I've Got some good NEWSS

this past Thursday we traveled to Sunday River to take part in the New Endland Winter Sports Summit.  It is a convention for ski areas, and ski industry business to market all of their new product out to the industry.  This was a very cool convention and its interesting to see a few of the industry big-wigs all together in one place.  There were representatives from Pisten-bully, Prinoth, Action Bearing, TechnoAlpin, Ramp snowboards, Rossignol Skis, and many many more. These representatives were extremely helpful and were all willing to take time out of their day to explain their product, and discuss it with us. All of these people represented people who have succeeded in the ski industry, and I think that it is important to talk to these people and learn a little bit about the path that got them there. One of the more interesting people that I talked to was Steve Greene of Action Bearing.  It's funny how we take little things like bearings for granted,  but they are everywhere.  they are in every sheave of every tower, they are in our snowmobiles, and groomers,  we use them in the kitchen, and just about everywhere else on a ski resort, you can look and find a bearing.  Steve explained to me 2 major different kinds of bearing, roller bearings for fast spinning low load bearing uses, and roller bearings which spin a little slower but are able to hold much heavier loads.  Another interesting person that I spoke with was Chris of the National Ski Patrol, he had been patrolling over Pat's Peak for 21 years, and from what it seemed, he has seen everything on the ski hill. We had discussed the curriculum and if it has expanded to cover any needs for mountain biking and other summer recreation that a lot of mountain's have been installing.  He says the curriculum covers all kinds of emergency care, and most of the summer information falls into place in the curriculum already.  This event was a great way to see some in's and out's of the ski industry and also meet some of the people who have lived it.