Moguls With a Mission

Tim and Diane Mueller got a warm reception as the new owners of Okemo Mountain Resort -- too warm. In their first season, back in 1982, it rained during the all-important Christmas week, and there was no natural snow to speak of until mid-January. The weather was a harbinger of bumps to come. The Muellers -- both 32 at the time -- had mortgaged their home, cracked open their nest egg, and spent $600,000 to buy a controlling stake in the ski area in southern Vermont. The resort was near bankruptcy. The surrounding town, Ludlow, was still reeling from the shutdown of a GE plant that had served as its employment engine. And later that winter, Okemo's lifts began conking out one by one, disrupting operations so badly that at one point, a crowd of skiers marched toward Tim's office, shouting, "We want Mueller! We want Mueller!"

What a difference 20 years (and $100 million worth of investments) make. Today, the Muellers run one of the most admired independent ski areas in the country, a resort that makes money and racks up more than a half-million skier visits a season. Last year, Vermont governor Howard Dean spoke at a dinner honoring Diane. "They [the Muellers] gave new life to a town that was completely devastated," he declared. Adding to Dean's plaudits was Connecticut governor (and Okemo skier) John Rowland, who proclaimed a "Diane Mueller Day" in his state.

In an industry where most of the publicly held giants are tumbling in an avalanche of red ink, the Muellers have turned Okemo into the kind of business they had always dreamed about -- and the kind of place they would want to ski. The cafeteria workers and lift operators are friendly, the mountain wins awards for its finely groomed terrain, and every season, there's a major enhancement for customers to look forward to. This past December, Okemo unveiled Jackson Gore, which features seven new trails and a high-speed lift. "When we make decisions," says Tim, sitting with Diane in his office overlooking Okemo's base area, "we do it for strategic and business reasons, not because we're a public company and we have to do whatever it takes to grow. We're lucky to be able to run the kind of business that we want to run."

Since recovering from the chaos of their first season, the Muellers have managed to achieve a balance between their business and the kind of life they want to lead -- although when they hit the slopes, it's still more likely that they're helping load chairlifts than taking a few runs on their own. "We never could have imagined how much time and energy it would eat up," says Tim. "But we never envisioned how big Okemo would be and how much this business would do, not just for us, but for our people and the community."

The Okemo Difference
If the ski industry used its own trail-rating system to gauge how hard it is to make money, the ski industry would qualify as a double black diamond. Ski areas are capital intensive and weather dependent -- a combination that keeps most operators (big and small) buried in poor earnings and debt. Of the three largest ski conglomerates, all of which went public in the late 1990s, none was trading above its IPO price at press time. One, Vail Resorts, sought bankruptcy protection in 1991 (although it later emerged from it), and another, American Skiing Co., is currently experiencing rough financial sledding.

The Muellers weren't particularly savvy businesspeople when they bought Okemo. They weren't even avid skiers. They simply wanted a business of their own and reason to return to Vermont from the Caribbean, where they'd been helping Diane's parents develop a resort. The couple had already built a home in Chester, near Ludlow, and were eager to live there full-time. (Twenty years later, they still live in the same house, although they've added on to it.) Their second child, Erica, had just been born, and they wanted her and her brother, Ethan, to grow up in Vermont. "Kids can be kids here," says Diane. "They can go out in the yard and dig for worms. And other people look out for them."

After purchasing their controlling stake, the Muellers were left with something like $30,000 to start the first season -- and because of the mountain's past financial problems, banks were reluctant to lend much additional money. "We were young and naive enough to think that we could make something happen," says Tim. Adds Diane: "We never talked about what would happen if it didn't work."

The lack of resources put a premium on quality and execution. So the Muellers focused on delivering better service and lavishing time and attention on snow making and grooming. "We needed to show people that we could deliver a better skiing experience," says Tim. "And the two ways that we could effect that without making big investments at first was by improving both the [conditions] on the hill and the way you treat people in the parking lot, in the ticket line, in the cafeteria."