Podcast: Jiminy Peak, Cranmore and Bromley owners Brian and Tyler Fairbank

The Fairbank Group’s father and son team of chairman Brian Fairbank (right) and CEO Tyler Fairbank. (John Dolan)

The Fairbank Group owns and operates three family-oriented resorts across three states — Jiminy Peak in Massachusetts, Cranmore in New Hampshire and Bromley in Vermont.

While many corporations might try to make them consistent in every aspect, the father and son team of Brian and Tyler Fairbank has chosen to allow each mountain to keep its own identity while adopting programs that have worked over time at Jiminy, where Brian started 55 years ago as a ski instructor and manager.

The Fairbank Group acquired Cranmore in North Conway in 2010 and Bromley a year later.

Brian, who is a member of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame and earned a lifetime achievement award from the National Ski Area Association, serves as chairman and Tyler is CEO, and they joined Mike Specian and Keith Pearson on the Basecamp Podcast recently to discuss their properties and how each one has kept its individuality.

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Highlights

How a regional operator has been able to remain viable in era of consolidation

“I think the key for us has been really a focus on quality and making sure that we deliver the guest experience that people want. So, all of our mountains, you hit the nail on the head, they’re unique, they’re different. We want to embrace the unique culture of each resort, but in the same token, there’s a golden thread that runs through them and there is a lot of similarity in that they are family-oriented enterprises, and they really focus very heavily on the guest experience. So that’s been a real strong sense for us has been on that following, not necessarily the monster resorts, and that has enabled us to really be competitive, whether it’s season pass sales or over-the-counter lift ticket sales.” — Tyler Fairbank

The recent growth at Cranmore

“We recognized when we got involved with Cranmore that it had very old base facilities. The same thing had been true at Jiminy as it evolved with my being here, and we came to the conclusion, could we make a small village complex at the bottom of the mountain, where the first and or second floor would be commercial replacement space of old facilities that need more than a hub, and then put condominiums on the second and third or the third and fourth floor, to be able to help pay for the cost of this commercial space.

“So, the concept that we did at Jiminy is what we’ve applied to at Cranmore in the last five years that have been magical. We started off with 35 condominiums that were off a little bit on the side … and it went really well. And then we built the Fairbank Lodge, which was the name given by the management team up there that has two floors of commercial space and 15 condominiums on the third level.

“And that has allowed us to be able to do other things in the resort, such as expanding tubing, doing more with snowmaking and grooming, and so forth. We are 80 percent through the master plan for Cranmore. When I did a master plan for Jiminy Peak in 1984, I thought this will be a 10-year project, ‘This won’t take long.’ Well, I didn’t finish it until 2006. So, you have to have the patience to be able to say you’re going to weather the weather, you’re going to weather the economy and so forth when you start a project like this. And so, we’ve had the thick skin to say we’re here for the long haul. We want to make the base facilities here be comfortable for everybody and be similar in a feel to Jiminy, but architecturally, it’s a totally different project. It’s very much a modern mountain atmosphere on its exterior and yet the convenience and the creature comforts that are in the base lodges are very similar.” — Brian Fairbank

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