Nonresidents vie for Winter Sports board

The slate of director nominees up for election during Winter Sports Inc.'s annual meeting Tuesday represents a sea change of outside influence for Big Mountain.

Whether that's a good thing remains to be seen, longtime Whitefish residents maintain.

For the first time in the resort's 58-year history, local nominees for the Winter Sports board of directors are outnumbered by out-of-state nominees largely representing the financial sector.

Past boards have been made up primarily of Whitefish or Flathead County directors, and a few out-of-area directors typically have had family ties to Whitefish. That's no longer the case.

"It's the first time that, if there is control, that it's out of the valley," acknowledged Mike Jenson, a Whitefish native who has served on the Winter Sports board since 1995. "They've brought capital in, and that's a good thing. It bodes well with the improvements we want to make, and it's done a lot to put us on a firm foundation."

Winter Sports closed a private placement of its common stock June 10, raising $12.5 million in the process.

In May 2004, stockholders approved a 150-to-1 reverse stock split, in which those owning fewer than 150 shares were paid $16.75 a share, while those with 150 or more shares received new certificates for their post-split shares and a cash payment for any fractional shares.

THE INFLUENCE of the company's largest shareholder, William P. Foley II, who owns 44 percent of Winter Sports stock, is tangible on the list of director nominees.

Foley, chief executive officer of Fidelity National Financial, the largest title insurance company in America, is among the 10 nominees for nine board positions. He was appointed to the Winter Sports board in November 2004 to replace Tim Grattan, who retired. Foley acquired a sizable number of shares from Dick Dasen Sr. after Dasen was charged with prostitution and other sex crimes in 2004.

Dasen, who was convicted of several sex offenses, had been the largest shareholder of Winter Sports.

Other director nominees with ties to the Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fidelity National Financial are Alan Stinson, chief financial officer and executive vice president for Fidelity; and Frank Willey, vice chairman for Fidelity.

The list of nominees includes James Taylor, founder and chairman of American Capital Group, which develops and owns shopping centers and office buildings throughout the United States. Taylor lives in Bigfork for part of the year.

Paul Coe, managing director of Imperial Capital, also is among the nominees. Imperial Capital is described as a "boutique" investment banking firm with offices in Beverly Hills, New York and Whitefish. Michael Finegold, a financial adviser at Advest Inc., a subsidiary of AZA Financial, nominated himself for the board, whereas a five-person nominating committee selected the other candidates.

The nominating committee comprises outgoing directors Jerome Broussard and Charlie Grenier, along with three of the directors up for re-election: Mike Jenson, Mike Muldown and Dennis Green.

LONGTIME WHITEFISH business leader Charlie Abell, who has been on the Winter Sports board since 1992, said he "didn't make the cut" with the nominating committee.

"I've been proud of the fact that [Big Mountain] was locally developed and locally owned," Abell said. "That's going away and it makes me feel bad."

As Abell perused the list of nominees, he noticed that in the brief biographies of the newcomers, only one was listed as a skier.

"Of course I remember Big Mountain as a kid, how it got started and the enthusiasm of the people," Abell said. "We always felt it was our mountain."

Local residents up for re-election on the board include Jenson, Muldown and Green.

Muldown is the son of the late Lloyd "Mully" Muldown, a skiing pioneer who helped start the resort. He said no one knows yet how the changes on the board will ultimately play out.

"It's obvious there's a changing of the guard," Muldown said. "I support [Winter Sports CEO] Fred Jones' vision for the mountain. The founders had a vision that was inclusive of the local people, and that's Fred's vision. It all depends on whether the new board members support Fred. It's a wait-and-see thing."

Green, the current chairman of the board, has been president of Dasen Co. and Flathead County Title Co. since 1986, and president and general manager of Budget Finance since 1975.

Foley was unavailable for comment, but said in a June interview for the Flathead Business Journal that he's a "westerner at heart" and thinks the mountain is a great asset.

"I don't know that it has been run as well as it could over the last 10 years or so, and I felt as though I could improve the mountain and make it a better place for people," Foley said in an interview with Flathead Business Journal reporter George Kingson.

JEANNE TALLMAN of Whitefish has skied on Big Mountain for decades and admits it's hard to see the resort change, but she's pragmatic as she looks to the future.

"If the new people are far-sighted business people, maybe that's OK," Tallman said. "The mountain needs an infusion of money to keep it a viable business, and it's really tough to make the money they need to make just from skiers.

"It's a change, and that's sad for the old-timers," she added.

Tallman told of a longtime acquaintance and fellow skier who was brought to tears when he recently returned to the resort after a long absence and observed the gigantic Morning Eagle Lodge at the base of Chair 3.

He vowed never to return.

The upscale Morning Eagle Lodge was built a couple of years ago when Hines, an international resort developer, was involved as a development partner with Winter Sports. A year ago, Hines severed its ties with Big Mountain, and development plans have been revised to reflect smaller-scale construction than what Hines had planned.

Tallman isn't alone in her praise for Jones' efforts to serve local skiers. Even with a lack of snow last winter, crews worked to get the most out of what snow was available.

"Fred's a skier and he's working for the skier," she said. "I still appreciate what I have when I go up there. Fred is thinking about the locals, and that hasn't happened for a long time."

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.