father's got my brother by the wrist and he's dangling over the edge of the corners and just sort of drops him about the last three or four feet. And we skied it and he shredded, David shredded it. I mean, he's always been a really good skier. We obviously both grew up doing it. And and so, yeah, to answer your question, we went skiing when we were really young, probably too young to do that. We ski train at the Bird and Alta that was, you know, double black diamond. We shouldn't - we had no right skiing it. Dad, for sure, didn't have any the ability or skills to do it. But he was fearless and we were together and it was, you know, incredibly life enhancing for me. And it's obviously been indelible. I've spent my life in the mountains. I've spent my life trying to share those experiences with others.

Tom Kelly:|00:07:39| Yeah, how did you get into climbing?

John Cumming:|00:07:42| You know, I had this weird contrast in my life, my father, who I love dearly and admired, was a Wall Street guy and I just didn't want to do that. I loved my time in the mountains, I mean everything. I mean the smell of the pine trees, the snow in the trees, the wind blowing snow. I mean, these were things, you know, frozen hair, all of these strange. I establish these beliefs that these were life enhancing. They were life enhancing to me. And so because of the way their life unfolded, my father, thankfully, could afford to send us to boarding school. Remember, he was commuting the other direction by this time. And so we went to boarding school. We were preppies. I went to Kent in Connecticut and that was cool, you know, played traditional New England sports, played soccer and hockey and rowed crew and did all that stuff. But I always had this, you know, sort of homing pigeon kind of instinct to get back to the mountains. So when it was time to apply to college, there was Boulder had a rolling admission. So I'm I'm like I'm in my first semester as a junior. And and by the end of that or maybe maybe right after Christmas, my junior year, I'm already early enrolled in Boulder.

John Cumming:|00:09:04| So I'm back to the mountains. I'm in early you know, I had skied in Colorado a little bit at the time. And I was just, you know, I mean, I was talking about the homing pigeon instinct. I just couldn't wait to get back there. So when I did, I moved to Boulder, went into the Arapahoe dorm and. Promptly got a bumper sticker on my jeep that said Ski Now, CU Later. So I you know, I have I actually framed the report card for my fall semester of my sophomore year where I flunked out of school because I was at Copper and Eldora and climbing in Boulder Canyon and spent all my time in Nederland and just and, you know, in essence, park and camping and climbing and skiing. And so it was quite clear that college wasn't going to work out. One of the things that my father had done while he was raising us in the mountains was take us climbing a few times. I climbed the Grand Teton with him when I was a little kid.

Tom Kelly:|00:10:10| Was he a climber?

John Cumming:|00:10:11| No, he was just he was just a loon, you know, he's just a he's just an adventurous, you know, ADHD hyperactive guy. And he, you know, so we did do lots of great adventures. He just wasn't around enough. And that's sort of part of what happened with me is like when he was around, we did these cool things in the mountains and then he'd be gone again working. But we did do these great adventures and we climbed the Grand Teton when I was 11 or something. We went camping a lot, went down the Virgin River. I remember rafting. And so this all created that homing pigeon instinct for me. And so I got to Boulder. I spent all my time in the mountains, didn't spend enough time in class. It was quite clear that that wasn't going to work out. We'd met a guy named Pete Whittaker, who was a guide at Wasatch Powder Birds at the time. That's when I met him heli skiing on one of these adventures with my father. He was a guide on Mount Rainier. He and dad cooked up a deal where we'd go climb on Mount Rainier. We climbed a few mountains together, actually, and I just fell in love with it. And by the time I got to college and had been doing some climbing in Colorado, I felt like maybe guiding was the answer for me, or at least something that I could enjoy and probably be better at than school. So Pete helped me try out and four and get a job as a guide on Mount Rainier. And and so I did that for six or seven summers, skiing in the wintertime and climb mountains in the summertime. My father and I climbed some stuff together.

Tom Kelly:|00:11:53| Did you climb Denali?

John Cumming:|00:11:54| No. Oh, Denali, yes, in fact, I was just going to say I thought you were going to say Everest, everyone says you climb Everest and the answer is no.

Tom Kelly:|00:12:01| We'll take it in stages

John Cumming:|00:12:04| I was a member of a couple expeditions and never worked out. One time because of cowardice. I was just like, oh, God, I don't want to go for three months. But but Denali was on our circuit. I guided there a few times. And one of the times was my father had asked us to take him up the mountain and which we did. I found a couple of guys that are old friends that were members of the strong back small, brain club. And we took him up Denali and we got snowed in at 14, which is a big camp at 14,000 feet. We were we were we were hanging out in tents for a while, actually. Yeah, it was it was at 14 and. We're eating Peanut Eminem's and watching the tent blow and. You know, when you're when you're being snowed in like that, you periodically have to. Dig yourself out and then you just go back in your bag and sit there for a while anyway, long story short, we're in that sort of mode for a few days. And and he said, John, you know, I really admire you for having followed your passions into the mountains. And I and I just think it's amazing. You know, you're a senior guide. You've been successful climbing. You've sort of made a name for yourself in this world. And it's so different than anything I would have done. And I just want you to know I'm proud of you, son. And I was like, well, thanks, that's cool. And, you know, it means a lot to me, Dad, but. You know, I'm tired of being broke and eating ramen three meals a day when I'm not on the mountain, you know.

John Cumming:|00:13:49| And so I said I wanted to talk to you about it. I didn't know how to do it exactly, but I wanted to see if you could help me figure out a way to be enterprising and outside at the same time. And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, you know, we get these uniforms every year. They were North Face uniforms at the time. You get mountain jackets and we'd get a pro form, which we'd fill out feedback on. And every year I'd fill out the same feedback. They're hydrophilic, so you'd get wet. The waist belt of your pack digs into the to the drawstring at your waist and you get bruised and they're heavy and, you know, the sleeves are too long and they don't ventilate. And, you know, and every year I get the same shit back. And so I said, Dad, I really think that this is something that I could help change or maybe we could figure out something to do in the outer garment or equipment business. And it's a great I mean, I'd love to help you do that. Go find a deal. And I didn't really know what that meant, but we got back off Mount Mount McKinley and Denali and we went to I went to guide on Mount Rainier and I convinced Scott Johoriski, who did the scheduling for RMI at the time, to let me go to the Reno Outdoor Retailer show. So I show up at the OR show, skinny, little, emaciated climber dude with raccoon eyes sunburned.

Tom Kelly:|00:15:33| First trade show?

John Cumming:|00:15:34| First trade show of many. And I met with I actually had, you know, 47 cocktails with a guy named Skip Yowell, who was one of the founders of Jansport with whom I'd climbed Mount Rainier a couple of times. But at that time, I'd probably climb Mt. Rainier 25 or 30 times. I was a senior guy maybe 40 times, and I remember. But Skip had been involved in Jansport. The North Face was for sale, Moonstone was for sale. Sierra Designs was for sale. There had been a roll up of a Hong Kong garment business buying up these outdoor, you know, one of the one of the GoreTex sewing and seam sealing companies had bought a bunch of these outdoor businesses and paid too much. It was going broke. And I was trying to figure out how to get a line in on on that. And I knew Skip knew everybody. And finally, after, you know, the eigth cocktail or whatever, he's like, OK, just, you know, please leave me alone. Let me go to bed. I'll introduce you to this guy named Jack Gilbert, who had played basketball at Stanford. He's like six, eight, big bushy mustache, been in the industry forever, not a climber, you know, a businessman, been successful in a really difficult, cutthroat kind of industry. He was trying to put a group together by Sierra Designs. And Skip did what he said, you know, called Jack the next day. And and I ran into Skip at the Jansport booth and he said, all right, this guy, Jack Gilbert, has agreed to meet with you, show up at the Sierra Designs booth at, what, our eleven o'clock? So I do.

John Cumming:|00:17:12| And Jack's in a sport coat he's big tall guy with a big you know, he's had white hair already at the time and big bushy mustache. And the skinny little emaciated climber dude comes in with an Outdoor Retail briefcase that had nothing in it except for a couple business cards that said RMI guide on, you know. And I'm like, How are you, Jack? I'm John Cumming. And he looks down at me and he's like, You're John Cumming? And I'm like, yeah, you know, Skip Yowell's a mutual friend, he said he would introduce us. I'd really like to talk to you about acquiring Sierra Designs with you. And he's like, Really? I could tell he was incredulous, but as being a nice man, he said, all right come on back? So we went back in the back of the booth and we sit down and I basically said, I have no idea how to do any of the business that you do, but I do no good shit when I see it. And what I'm wearing now, guiding on Mount Rainier two or three times a week or four times a week sucks. And so I think that if I could get in the industry, I might be able to make a difference in that regard. And I wanted to buy Sierra Designs and my old man is wealthy. He can help us figure out how to finance it. And somehow Jack was like, I don't know, I haven't ever asked him. He was either impressed with the audaciousness of that or the ridiculous, absurd, you know, aspect of that or something.

John Cumming:|00:18:28| But he said, oh, right, right, right. Yeah. You know, fun. Introduce me to your father. I said, really? Shit. OK, that's awesome. Let's do it. So we got on the plane at the end of our show. I'm abridging some of this, we flew to Salt Lake City. My dad had this big I think you, Tom, you may know the office down in Salt Lake. It's the one next to the Governor's mansion. So dad's in his suit and that stately manner, it's like going into a museum or whatever. And we go in there and and and Jack says, listen, I don't know what I'm doing here. John seems like he has some ideas about how to make good equipment. He says you got the money to help us buy Sierra Designs. I'd like to you know, I'd like to hear you out or something like that. And then dad, who did deals for a living, you know, and Jack sort of spoke Portuguese really well. I didn't have any idea what they were saying. And they agreed to some construct that would allow us to together by Sierra Designs. Um, fast forward. It didn't work. They sold it to somebody else. But at some point along the way, one of us and none of the three of us remember who did it, either on a conference call or in a meeting. We just said, why don't we start from scratch? And, you know, we said, well, that's probably a pretty interesting idea. By that time, we just established a relationship. And we're very long story short, that's what Mountain Hardwear was born that very day.

Tom Kelly:|00:19:54| So it was born out of that aborted sale of Sierra Designs?

Tom Kelly:|00:19:59| And who were your partners in that?

John Cumming:|00:20:00| Jack Gilbert and Paul Kramer. Who was. Who sort of you know, like I personally believe every organization has a team, there's usually, you know, in this instance, Jack, was this, you know, bigger than life leader, you know, deal making, commitment, relationship brand guy. And Paul Kramer was the brains behind all of the shit that he had to figure out how to design, source and build. And so the two of them were our partners. They were - we controlled it. And Dad helped my brother and I finance our peace and dad and David and I basically had control, but they had the operating control. And and so Paul would fly to Hong Kong and source the stuff and do the design. He hired a couple of really terrific people to do designs. We came out with the first windows in tents that's got named Martin Zemitis, who I think is still making tents and the whole thing, you know, just by some miracle of, you know, good fortune worked.

Tom Kelly:|00:21:07| And you were able to provide the input that you felt was important to develop more quality gear.

John Cumming:|00:21:13| Well, there's there's a guy at one of my best friends in the whole world, the guy. Yes. So the answer is yes. What I provided was almost like a dogmatic belief in what good equipment looked and felt like. Like and I had enough influence over the design process that, you know, if they wanted to come out with a poncho and put the nut on it, the logo on it, because that's high margin stuff and it could sell 80 jillion million units and create some working capital if it didn't feel right for the brand. I had enough influence to say we're not frikking doing that. We don't build ponchos. We build stuff that guys like I would use in the mountains. Oh, and by the way, this is my friend Ed Viesturs who already was you know, he wasn't a superstar yet, but I'd climbed enough with him to know that he was going to be

Tom Kelly:|00:21:58| Did you climb with him on Rainier?

John Cumming:|00:22:00| Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know how many times I don't I mean, we got in it together. I don't know how many times. And I talked to him. We talked to him last night or night before some. He's one of my best friends are kids ski race together. I love the guy. He's like a brother. So, so, so I had the influence to say we're not frikking doing that. That's cheesy. That is, you know, that doesn't serve our purposes of creating what I believe to be a purely conceived of an executed brand strategy. And so they that limited our ability to do Poncho's and things. But it also, I think, really, you know, created brand equity accretion more quickly than maybe we otherwise would have done. And then I got a bunch of athletes that I knew were going to be studs. And Ed was the perfect example. I mean, he was destitute and not destitute. He was broke, couldn't finance the climbing aspiration that he had at the time to climb all 14, 8,000 meter peaks without oxygen. I knew he quite clearly was the best climber in the world at the time, or at least I believe that he was like the next Reinhold Messner. And but it was also clear he wasn't going to lose any toes or anything doing it. He's such a badass and such a great guy and so dedicated to the craft or whatever. So I called Ed one day and I said, hey, we're starting this thing, will you endorse us? And he was literally like laying on the floor of his apartment or something, trying to figure out how to finance his next expedition. And he he you know, we both were playing it cool climber dudes, you know, whatever, both playing it cool with each other. But it was the answer to both of our prayers. I was like, I can only pay you 25 grand.

John Cumming:|00:23:46| It was like, holy shit,

Tom Kelly:|00:23:47| Only 25 grand!

John Cumming:|00:23:49| Yeah, there's my there's my frickin expedition is what he's thinking. And he's like, yeah, I think, yeah, OK. Maybe I consider that. And so I hang up and I'm like, holy shit, our brand just got launched because I knew Ed was going to be. I mean he already was the badass. I mean, I climbed with him enough and seen him perform up higher. You know, Rainier's not super high, but heavy loads relatively up. I mean, I'd climb with him enough to know he was not human and that ended up being right for us and our brand and it ended up working out really well for him.

Tom Kelly:|00:24:20| Did he take you guys, your brand, to Everest?

John Cumming:|00:24:22| Everest? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that was a big part of it. Yes. We have this line called 8,000 meter line. You know, we'd make these big puffy 700 or maybe even eight hundred powered down filled suits for him called 8,000 meter line, Ed Viesturs line or whatever. And he climb Everest. And I think he climbed all of his fourteen. Well, I think the last few on the last few, he had maybe severed ties with with Mountain Hardwear by the time I don't remember exactly. But the early climbs that he did were fully sponsored by us. And he, you know, would take a little flag to the summit with a mountain, with a Mountain Hardwear nut on it. And he wore all the logos and all the gear.

John Cumming:|00:25:11| Yeah, it was, You know, it was I've had the good fortune of being involved in a lot of stuff. You know, time flies time. But but I've been at this a long time, you know, almost thirty years I've been doing business. And of all the things I've been involved with, mountain hardware, which we sold because our partners wanted to harvest and we didn't want to force them to stick around if they were, you know, it just didn't feel like it was consistent with the original aspiration of the brand and the team that we'd created to do it, you know, but having sold it and having built a house with the proceeds and, you know, and and moved on in my life to other things, I can't think of anything else that was more satisfying than that.

Tom Kelly:|00:26:06| Yeah, now, how did you transition from there into the ski area business and you actually worked in that business for a while too, didn't you?

John Cumming:|00:26:15| Yeah, so there was you know, it was contemporaneous, really, while we were working on Mount Hardwear it was pretty clear that unless I wanted to move to Berkeley, which I thought seriously about doing, that there wasn't really a full time gig for me. And I could be the Rocky Mountain rep, which was a really unfulfilling exercise. Like some random climber kid comes into the to to, you know, Neptune Mountaineering in Colorado or to White Pine Touring here meetsCharlie Sturgis and says, hey, I got this stuff. It's really cool. You know, I wasn't well received, let's put it that way. I had no reputation. I didn't know the shtick. You know, I didn't you know, they quickly showed me the door. We needed a proper Rocky Mountain rep. It was quite clear, therefore, that the role I was gonna play was help with the brand, help with the design, help with athlete endorsements, help put that dogma about the kind of product we build or whatever. But it wasn't a full time job. So one Thanksgiving, give or take in probably 1992 or three to probably we were up in Park City for some reason with my father and me and I guess our whole family, I don't know. And I got out of the car on Main Street to go to whatever restaurant we were going to. And I smelled that smell of the fall in the mountains. And that was in a place in my life where I was reckoning with the fact that I didn't want to be a climbing guy, but that, you know, Mountain Hardwear probably wasn't a full time gig.

John Cumming:|00:27:59| But I got out of the car and were standing in the street and I was like, whatever. I do want to smell that smell. And Dad said, well, why don't you go do it? It was another one of those. That's great idea. Like, come on, let's if you're going to be an entrepreneur, if it can be an entrepreneur, like, figure it out. And we talked about it over dinner and for a while afterwards and he and I somehow cooked up the idea to call Gordon Strachan, who knew Nick Badami, whose son Craig had been killed at the World Cup at Park City ski area at the time, and sort of make the suggestion that our family might be interested in investing in what was at the time called Alpine Meadows of Tahoe Inc, a public company, kind of quasi public company that Nick, you know, had I think had aspirations to transfer on to his family. And, you know, for reasons which I frankly, a little bit embarrassed by now, because it was a little audacious to say, you know, your plans for these assets didn't work out and we're sorry. Your family suffered a tremendous loss, but maybe we can be the surrogates. You know, I mean, in retrospect, I don't think I'd do that today. But at the time I felt OK. So Gordon Strachan made an introduction and Nick to his, you know, to the credit of his deep character, agreed to meet with me.

John Cumming:|00:29:41| And so I showed up again. Still skinny little climbing idiot, you know, and and explained that I wanted to smell that smell and be in the business and in the mountains. And I was really trying to do something where I could be enterprising, probably. I didn't really know what that meant, but I wanted to be successful and outside. And Nick said, Right, well, we'll put you in a management training program, which is basically just man making snow and stuff and boots and grooming. And, you know, he supplemented my whatever the hourly wage at each department was by like, you know, a couple hundred bucks a month or whatever. And he called it a management training program. And I started doing all the things I worked in the race department. I worked as a groomer. I worked in lift operations. I worked as a reservationist in a cubicle with the headset on Park City skiing holidays, you know, and and and for two years that, you know, I was still in this sort of no man's land. I didn't know if Mountain Hardwear would work, but I didn't feel like that was a full time job. I didn't know what the hell I was doing, you know, with this management training program, because Nick was of that old school where you, like, dropped the kid in the deep end and see if he surfaces.

Tom Kelly:|00:31:01| Yeah.

John Cumming:|00:31:02| So I never saw him, never heard from him. Every once in a while, I'd get a memo from his office, um, from Ellen Pedero, his assistant at the time, saying, you know, show up. You're moving from snowmaking to grooming. Show up at this place at this time, so I'd start driving a groomer swing shift,

Tom Kelly:|00:31:20| Tell me, John is driving a groomer seems so cool.

John Cumming:|00:31:23| It is awesome.

Tom Kelly:|00:31:25| Overnight, you know, in the dark tonight and.

John Cumming:|00:31:27| I have fond memories of that I was. I have fond memories of that, the it's a real skill, I mean, those guys are skilled operators and I think they're underappreciated. Frankly, the machines are getting to the point where they're so amazing that it I don't know, I haven't driven modern ones.

Tom Kelly:|00:31:49| There are a lot more comfortable,

John Cumming:|00:31:50| They're a lot more comfortable. They've got Recaro seats and Blaupunkt stereos or whatever with 12 speakers. And, you know, they have auto float on the blade and on the tiller or whatever. But and so they're still artists, don't get me wrong. And it's it's still a long night in the dark. But I. Yeah, it was.

Tom Kelly:|00:32:09| Did you meet your wife, Kristi, during this time.

John Cumming:|00:32:13| Kind of so the first time I laid eyes on Kristi was at the World Cup at Park City when I was on the race department and the women came to race and she did pretty well.

Tom Kelly:|00:32:26| For those who don't know her, she was on the U.S. ski team in one of the best slalom skiers in the world, really in the early 90s.

John Cumming:|00:32:33| She's a badass. I mean, she she you know, I mean, she's my wife, so I. I don't have probably an accurate ...

Tom Kelly:|00:32:40| She was good.

John Cumming:|00:32:41| Yeah. I mean, she had so she you should see her knees are so scarred, she had a congenital ligament problem or something. She would blow her her knees out mid run, you know, she won a U.S. Nationals slalom and she blew out her knee like the third turn into the second run and finished it stood it up when the race went straight to Dr. Steadman. So she's a bad ass. I watched her race on TV. I, I watched the race in Park City. I didn't really meet her until we had completed the transaction. She was working as the ski celebrity kind of or one of them at Park City at the time doing women's ski challenge, you know, clinics. I met her doing that. And so she came into the office one day I was there, you know, sitting at my desk trying to figure out what it meant to be an executive. And there's Kristi Terzian. And, you know, I made a fool out of myself that first day

Tom Kelly:|00:33:40| Yeah, but it worked out.

John Cumming:|00:33:41| It worked out.

Tom Kelly:|00:33:43| I want to read a quote that's on your website and talk a little bit about the formation of POWDR's, so you've you've acquired these resorts and you start this company called POWDR. But I really love this quote. It says, We're in this business because we believe the adventure lifestyle brings meaning and purpose to people's lives. That's really what you're about, isn't it?

John Cumming:|00:34:04| Absolutely.

Tom Kelly:|00:34:06| So how did this company POWDR come to be?

John Cumming:|00:34:12| Well, you know, those those those experiences I had with my family, in contrast to the rest of my life, which at the time was, you know, broken family, absentee parenting raised by nannies kind of thing, really showed me how, you know or I should say enhanced my life to such a degree that I've just never been able to forget it. And it and it led to me dedicating my life to smelling those smells and feeling those feelings. And and as I you know, as I got older and we got more fortunate, I you know, I just have been fixated on trying to share that with as many people as I could, as many families as I could.

Tom Kelly:|00:35:03| I always wondered, POWDR, for those who know the company is spelled POWDR, there's no E in it. How did you come to that name?

John Cumming:|00:35:13| We were one of those long conference again, I didn't know anything, I was, you know, still skinny climber dude, and Nick had agreed to this surrogacy kind of mentorship, but he was basically running the transaction. And I was just watching and but I showed up at the closing ceremony with Nick as the seller and me and powdered me. And it was called Merger Company at the time as the buyer and their lawyer scurrying around and stacks upon stacks upon stacks of documents they had to sign. You know, it's one of these you know, they don't do it this way all the time anymore, but giant conference table with twenty chairs around it and the and the people signing to like musical chairs around the table, signing stacks of documents when we walk in and people are racing around trying to get the final documents on the financing package together. And Nick and I walk in together and this lawyer corners us and says, look, we need a name for this deal. Like merger company doesn't work like the new baby, right? Yeah, exactly. Right. Right. George,

Tom Kelly:|00:36:24| It's like the new baby. What are we going to call him or her?

John Cumming:|00:36:27| And so I didn't have any idea, right, I mean, I was an infant in business and Nick was already successful in a couple of careers and she's I looked at him. I'm like, I have no idea. I put any thought into it. Actually, what came to mind was, how about American skiing company? Hadn't been taken yet.

Tom Kelly:|00:36:46| Seriously, you thought of that?

John Cumming:|00:36:49| Did, yeah, well, I mean, yeah, I don't yes, I don't know if it was American skiing company, but Americans. Yeah, something. Yes, that's what came to my mind. And I looked at Nick and I said, what are we going to call this thing? And the lawyer standing there and Nick says, how about POWDR without the E? And I said, cool and he said, because that's what was on Craig's license plate when he died. And I was like, done like I mean, it just brings tears to my eyes to this day. I was so honored to do that and I was so honored that he would offer it. And it just the whole thing put such a resounding exclamation point on both of our intents. You know, I wanted to keep the company private, family owned, which is what Nick aspired to do. I think with Craig, I wanted to honor Craig's legacy. Thankfully, I didn't know him. I mean that thankfully, because I could live up to an ideal without having had the burden of, like, specifically trying to aspire to be like him, you know what I mean? It was an ideal. It just it it just made everything suddenly sort of come together. And so we looked at the I looked at the lawyer and I said POWDR without the E. And and then we went probably fifteen or twenty years before I told anybody how we got that name.

Tom Kelly:|00:38:14| You know, it's funny because I have heard the story now and I always wondered, and when I did hear the story, I remembered Craig's license plate. And it's just a it's a it is a great story. You know, I often tell people that we are living in the best age of skiing ever right now. We have amazing opportunities with the transformation that has been made with what Vail Resorts has done with that, what Alterra has done, what Boyne has done. POWDR really is a different company and as good as everybody is in their own unique way, the family aspect that you've been talking about here, John, it really does ring true with POWDR, doesn't it?

John Cumming:|00:38:55| I hope so we talk about it in terms of their being objective value and subjective value and been using that lexicon to make decisions for a long time. But I think in recent history of skiing, meaning the last three or four or five years, we're seeing more and more of. The decisions that people make with their ski dollars, given that it's cheap everywhere, including a kind of a a subjective value of where they want to spend time and who they want to spend time with and who they want to transact with and why where they live and how they raise their family and whatnot. And so, um, you know, the opportunities that have arisen with cheap passes have been difficult for some of our resorts in the industry to to accommodate. There are areas we have limited capacity for sure. There, you know, traffic problems just, you know, are obvious in both some kind county, Colorado, and here in Wasatch Front in Utah, but and elsewhere. But but I believe that people will and already are making decisions to transact with people and communities that they feel valued by. And I'm hoping that that family feel and that community feel will provide some subjective justification for people to choose our resorts.

Tom Kelly:|00:40:35| The over over the years since you formed POWDR in the in the mid 90s, you've been successful in acquiring resorts all over the country here in Utah. Of course, we're going to talk in a minute about what you've done. It would work. We'll talk a little bit about Park City and Snowbird. While I know it's technically outside of POWDR, it's still managed as a part of the family. But but you have some real crown jewels around the country with Killington and Copper and Mt. Bachelor, along with some nice little small areas like Lee Canyon and and Boreal. It's quite a combination.

John Cumming:|00:41:10| Well, thank you, I mean, from the very beginning, Nick used to call it the rubber tire, the rubber tire market, he he really laid the groundwork, if you will, for my thinking about this kind of community gem, subjective value proposition. I think he was more practical about it. He thought the rubber tire business was a way a place where we could expand our company through acquisition, which is really the only way to expand by much in the industry in that space, because the real premiere destination resorts were always going to trade. really, dear - we couldn't we didn't have enough capital to be playing in that game. But if we did a good job and we operated efficiently and we provided good value to families and we were good stewards of those community gems, we thought we could sort of establish a beachhead there. And I think right now, given where we are with COVID, I think it's proving to be a fortunate position to be in. People aren't traveling, but people are going to want to be outside. They're going to ski at their local place. They're going to ski with their local club and local team or whatever. They're going to bring their families and they're going to you know, they're going to brown bag it in the parking lot like the old days. And I think our I appreciate that. I like our position in that regard. I think that's the I mean, that's how skiing was established. I mean, that's the vibe that made skiing great. And I think that's something I'm super proud to be part of it.

Tom Kelly:|00:42:53| You know, as we recorded this in early October, the season still a little bit away, but are you seeing positive signs in your season ticket sales around the country?

John Cumming:|00:43:02| Yeah, almost everywhere, surprisingly so.

Tom Kelly:|00:43:06| It is surprising isn't it?

John Cumming:|00:43:07| Yeah, you know, I mean, think about it, I mean. What we're seeing right now in October is right, right or wrong, people are it's not like we have predictability about disease spread and mortality rates or or, you know, it's not like we it's not like we all have clinical understandings about that. But we do. We have established, I believe, in these communities that being outside with our family is a nice consolation prize. It's not bad, and so, you know, what we're seeing in our season pass sales is a kind of a I think an extension of that belief into these mountain communities. It's like, you know what? Kids may be online and that sucks. But guess what? We can go skiing on a Wednesday afternoon. And so even though our resort company has chosen to reduce capacity and in terms of the numbers that will accept, there are more days where more people have more opportunity and they have more evidence that that kind of outdoor activity as a family is safe or relatively safe or more safe than go into a movie or concert for sure. And so I think what we'll see is as as there's some evidence, you know, as snow materializes or doesn't in whatever region in the country, I think we'll see really solid demand.

John Cumming:|00:44:39| I personally believe that it's our responsibility as operators to start with the aperture pretty tight and then open it if there's no problem. I don't want our company chosen not to open wide and sort of pray that we don't have an outbreak and we've chosen to do the opposite. We're going to curtail our capacity. We're going to do it on the reservations. We're going to limit, you know, access on parking to limit the headcount on the on the Hill. We're going to limit, you know, commentary and or commissary type stuff. And we're going to and we're going to hope that new information demonstrates that that doesn't create any spreading events. And by spring, I'm hoping we're wall to wall. We'll see. I like I said before, I think the demand is there. I can't wait to escape. Oh, my God, Tom. I mean, this has been excruciating. Like, I adjust my psyche sliding in the mountains. I mean, I suck at it anymore, but I still use it like it's the most uplifting thing I do in my life and always has been. And we were like screaming along. Everything was great, skiing was awesome and whack. The whole thing stopped.

Tom Kelly:|00:45:49| Yeah, I you know, for for me that as the resort started to accommodate the COVID situation in March, it was kind of depressing because that personal connection of the person next to you in the chairlift was all evolving. And I got kind of really depressed a little bit. And then, chunk, it just stopped. And this summer I just wasn't really looking forward to it. And then all of a sudden I started to hear these little signals that people were buying season passes. And, you know, you get the letter from the resorts that would say this is how we're going to do it. And all of a sudden I said to myself, it's possible we're going to be able to do it. And now I think there's this wave of optimism that you're going to see.

John Cumming:|00:46:30| I hope you're right!

Tom Kelly:|00:46:32| Hope so, too, John. I want to talk about community. And I know that that's very important with with all of your resorts. And I know you from this community here in Park City. And I've watched what you've done in helping to start the Park City Community Foundation to help to give back to causes. I've watched what you done with Copper Moose Farm on your property and, you know, trying to grow organically and give back. Talk a little bit about the importance of community. You're a businessman, a business leader, but community is where your people come from and that's important to you.

John Cumming:|00:47:07| You know, I've always aspired to leave my community a better place than I found it, and I got that from my father and from Nick, and I've always felt some responsibility to pay it forward to the extent that I could. And so with that backdrop, you know, I mean, these these destination communities have lots of opportunity, but we don't have a lot of dedication and commitment. I'm not I don't mean that as a value judgment. I just mean we have a lot of transient, you know, visitors coming through who value the place or they wouldn't come, but they don't value the place like we do and they don't have any perspective on what the community might need. So I have this value that I wanted to make sure that when I'm dead and gone, the place is enhanced by having had me present, you know, and I've been very fortunate in spite of some scars, you know, I've been fortunate. And so I just wanted to I just wanted to make sure that the place that I raised my family, that my wife raised, my family built my business was. Benefited as much as I did from my presence, you know, I don't know if that makes sense, but that's been always been the aspiration.

John Cumming:|00:48:41| I just feel like you need try and leave the world a better place than you found it in the world to be a better place when you're gone, you know? So that's why I did it. The Copper Moose Farm. I mentioned how important Mountain Hardwear was to me and powder's been my life's work. But of all the things I've been involved in in my life, the compromise farm is by far the most satisfying. It does not pay the rent, but it it does a couple of things that I think are really meaningful to me personally that like they like they're an expression of my values. You know, I believe in climate change and having suffered a chronic disease, I believe that nutrition is probably lacking and maybe plays a role in some of these chronic illnesses. I was at a time in my life when we founded the farm where I was cursing the darkness on both of those things. We had the sword of Damocles, of climate change. We had you know, nobody could tell me why the health issues that our, you know, what was triggering it and how to fix it or any of that stuff. I just knew that.

Tom Kelly:|00:50:01| And you have you have MS

John Cumming:|00:50:03| Yeah, so I was diagnosed with them as a bunch of years ago, 2000. 20 years ago. And so instead of just cursing the darkness and sort of bemoaning my situation and, you know, I said I got a frickin cursing the darkness is a waste of time. Right? My dad used to say, don't curse the darkness, light a frickin match. So I'm like, all right, got it. So we eat tomatoes that are shipped around the world, covered in, first of all, they're dyed, covered in wax, put on a ship, transported half the way around the world, burning bunker fuel, creating toxicity in the atmosphere and the seas and providing no nutritional value to the people that eat it on the other end. And so I was like, what can I do to combat those two things that are very personal to me? You know, we have a lot of money invested in there being so emotionally and objectively money wise. I have a lot of investment in staying ambulatory as long as I can and not being blind. And so I said this is a way for me to take some action on both of those things which are so important to me. And I felt like and I feel like the farm. Affords families an alternative on both scores, climate change and nutrition, which I think are two very. Unpredictable aspects of our existence going forward, so it's a super idealistic deal, but again, I was just feeling badly scared, frustrated, angry, and that was taking me nowhere. So I said, screw it, we're going to do this. And we did. And now it's it's been amazing. I mean, we don't it can afford to buy its own tractors now after many years.

Tom Kelly:|00:52:08| It's been interesting, I mean, just living in Park City to know that you can go to this farmstand and you can get this great produce, but I think what else it's done to your point, John, is it really has educated this community about this and there's offshoots of it growing up around us. So you did really start something there. I know that during COVID you had nearly a dozen of your resort communities around the country that all of a sudden your employees are out of work. The community has lost this revenue. And you had this and I think you had this program ready to go. But we're able to really bring it to the fore during COVID year, play it forward program and really being able to support the needs of the community despite the business loss that was occurring this spring.

John Cumming:|00:52:59| We have had this climate change, carbon footprint, watershed, you know, et cetera, environmental program called Play Forever as part of our brand, something that we've been trying to perfect for many years. And it's and it's a kind of a posterity, kind of a thing. We want to make sure that I mean, given that we're primarily in the ski business, it's important that we believe that climate change doesn't put us out of business. Right. So we want to do our part. We're not afraid of being out in front of that. We don't want to we don't have any interest in not acknowledging that it's going on and doing the best work that we can to to provide examples for others, you know. So but you're right. I mean, all of a sudden, we furloughed or laid off 6,000 people across the country and we devastated these communities. We were talking earlier about how athletics and business demonstrate the tiny fraction of a difference between success and failure. And if you if you shut down a community, a mountain community that may or may not be you know, some of these communities are kind of fringy. Their economies are kind of fringy. And you take not just a fraction, a single digit percentage out of their revenue or their economy, but you take 30 percent or 25 or 30 percent out, people are going to be struggling. And so I was really sad about our going from what was going to be an objective record by far to a 40 percent reduction in our cash flow year over year or something like that.

John Cumming:|00:54:46| I was really more concerned about the people. So so I believe back to that constructive, objective and subjective. You know, you can't not be objective minded when that's what you need to do. So we laid people off because we had no choice. We laid as few as we could. We we cut as as shallow, if you will. We excised this little excess tissue as we could because we're a private company and we could afford to, but we had to excise the tissue and and and that left communities without the basis, you know, to survive potentially. Or at least I worried. I mean, think of Nederland, Colorado, for crying out loud, you know, and these are places that are not like vivacious economies. You know, every state that we that we work in. This was a this moved the dial, folks. So while I was trying to be objective minded about what was important was to make POWDR survive, I was really troubled by the impact I was having on the people who had signed up to work for with us and the communities in which we live. So thankfully, we were in a position, my brother and I, to do some philanthropic stuff to counteract that fact. I've had involvement in community foundations. I believe that they are a very efficient model, maybe not the best, but the most efficient model that I've found to direct funds to a community where the need is most acute. And I thought this might be an opportunity for us to establish some communities, relationships, a community, philanthropic relationships for our resorts that maybe would benefit them for over time.

John Cumming:|00:56:34| So we use that play forever model and we established the Play It Forward fund, which was, you know, intended to provide resources to these communities and to the people in them that that were most deeply affected by the resource that we closed. You know, it didn't come close to fill in the hole in the gaps that we created by doing what was objectively the right thing, but subjectively incredibly painful. But we thought that it was the right thing to do for these communities with whom we work and with whom we play and with whom we raise our families. I wish it could have been ten times the money, frankly, but we did the best we could and I think it moved the dial. And I think, as I said, it established our presence in those communities in a way that when the next COVID comes, which hopefully will be another 100 years. Right. But whatever comes, there's a mechanism for us to support. And I again, I put that on the subjective side of things objectively. We're going to run the hell out of these resorts and do the best we can to make them as profitable and self-sustaining as possible and enduring as possible. But we can't do that without the help of healthy, vibrant communities, you know, in which we live. We can't do that. And so subjectively, we. Got to make sure that we're doing everything we can to leave them better off than we found.

Tom Kelly:|00:58:02| Well, as a family run company, you have that opportunity, which is very fortuitous for for these towns and villages around the country. Just one more thing on on community before we start to wind it down. I know that nearly a decade ago you had a small error that here at Park City Mountain Resort ...

John Cumming:|00:58:23| Big error - it was a big error!

Tom Kelly:|00:58:24| Well, smaller with big impact that resulted in you having to sell the company five years later. And John, we don't need to rehash the kind of what happened thing, but as a leader, you know, and having a company that was really pivotal in the community, you know, as you look back on that, what are your thoughts?

John Cumming:|00:58:43| Well, you know, I regret it, I regret it deeply, I was it was difficult period of time because I was playing a role that that was inconsistent with my values as it relates to my community. We were committed to plan a pretty hard game there and that was going to damage the community that I value so much. But I needed to play that card and it worked out reasonably well. I didn't want to sell the company, but we did OK in that transaction. What I remember most about it, though, is, is that, you know, it's it was it may have been I mean, we've been using that constructive objectively objectivity and subjectivity in the balance of those two things for a long time. The logo of POWDR is a fulcrum and it implies balance. Right. And so it's objective, subjective balance. It's the life - work balance. It's the, you know, environmental versus versus progress balance. I mean, in life, what we need is balance. Um, but I think the Park City debacle and pain on me personally and on our family and on our community to some degree and to our company, you know, really benefit us because it was it was a real clear example for me anyway of that balance. Like, you got to do what you got to do sometimes. Like if you if you want to go be an enlightened person, go find a tree, sit under a tree in a diaper, and someday you'll be enlightened, hopefully. Right. But if you're going to be a capitalist or a businessman or a leader or an entrepreneur, you got to play that game, you know, and and you should still find balance. But when you're playing that game, you play it. And that's what we did.

Tom Kelly:|01:00:46| Did some of that lead to what she did at Woodward?

John Cumming:|01:00:49| Yeah, well, the Woodward Park City,

Tom Kelly:|01:00:52| Woodward Park City.

John Cumming:|01:00:52| Yeah, so if that hadn't if the whole Park City thing hadn't happened, the Woodward Park City wouldn't be so big, you know. That was part of me that said, screw it, I don't care. I want to build the biggest, baddest thing we can see. It was a it was my own little ego, Phoenix rising kind of a thing, you know. Was it justified? I don't know. We'll see. Covert it screwed that up for the short term. Maybe the medium term. We'll see. I mean, but I am proud as hell to be involved in that. I think it's a huge enhancement to the community. You find me a kid in town who wouldn't enjoy spending a day doing that. And so, like I said, I'm not. Yes, the parks the lawsuit led to that. Would we have done it? Yes. Would we have done sort of like what we did in Lake Tahoe? More than likely? Would we have done what we did? No freaking way. And so, yeah, so and I'm quite proud to have done it all things being equal, I would have done the same thing. Meaning if we had sold Park City and in some other circumstance I'd have done the same thing. Yeah. So those two things are related.

Tom Kelly:|01:02:05| For me, as a ski historian, I was excited to see it because there's a long history at Gorgoza and even going back before then as Parleys Summit ski area, in fact, I don't know if you know this, John, but there were two or three ski areas along that whole southern side of what is now 80 that were operating all the way back into the 20s, some of the first skiing in the state. And it's just great to see Gorgoza now, Woodward Park City rising up and see the lights and to see the kids just having a great time out there on snow.

John Cumming:|01:02:38| Thank you. I mean, it's, again, their subjective value for me and that, but I went to Woodward, Pennsylvania many years ago before we acquired that company and I walked on and I was like, so resenting the trip, I didn't want to get into summer camp. Some good gracious whiskey guys. You know, it's hard enough. What the hell are we doing here? Finally, I was convinced to go and I walked on the campus and I see these children in rapture, you know, I mean, absolute fixation and, you know, with like ketchup on their t shirts and sweaty as hell smell like, I mean, animals and completely fixed and dilated on what they were doing, working on whatever trick or whatever, you know, activity they were doing with their friends, you know, in this in this sort of very secluded part of Pennsylvania. And again, I had resisted going, you know, for for, you know, three or four weeks. Finally, I'm like, all right, fine, if you'll leave me alone, I'll go check it out. And like I said, I walked in, I took one look at those rapture, those faces, and I was like, if we can figure out how to do a fraction of that on our mountains, in our ski schools, on our and by the way, extrapolate that gymnastics base progression process into what we do in action, sports on the mountain, a fraction of it we win. And so what we're aspiring to do at Woodbury Tahoe would woodchopper wooded Park City and on our mountains in our through our ski schools is sort of sort of take that and put it into the expression that kids and young adults experience on the mountain like that. Rapture's what I experienced as a kid.

Tom Kelly:|01:04:21| It really, you know, as I was going to come back to you to close out with this big philosophical question, but you've answered it throughout this. And, you know, to me what you're talking about it, Woodward, it's it's what your dad even used to do with you and David and scoop you up in bed in Salt Lake and take you up to Snowbird, have the time of your life the next day.

John Cumming:|01:04:39| Yeah, I mean, I believe that those young people that we share that experience with will never, ever forget it and their life will be enhanced like mine was.

Tom Kelly:|01:04:51| It will. So we're going to close this out, wonderful discussion, but I've got this section. We close out all of the podcast here on last year with called Fresh Tracks this year. And this is going to be four or five, six questions. Simple, no tricky answers. Just learn a little bit more about you. You know, John is a climber. You have done many routes on Rainier and Denali. But if you think back, what's that one route you've done that you're most proud of?

John Cumming:|01:05:16| The worst part was on Mount McKinley is the most beautiful climbing I've ever done. There's also, what is it, the north? I guess it would be the northwest rib of Illimani in Bolivia. Also beautiful.

Tom Kelly:|01:05:31| Taking it back home, your favorite restaurant dinner, when you and Kristi want to go out for a nice evening.

John Cumming:|01:05:40| Well, that's kind of a trick question in this town.

Tom Kelly:|01:05:46| Yes, you really do get put on the spot with that.

John Cumming:|01:05:49| Know, we have a favorite restaurant in San Diego that we go to called Sbicca.

Tom Kelly:|01:05:59| And what do they serve as Sbicca?

John Cumming:|01:06:00| It's an Italian fusion, kind of modern, yeah, Mediterranean style.

Tom Kelly:|01:06:07| So, John, you're a very focused businessman, you have a passion for the outdoors, but setting that aside, do you have any hobbies?

John Cumming:|01:06:15| I love to fish.

Tom Kelly:|01:06:16| You do?

John Cumming:|01:06:16| Yeah,

Tom Kelly:|01:06:16| Fly-fishing?

John Cumming:|01:06:18| I know my vision has been affected by nerve damage, so, I mean, I think it's because I've spent my whole life in the mountains, I love to go offshore and fish like where you can't see the brown part, like way offshore for Marlin. And you drive around for a day or two and you don't see anything and then you catch a giant fish. And that's I just love that.

Tom Kelly:|01:06:39| Beautiful. I wrote a story earlier this summer about Andy Mill, a former U.S. ski team, Downhill Racer is a world champion tarpon fisherman, and that was just fascinating.

John Cumming:|01:06:49| Bonefish and tarpon

Tom Kelly:|01:06:50| Yeah, just fascinating to hear about that. Your favorite musician.

John Cumming:|01:06:56| My brother would make fun of me, actually, I think Sting.

Tom Kelly:|01:07:02| Awesome, can't go wrong there, your favorite ski run in Utah.

John Cumming:|01:07:08| Regulator Johnson.

Tom Kelly:|01:07:09| Can't beat it. Last question, groomers, groomer's, powder, glades or moguls.

John Cumming:|01:07:17| It used to be powder as I get older groomer's.

Tom Kelly:|01:07:20| Groomers are just fine, John. I mean, it's been a joy to have you kick off this season of last year. Thanks for sharing your story and your passion for skiing.

John Cumming:|01:07:28| Thanks for including me.