Lives

Grooming Innovator, Alta Assistant General Manager

Russ Harmer
Passing Date: March 22, 2022

Snowcat innovator and grooming pioneer Russ Harmer passed away on March 22, 2022, in Salt Lake City, at age 74. Harmer grew up on a farm in Mapleton, Utah. In 1966, with the seasonal farm operations slowing down, Harmer found work supervising Alta’s fleet of three small snowcats. He befriended...

Instructor, Industry Rep

Jan Gulliksen
Passing Date: March 21, 2022

Jan Erling Gulliksen, a 60-year veteran of the U.S. ski industry, died  March 21, 2022, in Montrose, Colorado. He was 87 years old. Gulliksen grew up in Norway and was six years old when the German army invaded his country. In 1949, at age 15, he went to sea, first on a whaling ship bound for...

Instructor, climber, resort manager

Jon Reveal
Passing Date: February 24, 2022

Jon Reveal, a longtime Aspen Skiing Company executive, died unexpectedly on February 24, 2022, at the end of a workday at Tamarack Resort in Idaho. He was 77. Reveal grew up in California and started skiing at age three. He raced throughout the West and graduated from the University of California–...

Quebec resort visionary

Louis Dufour
Passing Date: February 19, 2022

Quebec ski industry leader Louis Dufour died February 19, 2022. He was 81. A former member of the Canadian Ski Team, in 1972 Dufour joined the marketing department at Saint-Saveur resort. In1978, with the acquisition of Jay Peak, Vermont, he worked with Jacques Hébert to launch Mont Saint-Sauveur...

Retailer, diversity activist

Yosh Nakagawa
Passing Date: January 29, 2022

Yoshitada Nakagawa, retired president/CEO of Seattle’s Osborn & Ulland Sporting Goods chain and a lifelong activist for diversity in sports, passed away peacefully at age 89 on January 29, following a third bout of cancer. Yosh was born to immigrant parents in Seattle’s multi-ethnic Central...

Doppelmayr Engineer, Lift Innovator

John West
Passing Date: December 23, 2021

John West, 82, passed away peacefully at his home in Sandy, Oregon, December 23, 2021. West learned to ski at Red Devil ski area in Government Camp, Oregon, owned by his parents. He attended the University of Wyoming on a full ski racing scholarship, then studied engineering at the Oregon Technical...

Coach, author, mentor

Ron LeMaster
Passing Date: November 30, 2021

Ultimate Skiing, by Ron LeMaster Ron LeMaster, the widely-respected analyst of ski technique, was killed November 30 in a collision with a snowboarder. He was 72 years old. The accident took place on Windmill, an intermediate run at Eldora, near LeMaster’s home in Boulder, Colorado. When patrollers...

Promoter, entrepreneur, publisher

Barry Hollister
Passing Date: November 26, 2021

Joseph “Barry” Hollister, founder of the Ski America promotion company, passed away on November 26 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, at the age of 80. In the 1960s, Hollister taught skiing at a variety of resorts, including Bousquet, Mt. Tremblant, Heavenly Valley and Palisades Tahoe (Squaw Valley)....

Ski school founder, Northwest Ski Hall of Famer

John Hansen
Passing Date: November 21, 2021

John Hansen, ski school founder at Stevens Pass, Washington, and longtime instructor, died on November 21, 2021. He was 95. Born in Minneapolis in 1926, Hansen moved to Seattle with his family in 1939 and graduated from the University of Washington in 1949. The following year he started a 36-year...

Fleece pioneer, labor-management hero

Aaron Feuerstein
Passing Date: November 4, 2021

Aaron Feuerstein, who helped to develop polyester fleece as a foundation of activewear, and won national praise after he refused to lay off employees after a devasting fire at his Malden Mills plant in 1995, died November 4 in Boston of pneumonia. He was 95. Feuerstein joined Malden Mills after...