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Scott Bender On Mission To Restore Pennsylvania's Hidden Valley

By Roger Leo
October 06, 2008

Scott Bender is on a mission to restore Hidden Valley Four Seasons Resort in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania.

Bender moved over in July from nearby Seven Springs, where he was president and CEO, to become VP of resort operations at Hidden Valley.

"I'm rebuilding the team to put Hidden Valley back on the map," Bender told The Industry Report."

Operations slipped in the years before Buncher Resort and Hospitality Group LLC bought the resort in 2007, Bender said. "The former owners just got away from reinvesting and let it backslide to the point where there was no consistency in the operation and people were losing faith that it would even be open when it was scheduled to be.

"We're starting from the ground up because of the poor condition some of the facilities were left in, due to lack of staffing and clientele. We're rebuilding all that. Somerset County and the local communities here were thrilled when Buncher bought Hidden Valley, and in their interest to rejuvenate the resort, and bring back the crowds that were once here. We have convention facilities, a nice ski hill, and a great lodge and layout. It's mainly beginner and intermediate terrain, a solid family mountain, without a whole lot of advanced slopes, but there are some.

"By the start of the season we'll have four terrain parks in place, with a beginner to intermediate approach because of the nature of the terrain. We're developing something people can learn on and feel safe on. You won't find any 30-foot jumps here; it's low to the ground, where kids can learn. We're also setting up to encourage parents to try it; the features we install will be put in just that way," Bender said.

Hidden Valley did 150,000 skier visits a year in its heyday which in Pennsylvania means a solid medium-size area. Bender's goal is first to get the resort back to that, and then take it beyond.

He is well-suited to the task, having spent his entire working life in recreation, and most of it in the ski industry.

Bender got a job at 14, in the Greensburg summer recreation program mowing grass and picking up trash. Over several summers, his work ethic parlayed the job into that of full-time recreation director for the town, with a sideline in swimming pools.

That sideline brought him to the attention of Seven Springs Mountain Resort, owned by Herman K. Dupre. The area brought him on as in-house marketing manager in 1983, and bumped him up the ladder until he became CEO in 2000.

A year ago, Bender put on a political fundraiser for one of the Somerset County commissioners, at which he met three executives from Buncher, Pittsburgh developers who are now the new owners of nearby Hidden Valley.

"I met them, we made small chat for five minutes, then they said, 'OK, Scott, we'd like you to come run Hidden Valley for us; that's what we'd like.'

"I didn't take that comment all that seriously, but they stayed in touch and, at the end of ski season last spring, I got another call and they said they'd like me to run Hidden Valley. They made me a good offer and I decided I had to do this," Bender said.

"Leaving Seven Springs was a very tough decision," Bender said. The resort grew from 300,000 skier visits a year to between 450,000 and 475,000 during his 25 years there.

"It wasn't that I was a marketing whiz, it's that Seven Springs was such a great property, having so many overnight guests from the Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Cleveland, and Columbus areas. I loved working with the press and other media to really grow the place. I never had felt more a part of anything than I did at Seven Springs," Bender said.

But all things change. Dupre, longtime owner of Seven Springs, sold to another private ownership. Then Buncher arrived in the Hidden Valley area with its purchase of an 810-acre parcel nearby that had been a game preserve.

"They watched Hidden Valley, and after several years with no purchaser saw that it wasn't being kept up. They bought the resort to do just that, operate it the way it once was. Hidden Valley was a hopping place in the '90s with skiers, conventions, restaurants, and other eateries, and overnight lodging. The resort had lost all that by the early 2000s.

"Buncher decided to purchase it and bring it back.I'm hired to help lead that renaissance," Bender said.

Change began before Bender's arrival, however, underscoring Buncher's interest in revitalizing the resort.

In its year-plus of ownership, Buncher has engaged in physical renovations of Hidden Valley that include four new roofs, new paint inside and out, new carpeting and doors, new signage and lighting, refurbished restrooms, repaved roads and parking lots, new ramps for better handicap access, and free wireless Internet access in the lodge.

Buncher has installed 80 new TechnoAlpin fan guns and five miles of water lines, a new Dopplemayer CTEC quad in place of the Blizzard and Lightning double chairs, and two loading conveyors.

The ski area has two new Pisten Bully groomers and a Zaugg half pipe cutter, and also replaced the entire ski and snowboard rental inventory.

Bender's role includes attention to those physical assets, but also encompasses all the intangibles and subtleties of resort operations.

"I'll be building a team to bring back the credibility and consistency of the operation. We want to create a unique ski experience for families, and by that I'm referring to terrain parks where parents can and will feel comfortable dropping in and finding out what these are all about.

"We're looking at a baby boomer snowboarding school. We want to bring customer service to a great level, and bring back the meetings and conferences and weddings that once were here, while keeping the area as beautiful as it is.

"Even with real estate development around the golf course, we're looking at leaving the landscape intact, working and building around the trees because the end product is so different," he said.

That's the shape of Bender's life, at least for the next few years.

Bender studied mechanical engineering, but never used his degree, moving instead from one opportunity to the next, through a series of personal contacts that have kept him on or near ski slopes for his adult life.

"I'm been very lucky, very fortunate," he said.

Who would disagree?

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