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Alexander Cushing Dies At 92

By J.D. O'Connor
August 21, 2006

Alexander C. Cushing, ski pioneer and sportsman, has died at his summer home in Newport Rhode Island, the family announced today.

Cushing founded Squaw Valley and is credited with bringing the Winter Olympics to Squaw Valley in 1960. He succumbed to pneumonia on Aug. 19. He was 92.

"Alex has left his vision for Squaw Valley USA's future with his wife and current President of Squaw Valley Ski Corp, Nancy W. Cushing, as well as the Board of Directors to fulfill," says Squaw Valley Ski Corp Trustee, David Robertson.

"He was an icon," NSAA president Michael Berry said Monday. "He was of the founding generation but beyond that he brought the spectacular 1960 Games and that was a tipping point for the industry as a whole. The visibility that was created by those events made the ski industry what it is today, and as young people watching at that time, I'll never forget what he did."

Born in 1913 in New York City, Cushing attended Groton School, Harvard University, 1936 and Harvard Law School, 1939. He practiced law for the New York firm of Davis, Polk and Wardwell and also for the U.S. Dept. of Justice, where he argued a case before the Supreme Court. The day after Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was a member of the first officer training class at Quonset. He served in South America and the Pacific for five years, retiring as a Lieutenant Commander.

On a storied ski trip to the West with his friend Alexander McFadden after the war he first set eyes on Squaw Valley, Calif., and was transformed. Cushing opened the ski area in 1949 with a double chairlift, a rope tow and a fifty room lodge. Today, Squaw Valley is among the world's best known ski resorts.

Cushing's family said his indomitable spirit was tested more than once in those early years.

The resort's chairlift, Squaw One, was destroyed by avalanche each year for its first three years. The fourth year of operations there was a devastating flood, and during the fifth year, the lodge burned down.

Many would have called it quits but Cushing stuck it out, lobbying hard to make Squaw Valley the site for the 1960 VIII Olympic Winter Games, and beating out internationally regarded resorts such as Innsbruck, Austria, St. Moritz, Switzerland and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany.

Cushing's Olympic bid, written in French, English, and Spanish, declared that "the Olympics belonged to the world. Not just one continent."

The first televised Olympics, the 1960 games brought international publicity to the Lake Tahoe region and sparked interest in winter sports and California skiing.

Cushing was inducted into the U.S. National Ski Hall of Fame in 2003. He is survived by his wife Nancy, his three daughters, Justine Cushing, Lily Kunczynski, and Alexandra Howard, his six grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.

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