Mike Reitzell, second from left, chatting at Ski California’s Lift Maintenance and Operations Education conference.
SAM sat down with the new National Ski Areas Association president and CEO, Mike Reitzell. MEET MIKE BY KATIE BRINTON, SENIOR EDITOR, SAM
Safety Guide, and spearheaded Califor- nia and Nevada ski areas’ response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A lifelong skier, Reitzell caught the bug as a 5-year-old on day trips to Bear Valley, Calif., with his parents. That early passion for the sport has subtly and not so subtly shaped his career. As an under- grad at USC (“not exactly skiing’s hot- bed”), it led him to captain the USC ski
In September, the National Ski Areas Association named Mike Reitzell as its new president and CEO. Unlike his predecessors, Reitzell doesn’t come to the job with a background in re- sort operations. Rather, for 14 years, he was an attorney with San Francis- co- and Tahoe-based firm Hancock Rothert & Bunshoft, representing ski resorts in California and Nevada in lit-
igation and risk management before a career pivot led him to the California Ski Industry Association (Ski Cali- fornia), where he served as president since 2015. During his time at Ski California he oversaw the creation of the Lift Mainte- nance and Operations Education (LMOE) annual conference, launched the associ- ation’s multi-award-winning Mountain
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