Leadville – Alpino, the Denver-based organization that strives to teach minority and urban kids the joys of skiing and snowboarding, is taking on another role: career counseling.
The 4-year-old group, which plans to expose at least 4,000 kids to Colorado’s ski slopes this winter, is teaming up with the Leadville branch of Colorado Mountain College to encourage minority youths to seek jobs in ski-resort operations or management.
The two have been working since the fall to establish the Colorado Mountain College Center for Mountain Recreation Diversity at the Timberline campus, with a focus on creating a more ethnically diverse student population interested in ski-area operations, resort management and outdoor education.
“We need to convey to minorities and people of color that snow sports and mountain recreation are not just the exclusive domain of well- heeled white folks, that everyone can and should participate,” Alpino founder Roberto Moreno said.
CMC and Alpino are seeking at least $250,000 in funding over the next two years from corporations and private sources to establish the center and begin offering scholarships and financial aid to minority students.
With 12 campuses across the state, roughly 22 percent of CMC’s 20,000 students are minorities. At its Leadville campus, which has 350 students, 32 students are studying Ski Area Operations, a two-year associate-degree program that covers topics including lift maintenance and snowmaking. But only one or two minority students sign up for the program each year, Timberline dean John Marrin said.
In Colorado, only 10 percent of skiers and snowboarders are minorities, according to Boulder’s RRC Associates, lagging behind the national average of 12 percent. But roughly 25 percent of the state’s population is non- white, with Hispanics making up the largest group at just over 17 percent, according to 2000 U.S. Census data.
Fewer than 1 percent of management-level employees at Colorado’s 26 ski resorts are minorities, Moreno said.
Alpino has worked with several Colorado ski areas, but its largest partnership is with Vail Resorts, owner of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone.
Last year, Vail Resorts gave Alpino a two-year deal to bring 2,500 minority and urban kids annually to its four Colorado resorts for free. It also agreed to hire 10 people of color each season to work in front-line positions, such as ski patrol and ticket sales.
“It’s baby steps,” said Bill Jensen, vice president and chief operating officer of Vail Mountain. “The question is, how do we get a larger number of minorities in those back-of-the-house positions, like housekeeping and busboys, into more front-line positions?”
This fall, Vail Resorts hired its first full-time diversity coordinator, Billy Nowell, to coordinate the Alpino trips. Nowell, who is African-American, has been a ski instructor at Breckenridge for a decade.
“The first time I went skiing, I was hooked on it, and it was what I wanted to do from then on,” he said. “Could there be more minorities working here? Yeah. But I just do my job.”
Jensen estimated that fewer than 5 percent of Vail Resorts’ winter guests are minorities.
“I think the real success for the ski industry will come through broadening our appeal to ethnic populations around the sport first,” he said. “Then we can bring them in from an employment standpoint.”
Nationally, 12 percent of skiers and snowboarders last season were minorities, with Asians making up the largest chunk at 3 percent, followed by 2.7 percent for Hispanics and 1.4 percent for African-Americans, according to the Lakewood-based National Ski Areas Association.
But with the number of people who ski basically stagnant for more than 25 years, many see targeting minorities as a smart way to grow the bottom line.
“The industry cannot survive on fat white guys anymore,” said Paul Rauschke, ski-area operations professor at CMC. “This is the right thing to do on many levels.”
Staff writer Julie Dunn can be reached at 303-820-1592 or jdunn@denverpost.com.
