[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 102 (Wednesday, July 24, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1344-E1345]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     TRIBUTE TO PETE SEIBERT, FOUNDER OF COLORADO'S VAIL SKI RESORT

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 23, 2002

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to note the passing 
of Pete Seibert--a great man and a true pioneer. Mr. Seibert has often 
been described as a humble visionary guided by his passions more than 
his quest for material gains. His vision pioneered the Colorado ski 
industry and will no doubt continue to shape the industry for years to 
come.
  Mr. Seibert started skiing on pair of his mother's wooden skis at the 
age of seven. He quickly fell in love with the sport and soon decided 
that he would one day create a ski resort of his own. As a young man, 
he joined the Army's storied 10th Mountain Division where he learned 
unparalleled mountaineering skills and served his country honorably 
during World War II. After being severely wounded in 1945, during some 
of the most difficult combat of the war, Pete Seibert was sent home 
from Italy with a Bronze Star and Purple Heart and was told that he 
would likely never walk again. He did not accept that verdict--in fact, 
he totally rejected it, and went on to overcome the odds against 
rehabilitation. So complete was his success that in 1950 he qualified 
for the U.S. Alpine Ski Team.
  A few years later, Pete Seibert set out in earnest to create a ski 
resort. After considering many possible locations, he chose the site 
near Gore Creek that is now known as Vail Mountain. With the same 
tenacity with which he overcame his war injury, Mr. Seibert shrugged 
off suggestions that, the area was too flat, too close to the 
interstate and too close to Aspen.
  Chris Jouflas, a lifelong rancher in the area, tells about tending 
sheep high on the mountain before it was ever referred to as Vail. He 
remembers one day encountering two young men scanning the mountain, 
excitedly pointing out terrain features and taking copious notes. The 
two men were Pete Seibert and his friend Earl Eaton. Mr. Jouflas asked 
them what they were doing. They matter-of-factly replied that they were 
going to turn the mountainside into a world class ski resort. Mr. 
Jouflas likely had

[[Page E1345]]

his doubts, but Pete Seibert's dreams of that day evolved into one of 
the most successful ski resorts in North American history.
  Vi Brown, a longtime local in Vail, recalls, ``Pete was a real hero. 
If you saw him when you were walking down the street people would say 
to their kids, `There goes Pete Seibert. He is the man that invented 
Vail.' '' But despite his achievements and his fame he remained 
sincerely humble and was an imminently likable man. I believe that 
humility may well have come from his deep love and understanding of the 
mountains. Any real mountaineer will come to recognize that you must 
have perseverance, respect and humility in order to fully experience a 
mountain. One would be hard pressed to find a man who better embodied 
these qualities than did Pete Seibert.
  It was not greed but passion that inspired him to create a place 
where millions of people have been able to experience the beauty of 
that mountain through the years. Our great state and skiers around the 
world owe a huge debt to Pete Seibert. He will be deeply missed but 
never forgotten. I ask my colleagues to join with me in expressing our 
gratitude for his contributions and our sorrow for his passing.
  For the information of our colleagues, I attach a news story from the 
Denver Post about Mr. Seibert and his life and accomplishments.

Ski Pioneer Seibert Dies of Cancer at 77--10th Mountain Veteran Founded 
                              Vail Resort

         [From the Denver Post Mountain Bureau, July 17, 2002]

                           (By Steve Lipsher)

       Vail.--Pete Seibert, the visionary ski pioneer who turned 
     Vail and Beaver Creek from dreams into two of the world's 
     pre-eminent ski resorts, has died at age 77.
       Seibert, who succumbed to cancer Monday evening, more than 
     50 years after Italian artillery shells nearly claimed his 
     life during World War 11, was one of a small cadre of 10th 
     Mountain Division veterans who developed Colorado skiing into 
     an industry that generates billions of dollars annually.
       ``Peter is the one who really founded Vail and Beaver 
     Creek, and ... those two areas are giants in the ski 
     industry,'' said lifelong friend Bill Brown, one of the 
     original nine men recruited by Seibert.
       It was Seibert who, along with local rancher Earl Eaton, 
     saw the potential in 1957 in what would become Vail Mountain, 
     100 miles west of Denver.
       ``Willy Schaeffler, God bless him, said Vail will never 
     work as a resort; it's too flat,'' Seibert said in a December 
     2000 Denver Post interview, recalling the legendary former 
     University of Denver ski coach. ``I'd seen the places in 
     Europe that worked. They were pretty easy, cruising. People 
     liked that. They don't want to be holding an edge all the 
     time. The skis should flow, and you should be able to go with 
     them.''
       Seibert also rallied skeptical investors into paying 
     $10,000 apiece for shares in the company--along with 
     homesites in the village and lifetime ski passes--that now 
     are worth millions. And it was Seibert who oversaw the 
     cutting of the original ski trails, and ultimately it was 
     Seibert who first lured the World Alpine Ski Championships to 
     Vail.
       ``He had an idea a minute, almost, in the early days, and 
     he saw the potential of Vail,'' said Bob Parker, another 10th 
     Mountain Division veteran who left his job as editor of 
     Skiing magazine to join Seibert as Vail's first marketing 
     manager. ``We all believed in Vail because we believed in 
     Peter. It was his real leadership and enthusiasm.''
       Pat O'Donnell, head of Aspen Skiing and chairman of 
     industry trade group Colorado Ski Country USA, credited 
     Seibert with setting the industry standard in resort 
     development.


                       He's an icon, a visionary

       ``He's an icon, a role model, a visionary and is largely 
     responsible for the success, through his dreaming and 
     implementation, of what the ski industry is today for the 
     state of Colorado and the nation,'' O'Donnell said.
       Fired as CEO by incoming Vail owner Harry Bass in the 
     1970s, Seibert later returned to the company under George 
     Gillett as a full-time adviser, a position he held until his 
     death.
       ``He was always one to share his experience, to brainstorm 
     ideas of how to improve our business,'' said Beaver Creek 
     chief operating officer John Garnsey. ``He was such an 
     innovator and just a great thinker. He was always coming up 
     with ideas, and he never stopped challenging us to come up 
     with better ways of running our resort.''
       Two years ago, when Vail opened Blue Sky Basin--finally 
     realizing the full scope of the ski area envisioned by 
     Seibert in the 1950s--the company named one of the expanses 
     ``Pete's Bowl.''
       ``That is the signature homage to Pete Seibert,'' said Vail 
     Resorts CEO Adam Aron. ``There were a number of people who 
     were involved in the founding and funding of Vail. But 
     clearly, Pete Seibert was the conductor of that orchestra and 
     deserves the great credit.''
       In recent years, Vail attracted the ire of 
     environmentalists, who complain that it is too big and caters 
     to the wealthy at the expense of nature. Seibert once told a 
     Denver Post reporter: ``We weren't trying to save the world. 
     We were just trying to build a ski area.''
       Born in Sharon, Mass., on Aug. 7, 1924, Seibert started 
     skiing at age 7 on a pair of his mother's wooden skis, 
     winning races by age 15.
       After graduating from high school, he joined the U.S. 
     Army's famed 10th Mountain Division, which trained at Camp 
     Hale and then fought in the 1945 siege of Fiva Ridge-- the 
     name of one of the seminal runs at Vail--and Mount Belvedere.
       Wounded so badly in the battle for Mount Terminale a few 
     days later that doctors warned him he probably wouldn't walk 
     again, much less ski, Seibert was sent home with a Bronze 
     Star and a Purple Heart.
       Seibert, however, endured a painful rehabilitation and 
     quickly took up skiing again, teaching himself to get down 
     the hill practically on his one good leg with such speed that 
     he made the U.S. Ski Team in 1950, wrapping his damaged right 
     leg heavily before each run.
       ``One way or another, skiing was going to be my life,'' he 
     wrote in his book on the history of the resort, ``Vail: 
     Triumph of a Dream.''
       After working for Aspen and Loveland ski areas, training as 
     a gourmet chef and attending L'Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, 
     an international school for hotel management in Switzerland, 
     Seibert began in earnest pursuing his dream of creating a 
     world-class ski resort of his own.


                        The greatest personality

       ``He could sell an icebox to an Eskimo,'' Brown said. 
     ``Pete has the greatest personality.''
       Despite repeated run-ins with Paul Hauk, the U.S. Forest 
     Service supervisor for ski-area development, as well as a mad 
     scramble for money from investors, Seibert and Vail 
     Associates finally opened for business in 1962.
       Little snow had fallen that autunm, but after a stunt in 
     which Seibert hired Indians to perform a snow dance, a 
     blizzard struck, and Vail was off and running.
       Still, it was hand-to-mouth for a while, as all profits had 
     to be dumped back into improvements on the mountain.
       ``As Vail was being built, we were always balancing on the 
     brink of failure,'' Seibert recounted in his book.
       Soon, however, the resort achieved success, accompanied by 
     the development of an upscale town modeled after a Bavarian 
     village.
       But, truth be told, Seibert never achieved the wild wealth 
     of many of the later arrivals to Vail, although after he was 
     hired again by Gillett, he certainly lived comfortably and 
     was as accustomed to wearing a tuxedo as a ski parka.
       ``He always seemed driven by his dreams and vision rather 
     than by material considerations,'' said Vail Mayor Ludwig 
     Kurz, the longtime former director of the Beaver Creek ski 
     school who helped Seibert sketch out the treacherous Birds of 
     Prey downhill course at that mountain that challenges top 
     World Cup skiers today.
       Seibert was diagnosed with stomach cancer last year, and 
     although he underwent aggressive treatment, it spread into 
     his lungs and esophagus.
       ``We all knew that he was fighting a tough battle,'' 
     Garnsey said. ``But Pete had overcome a lot of tough battles 
     and adversity in his life, and he always came through.''
       He died in his sleep at his Edwards home, surrounded by his 
     former wife, Betty, with whom he remained very close, two of 
     his three sons and family friends. He also is survived by 
     three grandchildren.
       ``He was really a patriot of skiing and tried to make the 
     town something,'' said prominent Vail hotel and restaurant 
     owner Sheika Gramshammer, who came to Vail in the early days 
     with her husband, Pepi, at Seibert's insistence. ``Vail was 
     really a small family, and Pete was like our patron, our 
     father. I think he was born to do this kind of thing. He was 
     a dreamer.''
       The family has asked that, instead of flowers, donations be 
     sent to the Shaw Regional Cancer Center at the Vail Valley 
     Medical Center. No services have been announced.





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