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Feeding The Holiday Spirit At Mammoth

By Craig Altschul
December 27, 2006

So, you're one of about 1,000 brand new season employees ready to go to work (or ski or ride) at Mammoth Mountain, Calif. The problem is the early season was the biggest bust in a decade and there wasn't much terrain that could be opened.

Uh-oh. No paycheck. Rent due.

Here comes Santa Claus. In a better-than-gesture that ought to make a phenomenal first impression, Mammoth Mountain forgave early rent bills in its employee housing units, and fired up the kitchens in Canyon Lodge for dinner this Christmas.

They've done it virtually every night since late November, culminating just before the big holiday rush with a Christmas dinner for 800 workers.

"They probably ate better this month than they will all season," Jack Copeland, director of human resources for the resort told The Industry Report. "We're not talking peanut butter and jelly, either. The Christmas dinner was tri-tip and swordfish."

All in all, Copeland says Mammoth served 13,300 complimentary meals. Most didn't have wheels, so the bus runs were made bringing them up the mountain. That, too, was a good thing, as the bus drivers got some hours in.

Mammoth employs about 2,400 people every winter. About 1,000 of those return every winter season and usually have both transportation and digs. But, the newbies wouldn't have been able to make it without help from the resort.

"We didn't want them going home," Copeland said. "We let them ski and snowboard during the day and the energy was really positive, when it could have been otherwise. That's the energy we want to see as the resort fully opens."

Can anyone say "class act?" Well, we can.

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