Terry Farrell
Record staff
The winds of change have swept over Mount Washington Alpine Resort.
A management shift has taken place, to replace the recently departed director of business operations and marketing, Don Sharpe, who has moved to the mainland to run the Manning Park ski resort.
Sheila Rivers has moved up from brand and communications manager to the marketing manager position, while former Mount Washington Snow School, alpine rentals and bike park manager, Mike Manara, has assumed the position of director of sports & guest services.
Mount Washington Alpine Resort general manager Peter Gibson said the changes are a win-win for both Sharpe and Mount Washington.
“It’s basically an opportunity on both sides,” said Gibson. “Don has gone to a good position which I think is a growth position for him, and internally, we had two people who were ... ready to take on more responsibility.”
As the new marketing manager, Rivers said her job is multi-faceted.
A primary focus will be to showcase Mount Washington as a year-round destination and the focal point for the Vancouver Island recreation and tourism industry through leveraging tourism and business partnerships.
She also plans to grow the resort’s attention to beginners in snow sports and lift-accessed biking.
“Beginners drive the growth of our sports and the industry, our focus is to introduce to beginners the amazing social and physical benefits tied in with our community of mountain enthusiasts by promoting offers and programs specifically tailored to beginners,” she said.
Another focus will be to increase benefits to the Season Passholder Club by negotiating further reciprocals, added in-resort benefits and providing additional benefits, Island-wide.
“I am thrilled to be joining the management team at Mount Washington; it is an incredible opportunity to have a career based around the sports that I love,” said Rivers. “With our outstanding team, I am excited to be a part of the resort’s new and revitalized direction.”
Gibson said Rivers will inject some fresh enthusiasm to the management team.
“She offers youth, excitement, and a different perspective in terms of her being a millenial... she will be bringing that perspective to the table.”
Before coming to the Comox Valley, Rivers spent some time in Alberta, as a marking wholesaler at Sunshine Village ski resort in Banff. She was also the advertising manager for the Banff Crag, and Canyon and Canmore Leader, a couple of Sun Media publications.
Manara, who has been at Mount Washington for 15 years, will be taking over the year-round offerings at the resort. His main focus currently is to add to the summer activities and atmosphere, and to improve the overall guest experience from arrival to departure.
“To be able to share my passion with our guests and positively impact their on-mountain experience is an exciting opportunity,” he said.
“To influence and evolve our product offerings, paves the way to set Mount Washington up as the top destination to visit on Vancouver Island - summer and winter.”
Manara will also be overseeing The Rossignol Experience Centre, retail, rentals, and the Mount Washington Bike Park.
“He brings a lot of energy,” said Gibson. “He has been very involved with the snow industry in western Canada. The Canada West Ski Areas Association gave him the (2015) Lars Fossberg Award, which is given to the top up-and-comer in the ski industry. So he was recognized quite early in the process.”
In addition to his employ at Mount Washington, Manara is a founding member and long-standing president of the United Riders of Cumberland, who negotiated the land access agreement.
Gibson said the management shift process is ongoing.
“The best way to put it is we are still in a little bit of motion here; not all of Don’s responsibilities have gone to Sheila and Mike. What we have done is assigned some areas to a number of people here and after a couple of months we will (revisit) the process.”
He added that the internal advancement was a conscious decision by the company.
“We try, whenever possible, to hire internally,” said Gibson. “We have a number of career paths where people started here on the line and are now in management or senior management positions. We are very lucky, as a company, that we retain a lot of our staff.”
Gibson said the process of replacing someone who had been part of the Mount Washington company and community for as many years (17) as Don Sharpe can be a daunting task, but it has been a relatively easy changeover to date.
“It was a fairly smooth transition,” said Gibson. “Don was a first-class person with the process. He gave us good warning and was very helpful in the transition - spent a lot of time talking to different staff so that every possibility or ‘what if’ was looked after.”
–With files from Mount Washington