11 employees at Buzz’s Boards skied or snowboarded more than 100 days this year

Buzz Schleper congratulated his employees on a job well done this week, but the celebration was only partially directed at their performance in his Gore Creek Drive shop.

Schleper said while he appreciates his workers’ dedication to their jobs, he is especially pleased with their dedication to the pursuit that brought them to Vail to take those jobs — skiing and snowboarding.

Full-time employees Ethan St. Germain, Bryan Chester, Neil Conroy and Nick Gosse have more than 100 days at Vail, along with part-time employees Dave Pleshaw and Sarah Schleper. In addition to Schleper himself, full-time employees Adrian Garcia, Charles Schoonveld, Chase Leslie and Jack Zimmerman all have more than 150 days.

Schleper will end the season on Sunday with 164 — that’s every day that Vail was open.

“It’s not like this is a mandatory thing to work for me, I just hire guys that love to ski and snowboard,” Schleper said. “They want to be up there every day, they’re fighting for it on a powder day, my guys love being on the mountain.”

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Buzz’s Boards and Buzz’s Ski Shop has three major areas of operation — retail, rentals and tunes — and Buzz designs the scheduling of his employees so that they can get out on the mountain every day.

“Some guys go up in the morning, some guys go up in the afternoon, it just depends on the schedule for that day,” Buzz said.

The employees agree that the ski scheduling is one of the main reasons they enjoy working for Buzz.

Ethan St. Germain has worked at Buzz’s Boards for 26 years.

“I’ve gotten more than 100 days all but two of those 26 years,” he said.

With five years at the shop, Bryan Chester is still one of the newer employees but sees from guys like St. Germain that there’s a reason Buzz has been able to keep workers coming back over the years in a town where employee retention is difficult.

“Working for Buzz is like working for family,” Chester said.

In addition to creating happier workers, there’s a business advantage to having workers on the mountain, Schleper says.

“I want my guys to know the conditions and know the equipment,” he said. “They’ll try out our demo skis so they can give their opinions on how all our demo skis and snowboards ride, and it helps us know how to wax every day, we know the conditions, we know where to send people.”

Buzz says his employees often get 100 or more ski days, but this year some of his workers were trying to get the 100-day pins that Vail Mountain was giving to people who had 100 or more days on the mountain. Vail Mountain also gave out 25, 50 and 75-day pins.

After Schleper and his employee Adrian Garcia notched their 125th ski day, they took a picture holding stickers of a skeleton hand making the rock and roll symbol, claiming the stickers were 125-day badges as a spoof on Vail’s promotion. Schleper said he then had people coming into the shop asking where they could get their 125-day badge.

The spoof gave Schleper’s son Hunter an idea. A few weeks later, when Buzz and Garcia notched their 150th days, Hunter had an artistic logo printed out for them to hold up for the camera, saying 150 days at Vail.

“I had people stopping me on the street asking where I got it,” he said with a laugh. “I told them it was just a piece of paper that Hunter printed out.”