New Mount Sunapee general manager Susan Donnelly to start Oct. 7

Susan Donnelly (fourth from left) will leave Crotched Mountain after three seasons to become the GM at Mount Sunapee. (Vail Resorts)

Susan Donnelly will fill the vacant general manager position at Mount Sunapee, Vail Resorts announced on Wednesday. Her first day at the Newbury, N.H., ski area will be Oct. 7.

She is not coming from very far as she spent the last three seasons as the GM at Crotched Mountain, the Vail-owned mountain in Bennington, N.H.. Prior to her time at Crotched, Donnelly spent 13 years at Okemo as the director of client services and restaurant manager, according to her LinkedIn account.

In the announcement of her appointment, Vail Resorts said that Donnelly “played a key role in integrating Okemo, Mount Snow and Hunter Mountain into the Vail Resorts system.”

When Vail acquired Triple Peaks in 2018, it took ownership of Okemo and the right to operate Mount Sunapee, which is owned by the state of New Hampshire. A year later it acquired Peak Resorts’ properties including Crotched, Mount Snow, Attitash, Wildcat and Hunter.

“My time at Crotched Mountain Resort has been some of the best in my 17-year history in the ski industry,” Donnelly said in the release. “I am so grateful to the Crotched team, our guests and community for all they have shown me during my time at Crotched. The team is truly one of a kind with incredible resilience and passion for what they do. I will miss calling Crotched home, but I won’t be far away, and I am excited to start my next chapter at Mount Sunapee.”

During her time at Crotched Mountain, the mountain brought back Midnight Madness on select Saturdays and expanded after-school ski programs.

Donnelly is replacing Peter Disch, who was named vice president of mountain operations at Vail-owned Heavenly Mountain Resort over the summer. He led Mount Sunapee for four ski seasons.

Mount Sunapee has 67 trails over 233 skiable acres and eight lifts with a vertical drop of 1,233 feet.

Abigail Allen, the communication manager for Vail Resorts’ New Hampshire properties, said the search for someone to replace Donnelly at Crotched Mountain will begin immediately.

(Keith Pearson is the editor of the New England Ski Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].)