By James Kachadorian
Please enjoy this story of how a 25-year-old Armenian farm kid from Methuen, Massachusetts, became Killington’s head engineer, responsible for building ski lifts, base lodges, snowmaking, and whatever else was needed as Killington overcame incredible challenges to get off the ground. Now, in my 80s, the memories of those turbulent, exciting days remain vibrant, and for those who might be curious, I’m sharing them with you.
Any discussion about Killington’s early days should include Perry Merrill. In 1954, Perry H. Merrill, known as the Father of Vermont’s State Parks, wanted to see a ski resort developed on Killington Peak, the second-highest mountain in Vermont. Preston (Pres) Leete Smith agreed to work with him to develop this area. Merrill was the driving force behind the State of Vermont building the Killington access road from Route 4. The state also built and leased back the base lodge to the then-Sherburne Corporation. Killington opened on Dec. 13, 1958. Times were different back then. I heard stories about the herculean task of building Killington 1 ski lift with Pres leading the crew that first winter.
Having been discharged from the military in November 1965, a friend and I traveled up Route 4 to go skiing at Stowe. Before the days of Route 89, Route 4 was the only way to get there. We were running late by the time we reached Bill’s Country Store, and rather than continue, we decided to ski Killington for the afternoon. On a whim, I stopped a ski patrolman and asked if they were looking for any help. He told me to go see George Wesson, who was in a lift shack atop Snowden. I found George and explained to him that I had just been discharged from the military and would like to work part-time while I looked for a consulting engineer’s job in Boston.
“Which military service?” George asked.
“Army,” I said.
“What branch?”
“Medical Service Corps.”
I provided all the correct answers, as George had served in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division.
“You know all about this stuff, being from the Medical Service Corp. Come back at four o’clock and ski the sweep with me.”
George assumed I had been a medic. In reality, I was more of an administrator, serving as an environmental health engineer.
George was very understated and mild-mannered. He was not very tall but skied on 220s and could glide down the mountain with an injured skier on his back—thanks to his 10th Mountain Division training. After the lifts closed, we started down the North Star trail, with George skiing ahead of me doing wide Arlberg ski turns. I followed him until he stopped at the edge of a steep drop-off.
“Do you want me to ski ahead of you now?” I asked.
“Oh no, I’ve been watching you as I made my wide turns. Asking anyone to ski ahead of you can cause an accident. You’re hired. Show up at 7:30 a.m. at Killington 1. Your pay will be $1.50 per hour. You can stay at the staff lodge for $1.00 per night, and you get 50% off at the lunch counter.”
What a great deal! With an undergraduate degree from WPI, a graduate degree from MIT, and three years in the military in Germany, having achieved a captain’s rank, I decided to sign up for Killington Ski Patrol. Oh well, I thought, it was beer money and free skiing while I looked for a real job down country.
In those days, ski patrolmen would hang out atop Snowden when the weather was crumby. During one of these sessions, huddled around the woodstove in the ski patrol shack, George asked me what I did in “real life.” I told him I was a civil engineer.
“Oh, we’re looking for a civil engineer. I’ll get you an appointment with Pres Smith (Preston Leete Smith).”
I had zero interest in seeking that job as Killington was living from minute to minute and through one crisis after another. The ski lifts routinely stopped working, and due to a lack of auxiliary power on the lifts, the skiers had to be roped off the chairs. It was all hands on deck when a lift broke down. The staff proceeded under each chair and hurled a rope up and over the lift cable. The skiers had to climb over the back of the chair and basically rappel down.
Snowcats routinely rolled over as any employee could drive off with one, including ski school instructors and ski patrolmen. The snowmaker on Snowshed didn’t work. It would only blow for a few hours before a pipe would burst, spewing water across the slopes and leaving them glazed over with ice. The upper trails were entirely dependent on Mother Nature. When it snowed, the ski patrol and ski bums packed the steeper trails manually. Yes, ski bums. You could get free skiing if you volunteered to pack the trails by side-stepping down the slope. A roller, made from corrugated pipe, hauled behind a Tucker Snow Cat packed the less steep trails.
George announced that he had set up an appointment for me to meet with Pres. I felt obligated to George as he had gratuitously hired me. Nevertheless, I skipped the appointment and returned to Boston to continue my job search. When I returned the following weekend, George was not pleased with me and said he had rescheduled a second interview with Pres.
When I met with Pres, he had a list of 50 questions. His understanding of what engineers did seemed based on the surveyors he’d observed laying out the Killington access road. Asking a civil engineer about surveying is like asking an electrical engineer about the specifics of how to wire a house. But it just so happened I worked as a land surveyor during college. So, to Pres’s amazement, I answered all his surveying questions and even embellished a few answers. In the last part of the interview, Pres handed me a tramway report on a failure that occurred on Killington 1. He said to study it, and he would return to discuss it. When he returned, I was reading one of his ski magazines.
“Did you read it?” He said.
“Yes, I did.”
“You don’t seem very impressed.”
I explained that the report was thorough and that the failure was going to occur again.
“How so?” He said.
“The lift failed because the workmen who were repairing it loaded it in a way it was not designed for. The report did not address the root cause of the problem and had not instructed the workmen on how to properly repair the lift should the need arise again.”
That was it. Pres offered me the job. I told him I would think it over. A week passed, and I still hadn’t responded, so Pres upped the salary. These negotiations continued until he made an offer I couldn’t refuse: a $10,000.00 job offer! Getting a 5-figure job offer in 1965 was substantially more than most starting engineers were making. Pres hired me on, saying that if I didn’t do anything else at Killington, I had to make the dysfunctional snowmaker work.
By December of 1965, at age 25, I was in charge of everything that moved at Killington, with the exception of the ski school (which was headed by Karl Pfeiffer). Pres was 35, tall, and in excellent physical condition. He was hard to keep up with when we periodically walked the trail system. He made up for what he lacked in management and technical expertise with pure perseverance. His usual solution to a problem was to push harder. It was his drive that got Killington started and to where it was when I arrived. We used to joke that the way to keep Pres occupied was to give him a concrete wall to push against! I remember the first time he invited me to dinner at his Killington home. A live tree was growing in the middle of the living room adjacent to a small natural pool. The dining room table looked like a picnic bench. He had put it all on the line to start Killington. And I was the kid responsible for keeping it going.
Slippery Slopes is an ongoing series written by James Kachadorian about the early days of Killington. Look for future installments each week in the Mountain Times.
