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Author: Peter Landsman
In His Own Words: Carl Skylling of Skytrac on the Leitner-Poma Acquisition
Last week on my way home from the Rocky Mountain Lift Association conference, I stopped by Skytrac headquarters to sit down with Carl Skylling, General Manager of the company that’s shaken up the lift-building industry in North America over the past eight years. If you hadn’t heard, Leitner-Poma bought Skytrac two weeks ago in a move that surprised many. Carl is an industry veteran who worked his way up through Garaventa CTEC, Doppelmayr CTEC and Skytrac in construction, operations and management positions. In addition to kindly agreeing to be interviewed, Carl introduced me to some of the hard-working men and women who design and build Skytrac lifts in Salt Lake City.
Peter: How did you get started with SkyTrac?
Carl: I started out with Garaventa CTEC and then got pulled into the merger with Garaventa and Doppelmayr, becoming Doppelmayr CTEC. Jan Leonard had stepped down in 2008 and by 2010 I was Vice President of Operations but getting restless to do something different.
I approached these guys with a concept I had to continue this whole idea of doing service work and modification work because I saw that there was a big niche in the market that was missing there. So I approached Dave Metivier and Alan Hepner, and about the same time Jan Leonard was also getting interested in finding a way to take care of his former customer base by supporting them with service and parts. So there was this huge potential market to make all those parts.
One thing kind of led to another between [Jan] and I approaching our partners, Dave and Alan, who were running Hilltrac and Skytrac at the time. We ended up taking this Skytrac concept to the point where, with the four of us, we realized why stop with parts? Why not do a design of our own. SkyTrac started in 2008 doing some engineering/modification work with Dave and Alan but we really, in 2010, took it to the next level.
Out with the Old at Grand Targhee & Jackson Hole
New lifts are coming to both sides of the Tetons this summer and that means three old lifts are coming down. At Grand Targhee, the Blackfoot double is being replaced with a Doppelmayr fixed-grip quad. All 20 towers have been removed along with the top terminal. Blackfoot had wooden ramps at both ends that will be burned down once all the steel is out of the way.
New Book Chronicles 80 Years of Innovation at Poma
The above dedication sits on the first page of a new book celebrating eighty years of commercial success called Poma: 80 Years of Ropeways from Mountains to Cities. The 190-page work, written by Béatrice Méténier and Christian Bouvier, looks back at the firm’s more than 8,000 ropeway installations from the mountains of France to Colorado, South America and beyond.
A skier at heart, Jean Pomagalski installed his first surface lift in 1934 at Alpe d’Huez. He constructed it mostly out of wood and with a used Ford motor. After building three additional tows, Mr. Pomagalski had himself a company and filed a patent in 1936 for a “carrying device hauled by a rope moving at a constant speed.” After a break for Wold War II, Pomagalski S.A. grew to 15 employees by 1953. Even so, Mr. Pomagalski still found himself simultaneously a salesman, surveyor, designer and builder of lifts that were sent off as kits for installation by customers. The company’s first chairlift, a single-seater, debuted in 1955 near Chamonix.
By 1958, Pomagalski was selling 120 lifts a year, many of them to customers in the United States and Canada. Mr. Pomagalski decided to drop the latter part of his name from the company’s in 1965 to better appeal to English-speaking clients. Poma delivered its first gondola systems simultaneously in 1966 at Queenstown, New Zealand and Val d’Isère, France. A small new company called Sigma Plastiques provided the egg-shaped cabins. Poma trusted Sigma again the next year for the world’s first gondola with automatic doors and the rest is history.
News Roundup: Vermont
- In the wake of fraud allegations and a federal takeover, Q Burke Mountain Resort will lose the Q and likely be sold within a year.
- At Jay Peak, Doppelmayr says the 52-year old aerial tramway needs $4.15 million in repairs. In a press conference, the Florida lawyer put in charge of both properties said “we’re not even sure we have to fix the tram. The company that tells us we have to fix it is also the one that will get the contract.” At least he’s stopped calling it a gondola.
- A new lease for Ascutney Mountain will allow a nonprofit group to build up to three lifts at the ski area, which closed in 2008. Skytrac removed Ascutney’s four CTECs from 2012-2014 and sold them to Crotched Mountain, Pats Peak and Liberty Mountain. A 1970 Hall double remains standing on the property.
- Washington, DC taps the same company that conducted the feasibility study for the Portland Aerial Tram to study the proposed Georgetown Gondola.
- A D-Line gondola is coming to Innsbruck.
- The Mi Teleferico “My Cable Car” network in La Paz carried 43 million passengers in its first 22 months with 99.3% reliability.
Instagram Tuesday: Soaring
Alta Wants a Tram, Chondola & More
Alta submitted some grand plans to the Forest Service last week – 12 projects including at least five new lifts. The 77-year old ski area wants to replace more than half of its chairs in the next five years and build a low-capacity tram up 11,068′ Mt. Baldy. If approved and implemented, these would be the biggest changes to Alta’s lift system since the two-stage Collins high speed quad debuted in 2004.
Five lifts would be replaced with three new ones. Sunnyside, one of only two detachable triple chairs remaining in North America, would be subbed with a higher-capacity Chondola with chairs and gondola or cabriolet cabins. It would utilize the existing lift line and tower tubes where possible and have a capacity of 2,400 skiers per hour. Albion, a 1980 Yan double running adjacent to Sunnyside, would be removed without being replaced.
Higher on the Albion side of the mountain, Cecret and Supreme would be replaced by a single detachable quad with an angle station, much like Collins’ mid-station. Cecret and Supreme are both Yans built in 1981. The new detach would follow the first third of Cecret’s current lift line before joining the Supreme line so it could utilize some of the current towers. With these upgrades, the Albion side of Alta would go from five lifts to three. That’s before a new lift called Flora is added. Flora would be a short (985 foot) double chair replacing the East Baldy Traverse with a lift to get from the top of Sugarloaf to the top of Collins. The top-drive chair would move 1,200 skiers per hour out of Sugarbowl and have just four towers.
Big News! Leitner-Poma Acquires Skytrac
Leitner-Poma acquired Skytrac this week in a deal revealed today. Even more exciting is Skytrac will continue to operate as a subsidiary brand of the Leitner-Poma Group. “We would like to welcome Skytrac to our family,” said Anton Seeber, CEO of the European parent company of both Leitner and Poma. “Like Leitner-Poma, Skytrac also will be managed autonomously and independently to make sure the Skytrac team can focus on its strengths and hone its skills, all while having access to the Group’s resources to be able to benefit from particular synergies.” Leitner and Poma have experience operating in Europe as separate brands while sharing technology such as the latest-generation LPA detachable grip.
Jan Leonard and other former CTEC employees started Skytrac in 2010 to fill a niche retrofitting older lifts and building economical fixed-grip lifts in Salt Lake City. The company has built 19 complete lift systems to date, mostly at small-to-medium sized ski areas from Washington to Massachusetts. Skytrac had its best year in 2014, building as many new lifts as both Leitner-Poma and Doppelmayr that year. In addition to building complete lifts, Skytrac also specializes in outfitting older lifts with new terminals and control systems.
News Roundup: Big Lifts
- The St. Louis Zoo maps a gondola connecting to a new hotel.
- Two 230-passenger tram cabins take flight.
- Poma’s building a 5-stage(!) gondola transit system in Algeria.
- Leitner announces the company’s sixth 3S gondola installation will replace a 53-year old jig-back at Voss Resort in Norway.
- California Trail is coming along.
- One of the world’s steepest tramways opens in China with a maximum rope angle of 42 degrees.
- Doppelmayr’s Worldwide 2016 yearbook is now available. Note how few fixed-grip lifts they built last year.
- Also the spring issue of Poma’s magazine is out. Check out the Poma Coaster!
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