When Doug Holler, the new Director of the Dartmouth Skiway, entered the snowmaking industry, he might have gone to New England or the skiing Meccas of the West, rather than to the warm South. "I'm probably one of only a few to have made snow in Alabama," said Holler, referring to over a year he spent with Snow Machines Inc. (SMI), a global snowmaking company that sent him to the southern Appalachians.
Holler began his work at the Dartmouth Skiway in October.
Growing up in western Pennsylvania, where the nearest slope was a 115-mile drive, and no one in his family a skier, Holler has unlikely origins for a ski enthusiast
"One day in high school a friend's mother piled a bunch of us into her station wagon and took us on a trip to Peek'n Peak in western New York," he said. "I was hooked."
After a college internship at Peek'n Peak, Holler worked there full-time for four years before joining SMI, with whom he acted as a snowmaking consultant for ski areas in the Midwest and South. After a year and a half Holler returned to working in ski patrol, grooming and management at several resorts in the Catskills and the Finger Lakes region of New York. Holler comes to Dartmouth from Naples, NY, where he helped manage two ski areas.
Skiing, he said, allows him to be in the outdoors. "I also enjoy skiing because it's a solitary yet social sport. You don't have to have another person out there, but it can also be a lot of fun with others."
-- Asa Tapley '02
