Podcasts about southern new hampshire

“It takes the same energy to think small as it does to think big. So dream big and think bigger.” – Daymond John.This perfectly captures today's guests—Ken and John Fothergill from Southern New Hampshire—two brothers who've built a thriving wholesaling business, even during the pandemic.They'll share how they got started, how they make it work as a team, the tools they use to lock up deals, and how they keep it fun while hitting big profits. If you want to keep hitting the right REI goals be sure to join the TTP Training Program now for more!---------Show notes:(0:50) Beginning of today's episode(5:08) Feed that professional obsession that you have(5:51) Balancing real estate investing while working full time(8:50) You need to be able to give situations to people where they can be successful(14:47) Prequalifying based on the four pillars(26:58) What does the next 5 years look like for their business?----------Resources:DealMachine (Code: TTP)ZillowTruliaJohn Fothergill on InstagramJohn Fothergill on FacebookJohn Fothergill's Email Address: jfothergill10@gmail.com Kenny Fothergill on InstagramKenny Fothergill on FacebookKen Fothergill's Email Address: kg fothergill3@gmail.com To speak with Brent or one of our other expert coaches call (281) 835-4201 or schedule your free discovery call here to learn about our mentorship programs and become part of the TribeGo to Wholesalingincgroup.com to become part of one of the fastest growing Facebook communities in the Wholesaling space. Get all of your burning Wholesaling questions answered, gain access to JV partnerships, and connect with other "success minded" Rhinos in the community.It's 100% free to join. The opportunities in this community are endless, what are you waiting for?

Dr. Paul Kim is the guest speaker on Mother's Day about the vow of a praying mother from 1 Samuel 1:26-28. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to come and visit!  The post 1 Samuel 1:26-28 – The Vow Of A Praying Mother appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

In this History Speaker Series event, public historian Karen Sieber discusses her career as a public historian and historical consultant, focusing on her recent research on Moses Dickson and the Underground Railroad in Minnesota. Karen received her master's degree in public history from Loyola University Chicago. She is best known as the creator of Visualizing the Red Summer, which is part of the AP African American Studies curriculum nationwide. Her work has been featured by the Library of Congress, National Archives, American Historical Association, Smithsonian and others. She also appears as an expert on Black history in documentaries like the CBS, Smithsonian, and BET collaboration, Tulsa 1921: An American Tragedy. Last year she led the scholarly team for the NEH award winning series, “Examining Military History from the Margins.” In 2025 she will be developing a series of documentary shorts funded by PBS related to America's 250th anniversary. She will also be leading preservation, exhibit design, and outreach efforts for a project in St. Paul, Minnesota, related to Pullman Porter history. She also teaches public history courses in Southern New Hampshire's graduate History program.

As John has spoken of many times on this podcast, he spent 1999-2002 coaching soccer at University of Vermont. So needless to say when the Catamounts won the 2024 NCAA Championship, he was over the moon. And he was even more excited when Head Coach Rob Dow and Associate Head Coach Brad Cole agreed to join him on the podcast.  2024 was Head Coach Rob Dow's 8th as Head Coach and 13th overall at Vermont, and it was a doozy, winning his second America East Championship and oh yeah, the 2024 NCAA Championship in thrilling fashion. In eight seasons at the helm, Dow has accumulated a 95-40 record, producing a winning record in each season since taking over in 2017. The Catamounts have finished in the America East top two in six of his seven seasons, including two regular season titles and two tournament titles, and 4 straight NCAA appearances. Prior to Vermont Dow was the asst. coach at Southern New Hampshire and head coach at Dean College, helping his teams achieve tremendous success. In our podcast today, we talk with Rob and Brad and break down the program they have built and their keys to success this season. We also discuss the thrilling Final 4 and NCAA tourney run, and how that success was built many months prior through love, vulnerability, and the relentless pursuit of championship behaviors. This is a remarkable story of a 15 year overnight success, and success leaves clues. PUT IN YOUR BULK BOOK ORDERS FOR OUR BESTSELLING BOOKS! Programs such as UNC soccer and lacrosse, Syracuse lacrosse, Stanford Lacrosse, Middlebury College, Colby College, Rutgers University, and many other champions are using THE CHAMPION TEAMMATE book with their athletes. Many of these coaches are also getting THE CHAMPION SPORTS PARENT so their team parents can be part of a successful culture. Schools and clubs are using EVERY MOMENT MATTERS for staff development and book clubs. Are you?  We have been fulfilling numerous bulk orders for some of the top high school and collegiate sports programs in the country, will your team be next? Click here to visit John's author page on Amazon Click here to visit Jerry's author page on Amazon Please email John@ChangingTheGameProject.com if you want discounted pricing on 10 or more books on any of our books. Thanks everyone. NEW WOC MASTERMIND AND CERTIFICATION PROGRAM IS SOLD OUT! Our 2025 Mastermind and Certification Program is sold out, but we do have a waitlist as well as a collection of coaches who are interested in being part of our next cohort. If you want to take a deeper dive then ever offered before into your coaching and personal development, or work within your school or club improving coaching or transforming the culture, or you want to hit the road as a speaker and presenter working with teams and youth sports organizations, we will give you the tools and support to do so. We are collecting names who are interested at this moment in joining the waitlist or being the first to know when we offer another program, you can do so by clicking here and adding your name and email to the list. This week's podcast is brought to you by our friends at Sprocket Sports.  Sprocket Sports is a new software platform for youth sports clubs.  Yeah, there are a lot of these systems out there, but Sprocket provides the full enchilada. They give you all the cool front-end stuff to make your club look good– like websites and marketing tools – AND all the back-end transactions and services to run your business better so you can focus on what really matters – your players and your teams. Sprocket is built for those clubs looking to thrive, not just survive, in the competitive world of youth sports clubs.  So if you've been looking for a true business partner – not just another app – check them out today at https://sprocketsports.me/CTG. Become a Podcast Champion! This weeks podcast is also sponsored by our Patreon Podcast Champions. Help Support the Podcast and get FREE access to our most popular online courses, a $300 value. If you love the podcast, we would love for you to become a Podcast Champion, (https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions) for as little as a cup of coffee per month (OK, its a Venti Mocha), to help us up the ante and provide even better interviews, better sound, and an overall enhanced experience. Plus, as a $10 per month Podcast Super-Champion, you will have access to never before released and bonus material, including: Downloadable transcripts of our best podcasts, so you don't have to crash your car trying to take notes! A code to get free access to our online course called “Coaching Mastery,” usually a $97 course, plus four other courses worth over $100, all yours for free for becoming a patron. Other special bonus opportunities that come up time to time Access to an online community of coaches like you who are dedicated listeners of the podcast, and will be able to answer your questions and share their coaching experiences. Thank you for all your support these past four years, and a special big thank you to all of you who become part of our inner circle, our patrons, who will enable us to take our podcast to the next level. https://www.patreon.com/wayofchampions    

Guest speaker, Dave Herring, looks at the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32. Dave is a former church planter and pastor. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to come and visit!  The post Luke 15:11-32 – The Prodigal appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

Join Attorney Kim Lisa Taylor as she sits down with real estate expert Michael Parks to explore how you can turn your vacation home into a profitable investment. In this episode, they cover the essential steps to start renting out your property, how to maximize rental income, and the key strategies for balancing personal use with generating profit. Whether you're just considering purchasing a vacation home or looking to optimize an existing one, this episode will provide valuable insights on how to have your getaway pay for itself. Types of rentals and seasonality considerations (00:04:36)Kim Lisa Taylor and Michael Parks discuss different types of rentals, including short-term (7 days or less) and mid-term rentals. They emphasize the importance of considering seasonality when selecting a rental property location, noting that even areas with short peak seasons can attract renters for various reasons throughout the year.Steps to turn a vacation home into a rental property (00:07:08)Michael Parks outlines key steps for turning a vacation home into a rental property. These include understanding the local market, working with a property manager to estimate rents and occupancy rates, utilizing platforms like Airbnb and VRBO for marketing, and focusing on getting great reviews by ensuring property quality and guest satisfaction.Maximizing rental income and guest satisfaction (00:08:43)The discussion covers strategies for maximizing rental income and guest satisfaction. This includes maintaining property quality, being responsive to guests, providing local information, and actively seeking positive reviews. Michael emphasizes the importance of asking for reviews and setting expectations for five-star ratings. Financial considerations and property management (00:16:00)The conversation shifts to financial aspects of vacation rentals, including how to evaluate rental property locations, underwrite properties, and manage expenses. Michael offers to share his spreadsheet template for property analysis and discusses the importance of accurate rent and occupancy estimates.Legal and insurance considerations (00:49:51)Kim Lisa Taylor discusses legal considerations for vacation rentals, including the importance of liability protection. She suggests strategies such as using family trusts or LLCs to hold properties and ensuring proper insurance coverage. The conversation also touches on local regulations and the need to comply with short-term rental laws.Investment opportunities in vacation rentals (00:54:53)The hosts and guest discuss various investment opportunities in vacation rentals, including creating blind pool funds to buy rental properties and using series LLCs for individual investors on specific properties. They also touch on market-specific challenges, such as high insurance rates in Florida.Introduction to Michael's lending fund (00:56:35)Michael Parks introduces his hard money lending fund, which provides first position loans for fix and flip projects on one to four-unit properties in the Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Southern New Hampshire area. He describes the fund's structure, target returns, and risk profile. 

Lay pastor Adam Houston, from Island Pond Baptist Church, shares from Psalm 119 on the importance of letting the word of God revive you. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to come and The post Psalm 119:25-32 – Are You In Need Of Revival? appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

EP 75: The Vanishing of Tammy Belanger: A Dark AnniversaryThis month marks the 40th anniversary of the disappearance of 8-year-old Tammy Belanger from Exeter, New Hampshire. Tammy's story is one that many in Southern New Hampshire know all too well, but the dark truth behind her abduction is still haunting. In this episode, we explore the mystery of what happened to Tammy after she was last seen crossing the street on her usual walk to school on November 13, 1984. Tammy's case is eerily linked to another young girl—Christy Luna, an 8-year-old girl from Greenacres, Florida whose circumstances mirrored Tammy's in disturbing ways. As we dive into the details, I make the case for the main suspect in these crimes, a deviant predator who is believed to be responsible for both disappearances.Through Tammy's story, we learn of the lost hours that passed before anyone realized she was missing, and how this case helped shape new protocols in the way schools respond to student absences. In 1984, when Tammy vanished, there were no calls home for missing children, no immediate alerts or search efforts. It wasn't until hours later, when her mother Pat noticed Tammy was missing, that anyone realized she wasn't at school, and by then, critical hours were lost.This episode uncovers the haunting details of that fateful day and examines how a missing child led to critical changes in child safety protocols.Listener Warning: This episode contains sensitive content and details about child abduction, abuse, and trauma.Updating sources at crimeofthetruestkind.comNew Hampshire Missing Children - NaMUShttps://www.namus.gov/missingpersons/search#/resultsBack in two weeks. Happy Thanksgiving.Next live show is Sat, Jan 25 at Koto, Lowell, Mass.Send a message to the showSupport the showFollow Instagram | Facebook | X | TikTok | Threads | YouTube For show notes & source information at CrimeoftheTruestKind.comGive the dogs a bone tip jar: buymeacoffee.com/truestkindBecome a patron: Patreon.com/crimeofthetruestkindThis podcast has minimal profanity but from time to time you get one or some curse words. This isn't for kids.Music included in episodes from Joe "onlyone" Kowalski, Dug McCormack's Math Ghosts and Shredding by Andrew King

Dr. Stephanie and Carrie talk about Carrie's journey in marriage and family navigating Autism. We speak about the limited opportunities that exist for those on the spectrum beyond high school and steps to consider to help your teen and young adult become more independent in life after high school.Carrie Cariello is the author of What Color Is Monday, How Autism Changed One Family for the Better, and Someone I'm With Has Autism. She lives in Southern New Hampshire with her husband, Joe, and their five children. Carrie is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, TODAY Parents, the TODAY Show, Parents.com, Love What Matters, and Grown and Flown. She has been interviewed by NBC Nightly News and has a TEDx talk. She speaks regularly about autism, marriage, and motherhood and writes a weekly blog on her website. One of her essays, “I Know What Causes Autism,” was featured as one of the Huffington Post's best of 2015, and her piece, “I Know Why He Has Autism,” was named one of the top blog posts of 2017 by the TODAY Show.  https://carriecariello.com/You can access her blog/essays and her Ted Talk.

Despite headwinds that have buffeted the multifamily industry over the last couple years, certain markets have continued to flourish. New England, for example, has continued to excel because there's been an influx of new residents and limited new construction. As Boston rents have become the second highest in the nation behind New York, it's pushed many of these renters to move to Southern New Hampshire and other New England markets. Axel Ragnarsson, founder of Aligned Real Estate Partners, acquires apartment buildings in New England at steep discounts by going direct-to-seller. 

Guest speaker Pastor Jonathan Wright, from the First Baptist Church of Lake Butler, FL, shares from Hosea on knowing Jesus Christ. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to come and visit!  The post Hosea 6 – Let Us Know The Lord appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

In this episode of the Multifamily Wealth Podcast, we sit down with Sean LeBlanc, the founder of Mammoth Properties, a vertically integrated multifamily real estate company based in Southern New Hampshire. Sean shares his inspiring journey from being a mortgage broker to becoming a successful multifamily real estate investor.We dive deep into his unique approach to scaling his business, discussing how he transitioned from a duplex to larger properties, including a significant 30-unit portfolio. Sean emphasizes the importance of being a hands-on operator and executing value-add business plans effectively.Throughout the episode, we explore key topics such as: - The challenges and lessons learned from raising capital and managing investor relationships - The importance of having a robust management operation in-house versus third-party management - Strategies for navigating the complexities of value-add deals and minimizing execution risk - Sean's vision for the future, including his goals for growth and the importance of maintaining a strong operational foundation.If you'd like to learn more about our newest investment offering (a 72-unit value-add deal in a rapidly growing NH submarket that we sourced direct-to-seller), you can access the deal room here.Are you looking to invest in real estate, but don't want to deal with the hassle of finding great deals, signing on debt, and managing tenants? Aligned Real Estate Partners provides investment opportunities to passive investors looking for the returns, stability, and tax benefits multifamily real estate offers, but without the work - join our investor club to be notified of future investment opportunities.Connect with Axel:Follow him on InstagramConnect with him on LinkedInSubscribe to our YouTube channelLearn more about Aligned Real Estate PartnersConnect with Sean:Follow him on InstagramConnect with him on LinkedInLearn more about Mammoth Properties

Join hosts J.D. Barker, Christine Daigle, Kevin Tumlinson, and Jena Brown as they discuss the week's entertainment news, including Len Riggio, a new bookstore map, and Jack Ryan. Then, stick around for a chat with Ann Garvin! Ann Garvin, Ph.D. is the USA Today Bestselling author and finalist for the Thomas Wolf Fiction Prize. She is the author of six funny and sad novels. She writes about people who do too much in a world that asks too much from them.  Ann worked as an RN and, after receiving her PhD, taught Exercise Physiology and Health Psychology for thirty years in the University of Wisconsin system. She currently teaches creative writing at Drexel University in their low residency Masters of Fine Arts program and has held positions at Miami University and Southern New Hampshire in their Masters of Fine Arts Creative Writing programs. Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers, a group of traditionally published authors committed to helping readers find wonderful books. She is a sought-after speaker on writing, leadership and health and has taught extensively in NY, San Francisco, LA, Boston, and at festivals across the country and in Europe. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/writersink/support

Join me today as I welcome author Ann Garvin, PhD. A USA Today Bestselling author and finalist for the Thomas Wolf Fiction Prize, she is the author of six funny and sad novels. She writes about people who do too much in a world that asks too much from them. Ann worked as an RN and, after receiving her PhD, taught Exercise Physiology and Health Psychology for thirty years in the University of Wisconsin system. She currently teaches creative writing at Drexel University in their low residency Masters of Fine Arts program and has held positions at Miami University and Southern New Hampshire in their Masters of Fine Arts Creative Writing programs. Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers, a group of traditionally published authors committed to helping readers find wonderful books. You can learn more about Ann at www.anngarvin.com.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on July 27. It dropped for free subscribers on Aug. 3. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe to the free tier below:WhoPeter Disch, General Manager of Mount Sunapee, New Hampshire (following this interview, Vail Resorts promoted Disch to Vice President of Mountain Operations at its Heavenly ski area in California; he will start that new position on Aug. 5, 2024; as of July 27, Vail had yet to name the next GM of Sunapee.)Recorded onJune 24, 2024About Mount SunapeeClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The State of New Hampshire; operated by Vail ResortsLocated in: Newbury, New HampshireYear founded: 1948Pass affiliations:* Epic Pass, Epic Local Pass, Northeast Value Epic Pass: unlimited access* Northeast Midweek Epic Pass: midweek access, including holidaysClosest neighboring (public) ski areas: Pats Peak (:28), Whaleback (:29), Arrowhead (:29), Ragged (:38), Veterans Memorial (:42), Ascutney (:45), Crotched (:48), Quechee (:50), Granite Gorge (:51), McIntyre (:53), Saskadena Six (1:04), Tenney (1:06)Base elevation: 1,233 feetSummit elevation: 2,743 feetVertical drop: 1,510 feetSkiable Acres: 233 acresAverage annual snowfall: 130 inchesTrail count: 67 (29% beginner, 47% intermediate, 24% advanced)Lift count: 8 (2 high-speed quads, 1 fixed-grip quad, 2 triples, 3 conveyors – view Lift Blog's inventory of Mount Sunapee's lift fleet.)History: Read New England Ski History's overview of Mount SunapeeView historic Mount Sunapee trailmaps on skimap.org.Why I interviewed himNew Hampshire state highway 103 gives you nothing. Straight-ish and flattish, lined with trees and the storage-unit detritus of the American outskirts, nothing about the road suggests a ski-area approach. Looping south off the great roundabout-ish junction onto Mt. Sunapee Road still underwhelms. As though you've turned into someone's driveway, or are seeking some obscure historical monument, or simply made a mistake. Because what, really, could be back there to ski?And then you arrive. All at once. A parking lot. The end of the road. The ski area heaves upward on three sides. Lifts all over. The top is up there somewhere. It's not quite Silverton-Telluride smash-into-the-backside-of-a-box-canyon dramatic, but maybe it's as close as you get in New Hampshire, or at least southern New Hampshire, less than two hours north of Boston.But the true awe waits up high. North off the summit, Lake Sunapee dominates the foreground, deep blue-black or white-over-ice in midwinter, like the flat unfinished center of a puzzle made from the hills and forests that rise and roll from all sides. Thirty miles west, across the lowlands where the Connecticut River marks the frontier with Vermont, stands Okemo, interstate-wide highways of white strafing the two-mile face.Then you ski. Sunapee does not measure big but it feels big, an Alpine illusion exploding over the flats. Fifteen hundred vertical feet is plenty of vertical feet, especially when it rolls down the frontside like a waterfall. Glades everywhere, when they're live, which is less often than you'd hope but more often than you'd think. Good runs, cruisers and slashers, a whole separate face for beginners, a 374-vertical-foot ski-area-within-a-ski-area, perfectly spliced from the pitched main mountain.Southern New Hampshire has a lot of ski areas, and a lot of well-run ski areas, but not a lot of truly great pure ski areas. Sunapee, as both an artwork and a plaything, surpasses them all, the ribeye on the grill stacked with hamburgers, a delightful and filling treat.What we talked aboutSunapee enhancements ahead of the 2024-25 winter; a new parking lot incoming; whether Sunapee considered paid parking to resolve its post-Covid, post-Northeast Epic Pass launch backups; the differences in Midwest, West, and Eastern ski cultures; the big threat to Mount Sunapee in the early 1900s; the Mueller family legacy and “The Sunapee Difference”; what it means for Vail Resorts to operate a state-owned ski area; how cash flows from Sunapee to Cannon; Sunapee's masterplan; the long-delayed West Bowl expansion; incredible views from the Sunapee summit; the proposed Sun Bowl-North Peak connection; potential upgrades for the Sunapee Express, North Peak, and Spruce lifts; the South Peak beginner area; why Sunapee built a ski-through lighthouse; why high-speed ropetows rule; the potential for Sunapee night-skiing; whether Sunapee should be unlimited on the Northeast Value Pass (which it currently is); and why Vail's New Hampshire mountains are on the same Epic Day Pass tier as its Midwest ski areas.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewShould states own ski areas? And if so, should state agencies run those ski areas, or should they be contracted to private operators?These are fraught questions, especially in New York, where three state-owned ski areas (Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre) guzzle tens of millions of dollars in new lift, snowmaking, and other infrastructure while competing directly against dozens of tax-paying, family-owned operations spinning Hall double chairs that predate the assassination of JFK. The state agency that operates the three ski areas plus Lake Placid's competition facilities, the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA), reported a $47.3 million operating loss for the fiscal year ending March 30, following a loss of $29.3 million the prior year. Yet there are no serious proposals at the state-government level to even explore what it would mean to contract a private operator to run the facilities.If New York state officials were ever so inspired, they could look 100 miles east, where the State of New Hampshire has run a sort of A-B experiment on its two owned ski areas since the late 1990s. New Hampshire's state parks association has operated Cannon Mountain since North America's first aerial tram opened on the site in 1938. For a long time, the agency operated Mount Sunapee as well. But in 1998, the state leased the ski area to the Mueller family, who had spent the past decade and a half transforming Okemo from a T-bar-clotted dump into one of Vermont's largest and most modern resorts.Twenty-six years later, that arrangement stands: the state owns and operates Cannon, and owns Sunapee but leases it to a private operator (Vail Resorts assumed or renewed the lease when they purchased the Muellers' Triple Peaks company, which included Okemo and Crested Butte, Colorado, in 2018). As part of that contract, a portion of Sunapee's revenues each year funnel into a capital fund for Cannon.So, does this arrangement work? For Vail, for the state, for taxpayers, for Sunapee, and for Cannon? As we consider the future of skiing, these are important questions: to what extent should the state sponsor recreation, especially when that form of recreation competes directly against private, tax-paying businesses who are, essentially, subsidizing their competition? It's tempting to offer a reflexive ideological answer here, but nuance interrupts us at ground-level. Alterra, for instance, leases and operates Winter Park from the City of Denver. Seems logical, but a peak-day walk-up Winter Park lift ticket will cost you around $260 for the 2024-25 winter. Is this a fair one-day entry fee for a city-owned entity?The story of Mount Sunapee, a prominent and busy ski area in a prominent and busy ski state, is an important part of that larger should-government-own-ski-areas conversation. The state seems happy to let Vail run their mountain, but equally happy to continue running Cannon. That's curious, especially in a state with a libertarian streak that often pledges allegiance by hoisting two middle fingers skyward. The one-private-one-public arrangement was a logical experiment that, 26 years later, is starting to feel a bit schizophrenic, illustrative of the broader social and economic complexities of changing who runs a business and how they do that. Is Vail Resorts better at running commercial ski centers than the State of New Hampshire? They sure as hell should be. But are they? And should Sunapee serve as a template for New York and the other states, counties, and cities that own ski areas? To decide if it works, we first have to understand how it works, and we spend a big part of this interview doing exactly that.What I got wrong* When listing the Vail Resorts with paid parking lots, I accidentally slipped Sunapee in place of Mount Snow, Vermont. Only the latter has paid parking.* When asking Disch about Sunapee's masterplan, I accidentally tossed Sunapee into Vail's Peak Resorts acquisition in 2019. But Peak never operated Sunapee. The resort entered Vail's portfolio as part of its acquisition of Triple Peaks – which also included Okemo and Crested Butte – in 2018.* I neglected to elaborate on what a “chondola” lift is. It's a lift that alternates (usually six-person) chairs with (usually eight-person) gondola cabins. The only active such lift in New England is at Sunday River, but Arizona Snowbowl, Northstar, Copper Mountain, and Beaver Creek operate six/eight-passenger chondolas in the American West. Telluride runs a short chondola with four-person chairs and four-person gondola cars.* I said that the six New England states combined covered an area “less than half the size of Colorado.” This is incorrect: the six New England states, combined, cover 71,987 square miles; Colorado is 103,610 square miles.Why you should ski Mount SunapeeSki area rankings are hard. Properly done, they include dozens of inputs, considering every facet of the mountain across the breadth of a season from the point of view of multiple skiers. Sunapee on an empty midweek powder day might be the best day of your life. Sunapee on a Saturday when it hasn't snowed in three weeks but everyone in Boston shows up anyway might be the worst. For this reason, I largely avoid assembling lists of the best or worst this or that and abstain, mostly, from criticizing mountain ops – the urge to let anecdote stand in for observable pattern and truth is strong.So when I do stuff ski areas into a hierarchy, it's generally grounded in what's objective and observable: Cottonwoods snow really is fluffier and more bounteous than almost all other snow; Tahoe resort density really does make it one of the world's great ski centers; Northern Vermont really does deliver far deeper snow and better average conditions than the rest of New England. In that same shaky, room-for-caveats manner, I'm comfortable saying this: Mount Sunapee's South Peak delivers one of the best beginner/novice experiences in the Northeast.Arrive childless and experienced, and it's likely you'll ignore this zone altogether. Which is precisely what makes it so great: almost completely cut off from the main mountain, South Peak is free from high-altitude bombers racing back to the lifts. Three progression carpets offer the perfect ramp-up experience. The 374-vertical-foot quad rises high enough to feel grown-up without stoking the summit lakeview vertigo. The trails are gently tilted but numerous and interesting. Other than potential for an errant turn down Sunnyside toward the Sunapee Express, it's almost impossible to get lost. It's as though someone chopped a mid-sized Midwest ski area from the earth, airlifted it east, and stapled it onto the edge of Sunapee:A few other Northeast ski areas offer this sort of ski-area-within-a-ski-area beginner separation – Burke, Belleayre, Whiteface, and Smugglers' Notch all host expansive standalone beginner zones. But Sunapee's is one of the easiest to access for New England's core Boston market, and, because of the Epic Pass, one of the most affordable.For everyone else, Sunapee's main mountain distills everything that is great and terrible about New England skiing: a respectable vertical drop; a tight, complex, and varied trail network; a detached-from-conditions determination to be outdoors in the worst of it. But also impossible weekend crowds, long snow draughts, a tendency to overgroom even when the snow does fall, and an over-emphasis on driving, with nowhere to stay on-mountain. But even when it's not perfect, which it almost never is, Sunapee is always, objectively, a great natural ski mountain, a fall-line classic, a little outpost of the north suspiciously far south.  Podcast NotesOn Sunapee's masterplan and West Bowl expansionAs a state park, Mount Sunapee is required to submit an updated masterplan every five years. The most transformative piece of this would be the West Bowl expansion, a 1,082-vertical-foot pod running skiers' left off the current summit (right in purple on the map below):The masterplan also proposes upgrades for several of Sunapee's existing lifts, including the Sunapee Express and the Spruce and North Peak triples:On past Storm Skiing Podcasts:Disch mentions a recent podcast that I recorded with Attitash, New Hampshire GM Brandon Schwarz. You can listen to that here. I've also recorded pods with the leaders of a dozen other New Hampshire mountains:* Wildcat GM JD Crichton (May 30, 2024)* Gunstock President & GM Tom Day (April 15, 2024) – now retired* Tenney Mountain GM Dan Egan (April 8, 2024) – no longer works at Tenney* Cranmore President & GM Ben Wilcox (Oct. 16, 2023)* Dartmouth Skiway GM Mark Adamczyk (June 12, 2023)* Granite Gorge GM Keith Kreischer (May 30, 2023)* Loon Mountain President & GM Brian Norton (Nov. 14, 2022)* Pats Peak GM Kris Blomback (Sept. 26, 2022)* Ragged Mountain GM Erik Barnes (April 26, 2022)* Whaleback Mountain Executive Director Jon Hunt (June 16, 2021)* Waterville Valley President & GM Tim Smith (Feb. 22, 2021)* Cannon Mountain GM John DeVivo (Oct. 6, 2020) – now GM at Antelope Butte, WyomingOn New England ski area densityDisch referenced the density of ski areas in New England. With 100 ski areas crammed into six states, this is without question the densest concentration of lift-served skiing in the United States. Here's an inventory:On the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC)From 1933 to 1942 – the height of the Great Depression – a federal government agency knows as the Civilian Conservation Corps recruited single men between the ages of 18 and 25 to “improve America's public lands, forests, and parks.” Some of this work included the cutting of ski trails on then-virgin mountains, including Mount Sunapee. While the CCC trail is no longer in use on Sunapee, that first project sparked the notion of skiing on the mountain and led to the development of the ski area we know today.On potential Northeast expansions and there being “a bunch that are proposed all over the region”This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a few of the larger Northeast expansions that are creeping toward reality include a new trailpod at Berkshire East:This massive, village-connecting expansion that would completely transform Waterville Valley:The de-facto resurrection of New York's lost Highmount ski area with an expansion from adjacent Belleayre:And the monster proposed Western Territories expansion that could double the size of Sunday River. There's no public map of this one presently available.On high-speed ropetowsI'll keep beating the crap out of this horse until you all realize that I'm right:A high-speed ropetow at Spirit Mountain, Minnesota. Video by Stuart Winchester.On Crotched proximity and night skiingWe talk briefly about past plans for night-skiing on Sunapee, and Disch argues that, while that may have made sense when the Muellers owned the ski area, it's no longer likely since Vail also owns Crotched, which hosts one of New England's largest night-skiing operations less than an hour south. It's a fantastic little operation, a once-abandoned mountain completely rebuilt from the studs by Peak Resorts:On the Epic Day PassHere's another thing I don't plan to stop talking about ever:The Storm explores the world of North American lift-served skiing year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 48/100 in 2024, and number 548 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

What if your mental health diagnosis wasn't entirely accurate? Join us in this compelling episode of "Triumph Over Trauma" as my cousin Deborah shares her harrowing journey through misdiagnoses and the critical discovery that changed her life. Initially diagnosed with paranoid personality disorder and schizophrenia, Deborah faced the adverse effects of inappropriate medications. It took multiple hospitalizations and a second opinion to uncover that thyroid issues were contributing to her symptoms, leading to an accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Deborah's story is a powerful reminder of the importance of accurate diagnosis and the complex interplay between physical and mental health.Managing mental health and achieving stability is a journey, and Deborah's experience is a testimony to that. Discover how recognizing and addressing symptoms like insomnia and anxiety, and understanding the effects of hyperthyroidism and menstrual cycles on mental well-being, were pivotal in her recovery. Deborah's self-care routine, which includes Abilify, dream journaling, sound baths, yoga, meditation, and faith-rooted affirmations, has been instrumental in maintaining her mental and spiritual balance. This episode emphasizes the transformative power of self-care practices and the significance of putting oneself first to enhance mental wellness.In our heartfelt discussion, Deborah opens up about the healing process through massage therapy and the power of spiritual grounding. The support of her family, faith, and prayer were crucial during her recovery, showcasing the immense strength found in collective support and spiritual practices. Deborah shares how integrating peace and meditation into her career as a traveling massage therapist has not only helped her return to normal life but also fostered a peaceful state of mind for her clients. Tune in to learn how therapeutic practices can transform lives and the importance of maintaining a spiritual practice for overall mental health, as we express our gratitude for these enlightening discussions and thank God for guiding us through triumph over trauma.To book a massage with Deborah For those who live in the Southern New Hampshire, Northern Massachusetts area please use this link….. https://justrelaxnow.as.me/     Enter coupon code Triumph to receive $20 off your next massage And for those in the South Jersey area please send an email me to justrelaxnow11@gmail.com  What is Trauma?                                                                                                                                               Trauma is a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.  An emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, abuse, neglect or natural disaster.     How to cope with Trauma                                                                                                                     Talk to a few trusted people, open up about your struggle, seek online support groups, read self-help books or practice small acts of self-care such as meditation, breathwork, yoga and exercise can help you regain some feeling ofSupport the Show.2 Corinthians 2:14 Now thanks be unto God, who always causes us to Triumph!

Guest speaker Dr. Terry Dorsett from the Baptist Churches of New England shares from Philippians 1:3-6 on staying focused on Jesus until the work is done. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to The post Philippians 1:3-6 – Until the Work is Done appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

Hello again, everyone. Welcome to episode 449 of the Outdoor Biz Podcast. This week, I'm talking with Lauren Hefferon. Lauren has been a devoted cyclist for over 40 years. While in high school in Southern NH, Lauren discovered her passion for pedaling after a serious ski injury prevented her from downhill ski racing and playing many team sports. Upon graduation with a degree in Graphic Design in Mass Art, Laure decided to follow her entrepreneurial cravings and launched Ciclismo Classico. Their mission is to inspire active travelers to embrace cycling as a soulful form of travel that connects us with the world and to the passionate, curious, and creative human spirit. Facebook​ ​Twitter​ ​Instagram​ Love the show? Subscribe, ​rate, review, and share!​ Sign up for my Newsletter ​HERE​ I'd love to hear your feedback about the show! You can contact me here: ​rick@theoutdoorbizpodcast.com Brought to you this week by Thrive Market Show Notes 00:00 Rick Saez shares outdoor industry insights, interviews, and product innovation on the Outdoor Biz Podcast. 03:30 Lauren grew up without a bicycle in 1950s, until she goe her green Schwinn. 06:34 Art and curiosity drives Lauren's varied interest in anthropology. 11:21 After Cornell, Lauren toured Europe, worked as a tour guide in Italy. 13:30 Created educational bike tours, focused on teaching, not luxury. Started with Pisa to Florence itinerary. 17:21 Some of the earlychallenges were in bike quality and hotel operations. 20:59 Lauren believe in learning through bicycle tours. 24:25 Promotion of lesser-known trips in Italy, creates a succession of tours. 27:57 The goal is to create memorable and safe experiences on bicycle trips, including organizing a surprise performance by the Cortina Choir in the Dolomites. 31:20 Switching from driving tours to biking trips, aiming for full human-powered travel, with exceptions for uninteresting or traffic-heavy stretches. 32:53 Gravel riding in Tuscany and other regions is popular. 35:25 Prefer phone calls for personal connection in planning bicycle trips. Focus on understanding and personalizing experience. 40:44 I love Mary Oliver's nature poems, they remind me to be grateful. 42:01 Cycling should be enjoyed at your own pace, not about speed or sleekness, akin to a ski vacation. 45:37 E-bikes are extending cycling age range and accessibility. 49:32 Lauren turned cyclist after a knee injury, emphasizing the importance of low-impact exercise. 51:13 Thanks for tuning in to the Outdoor Biz Podcast. Visit our website for show notes and subscribe to never miss an episode. Spread the word and leave a rating on Apple Podcasts. Learn More You can follow up with Lauren on Facebook and Instagram by email: and call her directly at: 617-640-4837. That's my cell phone. And then our 800 number is 1-800-866-7314. And our company is www.cyclismoclassico.com Next Steps If you enjoy interviews devoted to the outdoor industry, find us online at ricksaez.com/listen. We love likes and comments, and if you know someone who is also an outdoor enthusiast, go ahead and share our site with them, too. And be sure to Subscribe to our newsletter Keywords #Ciclismo Classico, #bike touring, #educational tours, #Italy, #guided tours, #safety clinics, #immersive experience, #cultural interaction, #ebikes, #adventure travel, #personalized experiences, #electric bikes, #environmental benefits, #eco-friendly practices, #gravel riding, #Piedmont, #Tuscany, #Sicily. Podcast produced using Descript, CastMagic Podcast hosted by Libsyn: sign up with code 'outdoorbizpod' for 20% OFF Show Notes powered by Castmagic Website powered by Wordpress Get Your Podcast Published NOW!  I'm partnering with Tracy DeForge, Stephanie Euler, and the Produce Your Podcast team to get it out of your head and into your followers ears. Tracy and her team have helped me grow and monetize my show, and podcasters trust them because they deliver. Go to https://ricksaez.com/pyp to get all the details. Let's get your show created, produced, and on the air today. Go to https://ricksaez.com/pyp and get all the details. Let me know if you have any questions.   Note: As an Affiliate of Amazon and others, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Guest preacher Richard Cason from Madison Street Baptist Church in Starke, Florida shares from John 12:30-33 on keeping the gospel message as the main focus of your life. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for The post John 12:20-33 – Beatific Vision appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

How does one man's childhood fascination with thunderstorms lead to a career as the chief meteorologist at a renowned news station? Join me, Kelly Brothers, on Bite Size Finance as we sit down with Mark Finan, KCRA's Chief Meteorologist, who shares his captivating journey from Southern New Hampshire to the University of Utah and beyond. Mark's early love for extreme weather, inspired by his father's enthusiasm and his mother's fears, set him on a path to a storied career that spanned decades. Mark offers reflections on his professional journey, shedding light on the pivotal moments that defined his tenure at KCRA. From his humble beginnings doing overnight weather segments to becoming Chief Meteorologist in 1997, Mark recounts the unforgettable weather events that marked his career. Hear firsthand accounts of the New Year's Eve storm of 1997, continuous coverage of nearly 96 hours, and the critical updates during the 2017 Oroville Dam crisis. These experiences underscore the vital role of local news in disaster response and the impact of KCRA's diligence in reporting weather related coverage. As Mark approaches retirement, he opens up about his future plans, including building a photography company and continuing weather forecasting on YouTube. We delve into the challenges of finding unbiased climate change information and the broader issue of science reporting accuracy. Mark is a rare breed of weather anchor in that his passion for the product permeates his very being. His commitment to his viewers has always been to do whatever he needed to deliver the best information to the audience that trusted him. You can learn more about Marks photography by visiting: www.markfinanphotography.com For more information on what we provide at CAPTRUST visit www.captrust.com. You can contact me, Kelly Brothers, through the show at: bisifipodcast@gmail.com To reach me at CAPTRUST visit www.captrust.com/locations/sacramento-ca/ Episode Chapter Summary (00:00) Mark Finan Mark Finan's childhood fascination with weather led him to study meteorology at the University of Utah, where his passion for weather patterns remained constant. (14:21) Television Career Reflections and Opportunities Professionalism leads to unexpected opportunities in the television news industry, as seen through a personal story of grace under pressure. (24:51) Memorable Weather Events in Northern California Mark's journey at KCRA, from overnight weather segments to Chief Meteorologist, and coverage of significant weather events in Northern California. (29:49) Lessons Learned During Natural Disasters Local news played a crucial role in disaster response during the 1995 and 1997 floods in Roseville and Marysville, California. (34:09) Retirement, Climate Change, and AI Weather Retired meteorologist Mark Finan discusses his new photography company, climate change misinformation, and the accuracy of science reporting. (47:37) Mark Finan's Art Showcase at Cellars Mark Finan shares insights on his photography displayed in Capital Cellars, aligning with his passion for wine.

Guest preacher Sam Taylor from the BCNE shares from Colossians 1:9-12 on the importance of prayer. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to come and visit!  The post Colossians 1:9-12 – Praying For One Another appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

Guest preacher Sam Taylor from the BCNE shares from 1 Corinthians 1:26-28 on how ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to come and visit!  The post 1 Corinthians 1:26-28 – The Power of Ordinary People appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

Join us in this inspiring episode as we sit down with Joseph Dattoli, the Director of Player Development at Mizzou. Joe takes us on a journey through his remarkable career, from his early days in St. Louis to becoming a key figure on Head Coach Kerrick Jackson's staff at Memphis and now at Mizzou. Discover Joe's unique path in baseball, where he not only excelled as a lead analyst for Prep Baseball Report's data operations team but also served as the West Coast Operations Director. Hear about his pivotal role in player development at Southern University and the bond he shares with Coach Kerrick Jackson. Intriguingly, Joe pursued and completed his master's degree in data analytics from Southern New Hampshire in 2022, adding a fascinating layer to his baseball expertise. Get ready for a conversation that goes beyond the stats and dives deep into the passion and dedication that define Joe Dattoli's journey in the world of baseball.

A well refined market niche for real estate entrepreneurs can deliver outsized returns, but it's easier said than done. It takes a lot to discover a niche in a crowded marketplace, and it requires discipline to stick with it without getting distracted by other shiny objects. Axel Ragnarsson, founder of Aligned Real Estate Partners, buys 10–50-unit value-add apartment buildings in Southern New Hampshire directly from sellers. Axel's completely vertically integrated and knows the market incredibly well. Southern New Hampshire is a supply constrained, stable market with population and rent growth as residents are moving there from more expensive markets in the Northeast.

Guest preacher Dr. Phil Wilkes, a retired pastor, shares about the importance of keeping God as the foundation of your life. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love for you to come and visit!  The post Genesis 12-13 – What's An Alternator? appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

Guest preacher Dave Herring, former pastor of Cornerstone Church, walks through the story in Acts 27 of Paul being shipwrecked to explore the theme of being safe with Christ. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would love The post Acts 27 – Safe In Christ? appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

Ann Garvin writes books for "women to do too much in a world that asks too much." Enough said; take all my money already! She published her first book in her late forties, even though one of her professors/mentors used to say to her on a regular basis, “You're the worst writer I've ever met.” (He wasn't being funny.) During this episode of the Write the Damn Book Already podcast, Ann and I had so much fun discussing the novel-writing journey, from writing to publishing to marketing (and a whole lot in between!). INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS Ann's journey from being a nurse (with a PhD) to being a full-time writer and how she thinks about her future in this space.  A fascinating look into what's moving the levers in the publishing space right now. It's extremely eye-opening, and allows YOU, as the author, to make much more well-informed decisions when it comes to publishing and marketing. Going from 102 to 21K reviews (and whether she reads those reviews!) How her process has evolved when it comes to working with her editor to remain true to the story she wants to tell How she avoids the “lowest hanging fruit” in plot lines to keep her readers (and herself) curious and pleasantly surprised while reading Ann's take on self-publishing versus traditional publishing (and her best advice for all aspiring and second-time-around authors) Ann's thoughts on the #1 reason why people won't get published (which I couldn't agree with more!)ABOUT ANNAnn Garvin, Ph.D. is the USA Today Bestselling author of five funny and sad novels. She writes about people who do too much in a world that asks too much from them.Ann worked as an RN and after receiving her Ph.D. taught Exercise Physiology, Sport Psychology Nutrition, Stress Management, and Global Health for thirty years in the University of Wisconsin system. She currently teaches creative writing at Drexel University in their low residency Masters of Fine Arts program and has held positions at Miami University and Southern New Hampshire in their Masters of Fine Arts Creative Writing programs.Ann is the founder of the multiple award-winning Tall Poppy Writers where she is committed to helping women writers succeed. She is a sought-after speaker on writing, leadership and health and has taught extensively in NY, San Francisco, LA, Boston, and at festivals across the country and in Europe.CONNECT WITH ANNWebsite: anngarvin.comInstagram: instagram.com/anngarvin_Goodreads: goodreads.com/author/show/4405314.Ann_Wertz_GarvinFacebook: facebook.com/ann.w.garvinBooks:There's No Coming Back From ThisI Thought You Said This Would WorkWHAT ANN'S READING NOW The Memory of LThanks so much for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review!To see all the ways we can work together to get your book written, published, and launched, visit publishaprofitablebook.com/work-with-elizabeth

We had the pleasure of talking to Carrie Cariello this week about her new book, her family, and her son Jack's transition to life outside of their home. It is always lovely to speak to Carrie; she has a beautiful way with words in every piece of writing she shares with us all. Carrie Cariello is the author of ⁠⁠What Color Is Monday⁠⁠?: How Autism Changed One Family for the Better, and ⁠⁠Someone I'm With Has Autism⁠⁠. She lives in Southern New Hampshire with her husband, Joe, and their five children.   Carrie is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post, TODAY Parents, the TODAY Show, Parents.com. She has been interviewed by NBC Nightly News, and also has a TEDx talk.    She regularly speaks about autism, marriage, and motherhood and writes a weekly blog at ⁠⁠www.carriecariello.com⁠⁠. One of her essays, “I Know What Causes Autism,” was featured as one of the Huffington Post's best of 2015, and her piece, “I Know Why He Has Autism,” was named one of the top blog posts of 2017 by the TODAY Show. Find her on Facebook at ⁠⁠(2) Carrie Cariello | Facebook⁠⁠ and Instagram at ⁠⁠Carrie Cariello (@carrie_cariello) • Instagram photos and videos ⁠ Also on her website at ⁠https://carriecariello.com/⁠ You can preorder her new book "Half My Sky." on Amazon, at ⁠https://amzn.to/3MkoHoS⁠ You can find us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Table for Five, No Reservations | Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Table for Five Podcast (@tableforfivenoreservations) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ You can also find us on our personal pages, where we write about our parenting at: Jenn Dunn at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Keeping up with Kya | Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jenn (@keepingupwith_kya) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Rachel Flanagan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FlanaVille |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Rachel Flanagan (@flanagoods) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Jaime Ramos at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jaime Ramos Writes | Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠(@jaimeramoswrites) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Kim McIsaac at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Autism adventures with Alyssa | Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kim (@autismadventureswithalyssa) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tabitha Cabrera at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Peaceofautism - Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tabitha (@peaceofautism) • Instagram photos and videos⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tableforfive/message

The thread binding together Shaylyn Romney Garrett's perhaps unorthodox career path - spanning diverse fields of research, writing, activism and social entrepreneurship - is community. "I've studied it, experimented with it, been fascinated by it, and been frightened by it," she says, adding poignantly, "I often feel that community is something I have thought more about than almost anyone but have less of than almost everyone." After a profound 3-year personal healing journey, Shaylyn experienced the wisdom in the old adage "If you want to go far, go together." In 2019, she decided to spend a year engaging in a series of radically simple but transformative monthly challenges to shift from "I" to "We" - 15-minute connections, meeting her neighbours and hosting dinner parties - giving birth to Project Reconnect. When suicide rates, bullying, loneliness and polarization are on the rise, Shaylyn believes that such everyday interactions are where we do the "heart work" required to transform our hyper-individualistic culture and reclaim the power of "We." Shaylyn is a co-author along with best-selling author Robert D. Putnam of The Upswing: How America Came Together A Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, which has been acclaimed "a magnificent and visionary book," and "a must-read for those who wonder how we can reclaim our nation's promise" to once more turn the tide from "I" to "We". Her writing also includes uniquely revealing portraits of religious communities across the United States in American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, which won Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson Award for best political science book of 2010-11. Her thoughtful opinions, writing, and research have been featured in numerous outlets including TIME Magazine, The New York Times, National Public Radio, BBC Radio, and the PBS Newshour. She is also the founder of Project Reconnect and a founding contributor to David Brook's Weave: The Social Fabric Project, an Aspen Institute initiative. Formerly, along with her husband, she co-founded Think Unlimited, a nonprofit in Jordan that helped thousands of young Arabs find their voice and their place as changemakers in their countries and the world. It won multiple international awards while also partnering with the Queen of Jordan. Shaylyn holds a BA magna cum laude in Government from Harvard University, and is a returned Peace Corps volunteer. She’s also a certified Holistic Health Coach, as well as a permaculturalist who loves to get her hands in the dirt, and thinks a lot about healthy soils as a metaphor for healthy human communities. She now lives in Southern New Hampshire with her husband James Garrett, their daughter Sophie and son Aeon, and their loyal dog Dewey (named for John Dewey, one of her favorite Progressives!) Join Shayna Parekh and David Bonbright for a conversation with this remarkable author, planting seeds for a new story of "we" in the garden of her own life and that of others.

Katie Boyd is on a mission to give women the tools to step into their power, remember who they are and to be the HBICS of their Ambitchious lives.  She's the host of the Ambitchious podcast, an empowering extension of her first baby, Katie Boyd's Miss Fit Club. This multi-faceted health and wellness platform has transformed the lives and mindsets of tens of thousands of women from all over the globe. She is also the author of Ambitchious, a no-holds-barred, direct, and brutally honest wake-up call to embrace the powerful reality that being a bitch is a good thing.  Drawing from her expertise in exercise science and nutrition, as well as her work as a certified Reiki master/teacher and multi-dimensional healer, Katie is dedicated to helping others make physical and spiritual health and wellness their most coveted possessions. A popular motivational speaker, she has starred in her own reality television show through NBC Universal called Wicked Fit and has been featured on Dr. Oz, in O Magazine, as well as in Life and Style Magazine, Us Weekly, Boston Magazine, Boston Herald, and The Boston Globe. Katie is changing the conversation about empowerment, self-care, and what ambition looks like to everyone on an individual level.  A Massachusetts native, she now resides in Southern New Hampshire with her twin flame, Matt, and her pink-faced Boston terrier, Pearl. Follow Katie on Social Media & Connect: IG: @katieboydambitchious  TikTok: @katieboydambitchious Website: www.KBMFC.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Guest preacher Sam Taylor from the BCNE shares from 1 Chronicles 11:22-25 on the story of when one of David's great men went into a pit to fight a lion. Island Pond Baptist Church is an SBC church in Hampstead, NH, just seconds from Derry, NH. We also have many people at our church from surrounding cities such as Chester, Sandown, Danville, Kingston, Fremont, Plaistow, Atkinson, Derry, Londonderry, Salem, and Haverhill. If you live in Southern New Hampshire, we would The post 1 Chronicles 11:22-25 – In The Pit With A Lion appeared first on Island Pond Baptist Church.

As President & CEO of Southern New Hampshire Health, Colin McHugh has faced big challenges head on. We'll talk about leadership style, perseverance in the face of adversity and Colin's passion for his chosen career. Learn more about Southern New Hampshire Health   This episode of BizCastNH is sponsored by: The 8th Annual NH Fiscal Policy Institute Budget & Policy Conference. 

In this week's episode I talk with Carrie Cariello about her autism parenting journey with her son Jack. Carrie has some amazing insights and freely shares them with everyone on social media. We also talk about Jack's journey towards independence. This was such a fun and relatable conversation. I hope you enjoy the interview. About Carrie Cariello Carrie Cariello is the author of What Color Is Monday, How Autism Changed One Family for the Better, and Someone I'm With Has Autism. She lives in Southern New Hampshire with her husband, Joe, and their five children.   Carrie is a contributor to the Huffington Post, TODAY Parents, the TODAY Show, Parents.com. She has been interviewed by NBC Nightly News, and also has a TEDx talk.  She speaks regularly about autism, marriage, and motherhood, and writes a weekly blog at www.carriecariello.com. One of her essays, “I Know What Causes Autism,” was featured as one of the Huffington Post's best of 2015, and her piece, “I Know Why He Has Autism,” was named one of the top blog posts of 2017 by the TODAY Show. About Rob Gorski and The Autism Dad podcast: Rob Gorski is a single Dad to three amazing autistic boys and Found and CEO of The Autism Dad, LLC. Multiple award-winning blogger, podcaster, content creator, social media influencer, and respected public figure for well over a decade. Connect with Rob Gorski: https://theautismdad.com. Mentioned in this episode: Goally: Goally is a comprehensive app, serving as a digital scheduler, AAC speaker, and token board system. Designed for unique thinkers like autistic and ADHD kids, it helps them master daily routines and therapy without parental reminders, reducing nagging and promoting self-management. Goally can be used on your child's device or an affordable, dedicated device, which we've found more effective in our home. For more information, you can visit getgoally.com and use the code “theautismdad” to save 10% off your order. Learn More About Mightier: Mightier is a biofeedback-based video game platform that teaches kids to self-regulate emotionally. This leads to a significant reduction in meltdowns and parental stress. It's backed by science and has helped over 100,000 kids learn to regulate their emotions. For more information, the latest reviews/updates as well as current discount codes, visit theautismdad.com/mightier. Read My Mightier Review and the code “theautismdad22” to save 10% off your order.

In this week's episode I talk with Carrie Cariello about her autism parenting journey with her son Jack. Carrie has some amazing insights and freely shares them with everyone on social media. We also talk about Jack's journey towards independence. This was such a fun and relatable conversation. I hope you enjoy the interview.About Carrie CarielloCarrie Cariello is the author of What Color Is Monday, How Autism Changed One Family for the Better, and Someone I'm With Has Autism. She lives in Southern New Hampshire with her husband, Joe, and their five children. Carrie is a contributor to the Huffington Post, TODAY Parents, the TODAY Show, Parents.com. She has been interviewed by NBC Nightly News, and also has a TEDx talk. She speaks regularly about autism, marriage, and motherhood, and writes a weekly blog at www.carriecariello.com. One of her essays, “I Know What Causes Autism,” was featured as one of the Huffington Post's best of 2015, and her piece, “I Know Why He Has Autism,” was named one of the top blog posts of 2017 by the TODAY Show.About Rob Gorski and The Autism Dad podcast:Rob Gorski is a single Dad to three amazing autistic boys and Found and CEO of The Autism Dad, LLC. Multiple award-winning blogger, podcaster, content creator, social media influencer, and respected public figure for well over a decade.Connect with Rob Gorski: https://theautismdad.com.Mentioned in this episode:Mentioned in this episode:Learn More: MightierMightier is a biofeedback-based video game platform that teaches kids to self-regulate emotionally. This leads to a significant reduction in meltdowns and parental stress. It's backed by science and has helped over 100,000 kids learn to regulate their emotions. For more information, the latest reviews/updates as well as current discount codes, visit theautismdad.com/mightier. Read My Mightier Review and the code “theautismdad22” to save 10% off your order.Visit MightierLearn More: GoallyThe Goally tablet is focused on fostering independence in kids without the distractions of ads, social media, or potentially harmful content. Unlike Kindle and iPad tablets, Goally's Tablet exclusively features educational apps like Khan Academy, Duolingo ABC, and Starfall, and is entirely controlled by parents. Goally's Kids Calendar helps kids with things like task management. Kids also learn life skills through video classes and pre-made routines, enhancing their independence. For more information, you can visit getgoally.com and use the code “theautismdad” to save 10% off your order.Visit Goally

Josh Roberge has had what I would call a legendary type College Baseball Career. It began as a Division 3 Baseball Player where he made the College World Series and the then again twice when he played grad school at Southern New Hampshire and made the Division 2 World Series back to back years. Josh is a grinder and has achieved a goal of playing at College Baseballs highest level. Great listen! He will be playing his last year of eligability at the University of Georgia next Spring.

There tends to be a prevailing focus on markets with growing population and job growth as the places to invest. While this makes obvious sense, these markets are much harder to identify discounted opportunities and often promise lower returns. That's why smaller, older markets with less competition sometimes offer better returns, especially when you have an operator that specializes in the market.  Axel Ragnarsson, Founder of Aligned Real Estate Partners, owns 200 units in Southern New Hampshire with complete vertically integrated property management that translates into lucrative returns. Axel is also specializing in Central Florida between Tampa and Orlando with similar success.

This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on June 15. It dropped for free subscribers on June 18. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, and to support independent ski journalism, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription. You can also subscribe for free below:WhoKeith Kreischer, General Manager of Granite Gorge, New HampshireRecorded onMay 30, 2023About Granite GorgeOwned by: Granite Gorge Partnership LLC, a group of local investorsLocated in: Roxbury, New HampshireYear founded: 1959Pass affiliations: NoneReciprocal partners: NoneClosest neighboring ski areas: Crotched (32 minutes), Brattleboro (32 minutes), Bellows Falls (35 minutes), Pats Peak (37 minutes), Mount Sunapee (50 minutes), Arrowhead (50 minutes), Ascutney (58 minutes), McIntyre (1 hour), Hermitage Club (1 hour, 6 minutes), Mount Snow (1 hour, 9 minutes), Magic (1 hour, 3 minutes), Wachusett (1 hour, 7 minutes), Bromley (1 hour, 13 minutes), Berkshire East (1 hour, 13 minutes), Okemo (1 hour, 13 minutes), Veterans Memorial (1 hour, 14 minutes), Ragged Mountain (1 hour, 16 minutes), Stratton (1 hour, 18 minutes)Base elevation: 800 feetSummit elevation: 1,325 feetVertical drop: 525 feetSkiable Acres: 25Average annual snowfall: 100 inchesTrail count: 17 (2 expert, 3 advanced, 5 intermediate, 7 beginner)Lift count: 3 (1 double, 1 handletow, 1 carpet)Why I interviewed himIt doesn't happen often, these comebacks. Ski areas die and they stay dead. Or they die and return and die again and then they're really gone.We're at a weird inflection point. After decades of exploding numbers followed by decades of divebombing ranks, the number of U.S. ski areas has stabilized over the past 20 years. Most of the ski areas that are going to die already have. Most of the ones that remain will survive indefinitely. Yes, climate change. But this has been a long-simmering storm and operators have strung lines of snowguns like cannons along a castle wall. They are ready to fight and they will.They have plenty to fight for. In most of U.S. America, it is all but impossible to build a new ski area. Imagine if no one could build a new restaurant or grocery store. The owners of existing restaurants and grocery stores would rejoice, knowing that anyone who wanted to eat out or buy a banana would have to do it through them. Such is the state of U.S. skiing – what we have is all we're ever going to get*. The established mountains are not exactly monopolies, but they do not have to worry about unexpected new competition, either.There is one hack: if a would-be owner can find an abandoned ski area, the path to selling lift tickets and hauling weekenders up the incline becomes infinitely easier. It's the difference between fixing up a junkyard car and assembling one from the raw elements of the earth. You'd have a better chance of building a time machine out of cardboard boxes and a Nintendo Game Boy than you would of constructing a ski area on a raw New England hillside. But find one already scarred with the spiderweb of named trails, and you have a chance.It's not a good chance. Ski areas do come back: Saddleback in 2020, Tenney and Granite Gorge in 2023. Les Otten may bring the Balsams Wilderness back as a mega-resort. But most simply fade. There are hundreds of lost ski areas in New England – many times more have died than survived. Many big and established ski centers evaporated: Mt. Tom, Brodie, Crotched East, King Ridge, Moose Mountain, Mt. Whittier, Maple Valley, Plymouth Notch, Snow Valley. Empty lifts still swing over many of these mountains decades after they went bust, but none ever found its way back.So why this one? Why Granite Gorge? A small ski area in a state stuffed with giant ski areas, many of them a mainline shot off the interstate from Boston. Once the joint closed after a rough winter in 1977, that should have been it. Another lost ski area in a state littered with them.But then Granite Gorge re-opened, miraculously, improbably, in 2003, under Fred Baybutt, who also ran a local construction company with his family. Baybutt added snowmaking and night skiing, built a new lodge and a new bridge over from Route 9. He bought a used Borvig double and ran it to the summit.But the ski area never really found momentum under Baybutt. By 2018, the chairlift had ceased operations. The ropetow and carpet continued to spin, but in August 2020, Baybutt died suddenly, and the ski area appeared to die with him.Except that it didn't. Granite Gorge is back. Somehow, this 525-vertical foot, low-elevation molehill whose direct competitors include basically every ski area in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts has more lives than a cartoon coyote smashed under an anvil. It's one of the best stories in New England skiing right now, and I had to hear it.*With rare exceptions, such as the forthcoming Mayflower, Utah.What we talked aboutWhat it's like to take that first general manager job; an overgrown mess; “I had to keep in mind that there was going to be an unlimited amount of punches that were going to be dealt”; how a busted Ford Taurus and a can of Red Bull foreshadowed the renaissance of Granite Gorge; Kreischer's messianic, decade-long quest to rescue Granite Gorge; how an ownership group “who really just wanted this thing back in the hands of the community” came together; advice for up-and-comers in the ski business; trying to save the lost Tanglwood ski area in Pennsylvania or Maple Valley in Vermont; Granite Gorge under the Baybutt family, the previous owners; Keene, New Hampshire; the rabid outdoor culture in the Northeast; how this time is different at Granite Gorge; fixing the bridge back to the ski area; helping ownership understand the enormous capital needs; the power of admitting your shortcomings; “if you don't know something, you need to find someone who does”; the comeback season was “awesome”; much love for Mountain Creek; finding a niche at Nashoba Valley; reviving the Granite Gorge double chair; why the ski area removed the lift's mid-station; Granite Gorge's snowmaking footprint and aspirations; how the ski area's new mountain bike operation will enhance glade skiing; surviving as a small ski area in a big ski state; night skiing; building terrain parks at an appropriate scale for mortals; running a mountain as a dad with five children; keeping lift tickets and passes affordable; a parking shortage; and competing against megapasses.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewI first connected with Keith sometime last spring, when he shot me an email with a promising update on Granite Gorge. The ski area was re-opening, he said, but I'd have to keep it to myself for the time being. Shortly after, the new ownership group officially named him general manager, and by August he was whacking weeds from beneath the Granite Gorge sign on Route 9 and brushing ticks off his legs.Excited as I was about this news, I generally don't ask folks to join me on the podcast until they've weathered at least one season leading their current resort. It's impossible to really know the place until you've sat teeth-gritted through a brown rain-soaked January and roared in glory at a nor-easter-driven March power-up. It's just not something you can appreciate through Zuckerberg's Oculus glasses. You have to be there.So we waited. In January, the ski area cranked open with its ropetow. The chairlift came online in mid-February. I was there the next day, taking fastlaps off the summit with my six-year-old. I stopped Kreischer for what would become my first #TwoMinuteStorm (basically, very short interviews with ski area managers) video on Instagram (click through to listen):Kreischer and I talked last summer, so I had a sense of his baseline. This podcast was almost like talking to a different person. It was like he'd spent 10 months cramming for a master's degree in Granite Gorge. Which I guess he had. But waiting was the right decision. Kreischer is a terrific ski area leader, thoughtful and passionate and enthusiastic and full of positive energy. He's the kind of guy who only gets more interested in a topic as he immerses himself in it. And after transforming an overgrown backwoods bump into a living business, his raw passion for the job had only amplified and become more focused. Last summer, Granite Gorge was an abstract thing. It was right there, waiting, but you could only really find it in your imagination. Now it's real. Now, he's actually done it. Actually re-opened a dead-as-the-dinosaurs ski area. Even if you normally just read this article and skip the podcast, listen to this one. Kreischer is as authentic and sincere as they get.Why you should ski Granite GorgeNot to be lazy with it, but I've covered this one already:Of all the ski states in America, I can't think of a rougher one to make a go as an operator than New Hampshire. There are so many good and large resorts and they are impossibly easy to access, stacked along I-93 like a snowy outlet mall. But here's little Granite Gorge, opened in 1959 but busted in the ‘70s and re-opened in 2003 and busted again in 2020 and now, improbably, opened again under a group of local business owners who bought it at auction last June. The joint sits in the southwest corner of the state, well off the main ski thoroughfares, which means it will make it as a locals' bump for Keene or it won't make it at all. I took my 6-year-old and we rolled 15 runs off the double chair that had re-opened the day before after not running since 2018. It was creaky and cranky and the mid-station was gone but it was running. We skied the same run over and over, a thin and windy green lolling off the summit. Six hundred vertical feet, up and down. Skier traffic was light but the tubing hill was full. It was a holiday weekend and we'd found a hack. No liftlines on a New England Sunday.Skiing there feels like being part of an excavation, as though they are digging things out of the ground and looking at them and trying to figure out what the ancients of New Hampshire could have been doing with such contraptions. It's spunky and plucky and a little ramshackle. You drive over a single-vehicle bridge to access a parking lot that's muddy and ungraded and unmanaged. They removed the chairlift mid-station, but it's still laying in parts scattered all over the woods. The lodge is squat and half-finished like a field hospital. But a strong spirit of revival is there, and if the owners can have patience enough to give this thing five years and focus on busloads of kids, it has a future.OK maybe not the best commercial for the place. But here's what Granite Gorge can give you: a completely uncrowded and inexpensive ski experience in a region that's getting short on both. Probably not your destination if you and the boys are looking to link Flipdoodle Supremes on monster kickers. Perfect if, like me, you're a dad who doesn't want to fight crowds on a holiday weekend. Or if you're a local looking to crush turns after work. Or if you live nearby and you have an Epic Pass but you just want to support the joint. There are worse places for your money.Podcast NotesOn the auction timelineThe current owners won Granite Gorge in an auction last June. From the June 6, 2022 Keene Sentinel:It took nearly 10 minutes of deliberation, two bidders dropping out and a back-and-forth bidding war amounting to $210,000 before a developer secured the rights to the former Granite Gorge Ski Area property along with the intent to reopen it for recreation.Between breaks of silence, bidders at Friday's foreclosure auction raised the stakes from an opening bid of $240,000 to a winning bid of $430,000 on site at the property, located along Route 9 in Roxbury. Bryan Granger, the senior vice president of Keene-based wholesale grocery company C&S Wholesale Grocers, clinched the final bid.Granger represented Granite Gorge Partnership, LLC at the auction, which claims itself to be a local group of Keene investors with a “shared desire of returning winter and summer activities to Granite Gorge in a safe and inclusive manner,” according to a media statement Granger provided to The Sentinel.The other bidder was a Massachusetts-based contractor named Nick Williamson.On Granite Gorge's troubled historyNew England Ski History provides a succinct timeline of Granite Gorge's history (the ski area was originally known as “Pinnacle”). A few highlights:Following the 1974-75 season, George LaBrecque transferred the ski area to Maurice Stone. One year later, Stone sold the area to Paul and Eleanor Jensen of Connecticut. Dealing with subpar snowfall, no snowmaking, and aging infrastructure, the Jensens only operated the Pinnacle for the 1976-77 season. Following the season, when mortgage payments were missed, Stone foreclosed and took back the property. There would be no more lift-served skiing at Pinnacle for the rest of the twentieth century.In November 1980, Stone sold the 94-acre Pinnacle property to Juanita Robinson of Kentucky and her three sons, one of whom lived in Massachusetts. Though “big plans” were teased with skiing to return in 1980 or 1981, Pinnacle remained idle.In December 1985, the Robinsons sold the property to Bald Mountain Park, Inc. The real estate entity held the property for fourteen years.In September 1999, Baybutt Construction purchased the former ski area and commenced studies for a potential reopening. …After a quarter of a century of idleness, the Pinnacle became a work site in the spring of 2002 when a new bridge was built from Route 9 to the base area.The Pinnacle reopened in early 2003 under the name of Granite Gorge. … The tiny startup on the Bunny Buster slope featured a rope tow and snowmaking. …After multiple years of planning and decades after the first proposal, Granite Gorge saw a significant expansion in 2005 with the addition of a double chairlift to Spruce Peak.Snowmaking and night skiing were expanded for 2006-07, which also featured a new base yurt. Snowmaking was expanded to the top of the chairlift for the 2008-2009 season, while night skiing followed up the mountain for the 2009-2010 season.In 2010 Granite Gorge was approved for a 300-person lodge, to be built in phases. Portions were completed in 2011 and 2012.In late 2012, parent company Baybutt Construction was dealing with escalating financial problems. One of Baybutt's lenders, Interstate Electrical Services Corp., arranged for a foreclosure auction of some of Baybutt's properties, including Granite Gorge ski area, for February 1, 2013. The auction was cancelled at the last minute and the ski area remained open. That month, Baybutt Construction Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.Granite Gorge continued to operate and grow in subsequent years, including adding to its off season offerings and events. …Granite Gorge scaled back operations for the 2018-19 season, as it ceased operating the chairlift and instead focused on snow tubing and skiing on the Bunny Buster trail. After nearly being auctioned off in the summer of 2019, the ski area continued to operate its surface lifts during the winter of 2019-20.On August 3, 2020, Fred Baybutt died of a sudden heart event at the age of 60. Following his death, Granite Gorge sat idle.On Tanglwood, PAKreischer recalls early snowboard adventures at Tanglwood, one of dozens of abandoned ski areas in Pennsylvania's Poconos. DCSki lists modest stats for the joint: 415 vertical feet on 35 acres served by two double chairs and a ropetow. The place closed around 2010 and liquidated its lifts in 2012. Here's a circa 2008 trailmap:I spent a few hours hiking the place back in 2021. Here's what I wrote at the time:Another 40 minutes up wild Pennsylvania highway is Tanglwood, 415 vertical feet shuttered since 2010. The mountain once had two doubles and two T-bars and a ropetow but now it has nothing, the place stripped as though looted by a ski grinch stuffing the chairs and tower guns into his wicked sleigh. Concrete lift towers anchored into the forest and the trails themselves are all that remain. The place is filled with deer. Like all the ski areas I visited that day it is lined with houses. It is late in the day and the American mole people are emerging to stand on their decks and tend to their plants and I wonder what it would be like to live on a ski area and then not live on a ski area because the ski area is gone and now you just live on a mountain where it hardly ever snows and you can hardly ever ski. I think I would be pissed.On Maple Valley, VermontKreischer also considered resurrecting Maple Valley, a thousand-footer in Southern Vermont. It had a nice little spread:The place opened in 1963 and made it, haltingly, to the end of the century under a series of owners. The culprit was likely a very tough neighborhood – Southern Vermont skiers have their choice of Stratton, Mount Snow, Bromley, or Magic. Maple Valley was just a little too close and a little too small to compete:I also included Granite Gorge on the map, so you can see how close the place is. I wouldn't have bet on Granite to re-open before Maple if pure ski terrain were the only factor to consider. But a fellow named Nicholas Mercede tried twice to open the ski area, according to New England Ski History. NIMBYs beat him back, and he died in 2018 at age 90.The lifts – a pair of 1960s Hall doubles – are, I believe, still standing. An outfit called “Sugar Mountain Holdings” has owned the ski area since 2018, and “a long-term vision was announced for possibly reopening the ski area,” according to New England Ski History.On Ski Resort Tycoon, the videogameKreischer's first run at ski resort management came via Ski Resort Tycoon, a 2000 sim game that you can still purchase on Amazon for $5.95. According to Wikipedia, “A Yeti can also be seen in the game, and it can be found eating the guests.” My God, can you imagine the insurance bill?On the density of New England ski areasNew England is one of the most competitive ski markets on the planet. It's certainly one of the densest, with 100 ski areas stuffed into 71,988 square miles – that's an area small than any major western ski state. The six New England states are small (Maine occupies nearly half of the total square mileage), so they share the glory, but their size masks just how tightly they are clustered. Check this stat: the number of ski areas per square mile across the six New England states is more than four times that of Colorado and six times that of Utah:Of course, New England ski areas tend to measure far smaller than those of the West. But the point of this exercise is to underscore the sheer volume of choices available to the New England skier. Here's what Granite Gorge is competing against as it works to establish itself as a viable business:That means the ski area is fighting against heavies like Mount Snow, Okemo, Stratton, and Mount Sunapee for its local Keene market – and the Keene market is essentially Granite Gorge's only market. There's probably a place for this little knuckler to act as a new-skier assembly line and weekend hideout for families and teenage Park Bros, but there's probably not a tougher place in America to pull this off than southwest New Hampshire.On Granite Gorge's mountain bike park and better glade skiing Kreischer believes that Granite Gorge cannot survive as a winter-only business. Earlier this spring, he announced the construction of a downhill mountain bike park. You can track their progress via Instagram:As regular readers know, I don't cover MTB, but we discuss these new trails in the context of their potential to enhance the ski area's glade network. Very little of Granite Gorge's face has been cut with trails. The potential for glade development is huge, and this initial poke into the forest is an excellent start.On Highland bike parkKreischer and I briefly discuss Highland Bike Park in New Hampshire. This is the only lift-served MTB park in New England that doesn't also double as a ski area. It was, in fact, once a 700-vertical-foot ski area. Here's a circa 1987 trailmap:Highland closed for skiing in 1995, and re-opened as a mountain bike park at some point over the next dozen years. Bike people tell me that the place is one of the best-regarded MTB facilities in New England. Here's the current bike trailmap:There are no current plans to re-open the area for skiing. “While there have been rumors that limited ski operations could resume in the future, the park remains biking-only at this point,” according to New England Ski History. Highland is in a tough spot for skiing, lodged between Ragged and Gunstock, which both have high-speed lifts and far more vertical. Highland sits just over two miles off Interstate 93, however, and there could be room in the market for a terrain-park only mountain à la Woodward Park City. Loon is the current terrain park king of New Hampshire, but it's crowded and expensive. Imagine a parks paradise with $50 day tickets and $300 season passes. That could work.On the alarm beeping in the backgroundYou may notice an alarm beeping in the background during the latter half of the podcast. I thought this was on my end, and I planned to simply edit the noise out, since I'm listening most of the time. After the podcast, I came up the stairs toting a ladder, prepared to dismantle the fire alarm. My wife looked at me, baffled. “What beeping?” she asked. Well, it was on Keith's end. Hopefully he wasn't so devoted to the podcast that he let his house burn down while recording it. Though I doubt that. Maybe he is Batman and that was his Batman alarm alerting him to nearby crimes. Though frankly I'm not sure a superhero could have revived Granite Gorge in six months. So it was probably just his You're Awesome alarm going off. All part of the story here.On an assist from Pats PeakKeith followed up via email after our call to throw some credit to his contemporary at Pats Peak: “I was reflecting on our conversation last night and one huge thing I forgot to mention was Kris Blomback and the help from Pat's Peak. They were instrumental in giving us a patrol sled and some awesome rental equipment that was a big deal getting us going this season. Kris is an amazing guy and a great leader. When I listened to his podcast episode with you, his words of advice to me was virtually verbatim, which really showcases his honesty, class, and true passion for bolstering skiing in this region. I really want to thank Kris and the rest of the Pats team for their help and assistance bringing us back to being a feeder for the entire Southern NH region.”On New Hampshire skiingI am an enormous, unapologetic fan of New Hampshire skiing. The mountains are many and varied, each one distinct. I've hosted a number of New Hampshire resort leaders on the podcast, and I have conversations scheduled with Cranmore GM Ben Wilcox and Attitash GM Brandon Swartz later this year. I also recorded an episode with Dartmouth Skiway GM Mark Adamczyk earlier this week – you'll have that one soon. Here's what's in the catalog right now:* Loon Mountain GM Brian Norton – Nov. 14, 2022* Pats Peak GM Kris Blomback – Sept. 22, 2022* Ragged Mountain GM Erik Barnes – April 29, 2022* Whaleback Executive Director Jon Hunt – June 17, 2021* Waterville Valley President and GM Tim Smith – Feb. 23, 2021* Gunstock President and GM Tom Day – Jan. 13, 2021* Cannon Mountain GM John DeVivo – Oct. 12, 2020* Loon Mountain President and GM Jay Scambio – Feb. 7, 2020The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing in North America year-round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 51/100 in 2023, and number 437 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe

Today I am having a conversation with the HBIC herself, Katie Boyd. Katie is the host of the Ambitchious podcast, an empowering extension of her first baby, Katie Boyd's Miss Fit Club. This multi-faceted health and wellness platform has transformed the lives and mindsets of tens of thousands of women from all over the globe. Today we talk about empowering women and how women can become the HBIC (Head Bitch In Charge) of their lives.   Connect with Katie Boyd: www.kbmfc.com Get Katies Book – Ambitchious : https://www.kbmfc.com/product/ambitchious-book/ Check Out Katies Podcast - Ambitchious  : https://ambitchious.podbean.com/     Book a Chat with Laura: https://lauranoelcc.com/calendar   Funding available for coaching https://www.eazeconsulting.com/apply?cl=GKKAY&ag=VAIHGCCG7B   Check Out My Website: https://www.ratracereboot.com/ Connect With Laura at: https://www.stretchintosuccess.com/ratracereboot/   Watch/Listen to the Show on: Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoc1sIm3AlUCrmcaFyZaFbw Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RatRaceReboot Podbean: https://infogtu.podbean.com/   #Katieboyde #Ambitchious #RatRaceReboot #Mindset #LawOfAttraction #StretchIntoSuccess #ParadigmShift   Guest Bio: Katie Boyd is on a mission to change women's lives. She's the host of the Ambitchious podcast, an empowering extension of her first baby, Katie Boyd's Miss Fit Club. This multi-faceted health and wellness platform has transformed the lives and mindsets of tens of thousands of women from all over the globe. She is also the author of Ambitchious, a no-holds barred, direct and brutally honest wake-up call to embrace the powerful reality that being a bitch is a good thing. Everything Katie creates is designed to help women use the very stones thrown at them to turn around and build their ultimate empires. Whether you're a stay-at-home mom raising five kids, in the middle of an upstart, an established entrepreneur, or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, being the HBIC is integral for ascension. She firmly believes that by facing our inner demons while working in the light will help women cast larger and more powerful shadows. Drawing from her expertise in exercise science and nutrition, as well as her work as a certified Reiki master/teacher and multi-dimensional healer, Katie is dedicated to helping others make physical, spiritual, health and wellness their most coveted possessions.   A popular motivational speaker, she has starred in her own reality television show through NBC Universal called Wicked Fit and has been featured on Dr. Oz, in O Magazine, as well as in Life and Style Magazine, Us Weekly, Boston Magazine, Boston Herald, and The Boston Globe.   Katie's most recent creation is a totally Ambitchious App on Mighty Networks where she educates women from all across the globe using her six life makers to elevate their lives in all facets. Her app includes her 12-week business mentorship program. Her 12 month long Ambitchious Academy. Her flagship program A28P. Ambitchious Audiobook. Daily live coaching. Breathwork, sound healing, meal planning, recipes, fasting, yoga, exercise, meditation, moon rituals, astrology, tarot, and so much more. Katie is changing the conversation about empowerment, self-care, and ambition. She resides in Southern New Hampshire with her twin flame, Matt, and her pinkfaced Boston terrier, Pearl.

This week's Urban Valor episode features Army First Sergeant Jon Bakaian. Jon grew up in Southern New Hampshire. He was close to his brother, Jeremy Bakaian, an Army combat veteran who enlisted into the infantry 6 months before he did. Jon conducted multiple combat deployments to Iraq. He speaks about the tragic loss of several comrades in combat and from suicide while battling PTSD. Additionally, Jon has had to endure the loss of his father, stepfather, and brother Jeremy within a 6-year time span. He says his brother Jeremy was never the same after losing two of his best friends to combat, which ultimately drove him into a dark place.#veteran #ptsd #urbanvalor #military #army #cnn #foxnews #combatveteran #war #warstories

Hello Brave Friends, every relationship has its struggles and triumphs but not every relationship allows the world to peek behind the “fairytale” curtain and see its gritty inner workings. This takes bravery and trust, especially when it's a relationship tethered to the added complexity of a diagnosed child. In this story episode, we hear from author Carrie Cariello, who is a mother to five children, one of whom was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. She has been married to her husband Joe for over 20 years and, as you will hear, not because they  “agree on everything” or “never fight”. In our conversation we talk about her discipline and process as a writer, mother and partner. It's an honest and insightful conversation with some sizable chunks of food for thought. Carrie Cariello is the author of What Color Is Monday, How Autism Changed One Family for the Better, and Someone I'm With Has Autism. She lives in Southern New Hampshire with her husband, Joe, and their five children. Carrie is a contributor to the Huffington Post, TODAY Parents, the TODAY Show, Parents.com. She has been interviewed by NBC Nightly News, and also has a TEDx talk. She speaks regularly about autism, marriage, and motherhood, and writes a weekly blog. One of her essays, “I Know What Causes Autism,” was featured as one of the Huffington Post's best of 2015, and her piece, “I Know Why He Has Autism,” was named one of the top blog posts of 2017 by the TODAY Show.Find Carrie's Blog here.Brave Together is the podcast for We are Brave Together, a not-for-profit organization based in the USA. The heart of We Are Brave Together is to strengthen, encourage, inspire and validate all moms of children with disabilities and other needs in their unique journeys. JOIN the international community of We Are Brave Together here.Donate to our Retreats and Respite Scholarships here.Donate to keep this podcast going here.Can't get enough of the Brave Together Podcast?Follow our Instagram Page @wearebravetogether or on Facebook.Feel free to contact Jessica Patay via email: jpatay@wearebravetogether.orgIf you have any topic requests or if you would like to share a story, leave us a message here.Please leave a review and rating today! We thank you in advance!

On today's episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast, we're talking about creating a subscription box with Cheryl Ham. Cheryl Ham is a self-taught knitter who learned the craft with a bit of help from YouTube and a pair of her mother's long-forgotten and slightly bent, size 9 needles. Cheryl is also the owner of Hypnotic Yarn, which came to life in 2017 after discovering the existence of hand-dyed yarn while watching knitting podcasts. Later, Cheryl founded Yarnable, a monthly hand-dyed yarn subscription that encourages self-care through the joy of knitting. When she's not playing with color in her Southern New Hampshire studio, Cheryl can be found snuggling with her two Chihuahuas.  +++++ This episode is sponsored by Search Press. For over 50 years, Search Press has delighted crafters with books on knitting, crochet, sewing, quilting, fiber crafts, painting, and drawing. If you want to try a new craft or improve your skills, Search Press has detailed instruction books for you. If you would like to learn more about selling Search Press books in your store or on your website, check out our website searchpressusa.com. +++++ To get the full show notes for this episode visit Craft Industry Alliance where you can learn more about becoming a member of our supportive trade association. Strengthen your creative business, stay up to date on industry news, and build connections with forward-thinking craft professionals. Join today.

In this episode of Top Coach we're headed back to the Northeast, which has proven to be a very productive area for college baseball coaches through the years. This time we'll be talking to another [...]

"I am a pastry chef, classically trained. I've been in food now for 14 years. I will say I've been cooking and baking since I was very little I grew up on a farm in Florida and always had really fresh produce and meat as well to use to cook with. And a lot of time with my mother in the kitchen," said Chef Tara Cannaday, head chef of Pot + Pan, "I was born in Florida and stayed there until I was 12 and then actually moved to New Hampshire, Southern New Hampshire with my mom and my brother. My mom's side of the family is from New Hampshire. So went to high school there and then ended up in Boston for music school. Music was my first career and enjoyed cooking and entertaining along the way. Like when I was in high school I was always in drama club and whenever we would have like, you know, team building events, if you will, or cast parties, I was always the one that was making treats and food. It certainly continued into college when we are at music school like poor college musicians, trying to do little potlucks and things I would always be like, you know what I got this guys I'm going to take my paycheck from the week and make a big spread of food." From there, Chef Tara Cannnaday took on many roles with five-star restaurants but eventually took her career to Maine. She started a food truck where she sold the best macaroons in East Prom in Portland and now is the head chef at Pot + Pan, a cannabis edible company that puts food first."I was still very heavily involved in my own business, leading up to COVID. My daughter was getting older at this point and I felt a little bit more of a need to be home with her more often and have a more consistent schedule, which I wasn't getting with my own business. And, you know, still love what I did, but need to kind of have a greater purpose in what I was doing. So Pot + Pan had posted an ad online that they were looking for a baker. And I was like, You know what, I'm very passionate about the cannabis space. Something that you know is medicinal and helps people and I love helping people. So I reached out and said, Hey, this is what I can do. I think I can offer this to you all. And yeah, they went for it. Kerry John, who's one of the owners actually had already known about my business and was a fan. So they told me they were very excited when, when my resume came through, I think they meant it. Yeah, I was just so thrilled to have the opportunity. And it really kind of created this new challenge for me food-wise. Sure, you know, cannabis is, is a medicine, but it's really just an ingredient. And I call it my like, little secret ingredient. Because that's, that's all it is. So I'm still creating food that I love and with, you know, purpose and thought, I have this little extra secret ingredient that makes you feel good, right? And that's, that's really what we're all about here. So anytime I'm planning menus, I approach it like I would if there was no cannabis. Honestly, I feel like I've finally found where I have been meant to be this whole time. I'm so grateful for the journey that has brought me here. But now I'm like, I'm really in it. And I'm loving all of the people that I'm meeting as a result of being a part of this business great. And being able to be the forward-facing person like, yeah, it really plays into what I did as a musician and a performer earlier on," said Tara.Tara's goal is to not only bring her delicious recipes to the table with Pot + Pan but to educate people of edibles and how they can approach it through their lifestyle.We're trying to take this unique approach to cannabis where Moms and people who are curious will feel like it's approachable and easy and comfortable. Not having to go into a store where it's a bunch of, for lack of a better term stoners who might judge you if you're only in there trying to buy a five-milligram gummy as opposed to 100-milligram gummy. We are trying to be approachable and say like, Hey, you can trust us -- like our products as they are accurately dosed always. They're delicious, and you know that you will have a consistent experience, right? It is very shareable. I think we're creating something really fun and different that no one is doing in cannabis right now. It feels exciting. It feels a little scary at times, because we're like, wait a second, are people going to see this vision as we do? And now we see the feedback and it has been great," said Tara.Tune in to learn more about Tara, her past career, her experience as head chef at Pot + Pan and her future goals with the company. 

/* custom css */ .tdi_2, .tdi_2 .tdc-columns{ min-height: 0; }.tdi_2, .tdi_2 .tdc-columns{ display: block; }.tdi_2 .tdc-columns{ width: 100%; } /* custom css */ .tdi_4{ vertical-align: baseline; }.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper, .tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{ display: block; }.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{ width: 100%; }.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper > .vc_row_inner{ width: auto; }.tdi_4 > .wpb_wrapper{ width: auto; height: auto; } SEASON 02: WICKED GOOD PREGNANCY | EPISODE 01 Interview With a Doula Featuring Dashanna Hanlon To kick off our Wicked Good Pregnancy series, we are talking to Boston Mom's writer, and certified local doula, Dashanna Hanlon. Dashanna owns and operates Caring for Mamas which provides services to families throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum. Her mission is to empower families to advocate for themselves, understand the birthing process, and create the postpartum life of their dreams. Tune in for this informative interview with a doula! About Our Guest  DASHANNA HANLON is a birth & postpartum doula, serving families all over Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire. She created and teaches Not Ya Mama's Childbirth Education Course to parents all over the country. Caring for Mamas is Dashanna's way of starting the conversation about how families navigate pregnancy, parental transitions, and what postpartum care looks like beyond the first twelve weeks.  How to Keep in Touch  CaringforMamas.com Follow Caring for Mamas on Instagram   Follow Caring for Mamas on Facebook What is the Wicked Good Momcast? WHO | The Wicked Good Momcast is hosted by Shannon Gibson + Meghan Block, two local moms with a heart for community and with an undeniable connection that we hope you'll hear through our voices.  WHAT | In each episode, you'll hear from local + national experts in various spheres relevant to parenting, local moms and business owners who you should know about, and special guests! WHERE | You can listen wherever you listen to other podcasts! Please subscribe so you never miss an update! WHEN | New episodes drop the first and third Tuesdays of the month.  HOW | Are you someone we should interview? Is there a topic you want to be sure we cover? Are you a local brand looking to expand your marketing efforts with Boston Moms? Email shannon@bostonmoms.com to chat or share your thoughts – we would love to hear from you! APPLE PODCASTS | iHeart PODCASTS Links We Mentioned (Or Should Have...) 5 Unique Ways to Help A New Mom /* custom css */ .tdi_6, .tdi_6 .tdc-columns{ min-height: 0; }.tdi_6, .tdi_6 .tdc-columns{ display: block; }.tdi_6 .tdc-columns{ width: 100%; } /* custom css */ .tdi_8{ vertical-align: baseline; }.tdi_8 > .wpb_wrapper, .tdi_8 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{ display: block; }.tdi_8 > .wpb_wrapper > .tdc-elements{ width: 100%; }.tdi_8 > .wpb_wrapper > .vc_row_inner{ width: auto; }.tdi_8 > .wpb_wrapper{ width: auto; height: auto; }

On What's Your Work Fit we posed this question: can remote tech aid my work fit? This week, Global Teck Worldwide General Manager Dave Kelly answers this and other questions. Operating remotely? Dave says that you should start by acquiring a phone number that's dedicated for business use. And sign up for a service like Vonage; that keeps your work and personal channels separate. During 2023, increasing speed will rank high in the priorities of workplace professionals. And their remote tech needs to rise to that challenge. What's more, make sure you benefit from best-in-class remote conferencing tools. Dave recommends products, like the Poly webcam/mic/speaker platform that make up for often poor [pre-installed] laptop conferencing tools. During this information packed episode, Dave answers "what's your work fit?' His refreshing take on work and life will surely resonate with many career professionals. About our guest: Dave Kelly is the general manager of Global Teck Worldwide, which helps ensure that work done from home or in the office environment has the right gear to get the job done right. Dave is also co-host of the popular What The Teck Show. He lives in the Boston suburbs of Southern New Hampshire. This episode originated as a live show on January 10, 2023. You can watch the show in its entirety on the What's Your Work Fit YouTube Channel. EPISODE DATE: January 13, 2023 Dave's social media: LinkedIn What The Teck Show on YouTube Audio Podcast Website Please Subscribe to What's Your Work Fit on: – Apple Podcast – Android – Google Podcasts – Pandora – Spotify – Stitcher – TuneIn …or wherever you get your podcasts. You may also click HERE to receive our podcast episodes by email. Image credits: Remote office tech array, Global Teck Worldwide; portrait, Dave Kelly; podcast button, J. Brandt Studio for The Dan Smolen Experience.

Today, we are joined by Jonathan Bombaci and Todd Wheatley to talk about finding an effective way to scale. They collectively own over 300 units in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They are both House Hacker Extraordinaires and they also have a property management company that manages and operates over 400.   [00:01 - 04:39] How They Started Out How Todd started with House Hacks, met John, and then partnered up to focus on larger assets How they found an effective way to scale into bigger assets Why they have a clear mission of focusing on finding 100 units or more   [04:40 - 10:54] Tips for Sticking to Your Focus When Investing in Multi-Family How staying focused can be difficult, and how falling victim to the shiny object syndrome can be a problem How team members and trusted partners hold each other accountable, and how acquiring assets directly from the owner can be a successful strategy Why they discourage solicitation at their own events, instead focusing on providing valuable content and building relationships with attendees   [11:31 - 18:02] Strategies to Avoid Toxic Deals How their team is made up of real estate professionals with backgrounds in different areas of the industry, including acquisitions, investor relations, financials, and property management How they developed processes and partnerships to help them manage their portfolio and operations more effectively How a minor subdivision is taking a property splitting it into five parcels or less and how it can be a good strategy for beginning stages of a development How they will hire an engineer to draw up potential plans for what the subdivision could look like and list it with a commercial broker.   [18:03 - 19:42] Closing Segment Reach out to Todd and Jonathan!  Links Below Final Words     Tweetable Quotes   “The bigger stuff is for other people. Let's just stick with the stuff that we know.” - Todd Wheatley   “Everyone presents their best self when you're doing an interview.” - Jonathan Bombaci   -----------------------------------------------------------------------------   Connect with Todd and Jonathan! Follow Jonathan Bombaci and Todd Wheatley on LinkedIn.  Website: www.candorealtyboston.com Emails: Jonathan - bombacire@gmail.com, Todd - todd@heartfeltre.com   Connect with me:   I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.     Facebook   LinkedIn   Like, subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or whatever platform you listen on. Thank you for tuning in!   Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com     Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:   [00:00:00] Todd Wheatley: So having those clear lanes within our team especially, and then as you alluded to in the open Sam, we've built teams and processes for our companies, including property management, maintenance technicians in house accounting, mortgage brokering, and so we've added those very specific partners to the team and whose people to the team as we've grown. [00:00:35] Sam Wilson: Todd Wheatley and John Bombaci collectively own over 300 units in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. They are both House Hacker Extraordinaires and they also have a property management company that manages and operates over 400 units. Todd and Jon, welcome to the show. Absolutely. Guys, there's, there's three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now, and how did you get there? [00:00:48] Jonathan Bombaci: Thanks for having us. [00:00:49] Sam Wilson: Absolutely. Guys, there's three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now, and how did you get there? [00:00:59] Jonathan Bombaci: Sure. So both of us started with House Hacks. I started mine early and then Todd, you know, along the journey and we've kind of partnered up, and built the thing. I did a three-family house hack in Connecticut the year I graduated from college. Lived in one of the units, rented out the other two, paid off all of my debt. Thought I did a really smart thing. I worked in corporate finance for Fortune 100 companies for about 10 years before jumping into real estate. Full-time. I jumped into real estate full-time in 2019. I owned 30 units at the time and that's when I met Todd. We actually helped him house hack the five unit using an F H A loan in Walton, which could be a whole different podcast on how the heck we were able to do a five unit with an F H A.. But it was his entry into the world, kind of got his feet wet. And then I think, you know, a matter of months later, he quit his high paying corporate job and jumped into real estate full-time and we found a big property to work together on and it's been a partnership ever since. [00:01:54] Sam Wilson: That is cool. So Todd, you got a five unit and then just a few months later you're like, all right, I see the potential here. I'm out. I'm gonna go do real estate.  [00:02:03] Todd Wheatley: That's about it, Sam. So caught the bug, met some good partners like John and the rest is history.  [00:02:10] Sam Wilson: How did you guys decide, one, to partner up and then how did you decide on a strategy? [00:02:16] Jonathan Bombaci: I mean, I got really good at partnering up. One of the things I started saying is, you know, I own the first 29 units by myself. We own the next 300 units and the 29 units took up more of my time than the 300 units with partners since I got really good at partnering up with Todd. We just found, you know, the commonality of long-term buy and hold, large, large properties were kind of the thing that got us both interested. And so when those come across the desk, you know, I partner up with Todd and a couple of the other, you know, partners on that team. But our interests align and I don't want to do anything by myself. And so Todd was a natural fit when it came to those large assets.  [00:02:50] Sam Wilson: That is really cool. You know, I think what a lot of times people struggle with taking that next step into the larger asset space. They either think it's not for me, or it's too big, or they don't know how. Those are common hurdles I think that people are struggling to overcome. How did you guys find an effective way to scale into bigger assets?  [00:03:12] Todd Wheatley: John, do you mind if I take this one?  [00:03:13] Jonathan Bombaci: Yeah, go ahead. [00:03:15] Todd Wheatley: Perfect. So Sam, as John alluded to, you know, we had similar backgrounds, both had personal portfolios. John started a real estate meetup here in the greater Boston area for like-minded investors to meet up. When Covid came, we had to shift to virtual, so we pivoted into a virtual meetup, and we had one of those meetups made, had a guest speaker come and educate us. Agency financing, commercial agency financing. And that really opened our eyes to larger assets. And it really made us question that imposter syndrome that you just mentioned, right? The bigger stuff is for other people. Let's just stick with the stuff that we know. And after that meetup, we really sat down and questioned ourselves. She said, why aren't we focused? Larger buildings, larger multi-family buildings. And the reason was we were scared. We didn't know, right? We were afraid of what we didn't know. And we said, that's not a good enough excuse. That's not a good enough reason not to do something. And so, as I'm sure we'll go into, you know, we came together, we set a very clear mission of focusing on finding a 100 unit apartment building or larger. We all kind of have different skill sets that round each other out, as John and I will share. And we just had a really clear mission. We got over that imposter syndrome pump and we went and found an asset.  [00:04:36] Sam Wilson:  Got it. I love that transition. So you went from five units, Todd, to your next buy was a hundred units thereabouts. [00:04:46] Todd Wheatley: My wife and I had about 10 units total. And we went to 130 pretty quickly. It's grown ever since.  [00:04:52] Sam Wilson: That's awesome. What has probably been the biggest surprise for you, in going bigger, faster?  [00:04:58] Todd Wheatley: John hit the nail on the head, which is in a certain way, scaling has been easier. Not only because we have each other, we have each other, we have partners, et cetera. We've established systems at scale, but managing a hundred and something units under one roof is not necessarily, you know, 10 times harder than a 10 unit building. It actually, in our case, becomes easier because there's economies of scale, both at the management level. And maintenance levels. And John, I don't know if you want to build upon the comment you made earlier, but we have just found that kind of growing, particularly in very tight geographies, has actually been easier than some of the smaller buildings.  [00:05:41] Sam Wilson: Todd, one of the things I think that so many of us struggle with is staying focused, and especially coming in as a newer investor, there's always shiny object syndrome where it's like, oh man, hey, cool. We can do small multi-family. Oh man. Hey, cool. We can do multi-family. Oh, but what about self storage? And there's this barrage of deals that just constantly come at you and there's always that temptation to look and say, we can profit there. We can profit there. Isn't this all fun? How do you guys stay focused? I mean, it sounds like you found your lane, you've stuck inside of it from the get-go. How'd you do it?  [00:06:13] Todd Wheatley: Yeah, it's a good question, Sam, and we've definitely been victims of the shiny object syndrome. When, you know, I go back to when we decided to focus on the asset class of large multifamily, when we sat down. I really mean it, we sat down as a group in person, set that vision of what we wanted, the types of asset. And part of that conversation was, guys, we know we can focus on mobile home parks. We know we can focus on storage, you know, self storage units. Maybe we will grow into those, those verticals. But right now there's so much multi-family. Certainly value add multi-family, which is our primary focus. Let's get really, really good at that. [00:07:37] Sam Wilson: I think that's brilliant to ask that question, and it's probably not one that's asked often enough, but, what is the cost of chasing this other opportunity? That's a very powerful question and I think you hit on two fronts asking that question, but also having partners that go, Hey, that's not our bread and butter.   So let's just not. One of the things maybe, I don't know if we said this on air, maybe talked about it off air, was, but that in your mission statement, you guys are finding cash flowing assets that roll off 10 to 12%. On an annualized basis. How are you doing that today in the multi-family environment that those are numbers? I've just not seen a double digit cash on cash return in multi-family. I don't think any deals have come across my desk in the last two years. What's your secret sauce binding the deals? [00:08:24] Todd Wheatley: Right. There's no magic bullet. John, keep me honest, but everything we've purchased has been direct to owner, direct to seller, so we're buying these assets at pretty deep discounts. Certainly compared to a broker. And again, we're real estate professionals. We have a very successful agency, both in New Hampshire and Massachusetts that primarily focuses on small multifamily. But when it comes to these larger assets, we're looking for folks that have owned these assets for a very long time. There's value added both through renovations and through particularly operations. So rents 20% to 30% below market, no technology. They haven't reviewed their service contracts in a very long time. And so the in place lift is significant, and that's primarily where we're finding deals, word of mouth, wholesalers and direct to seller marketing. So I think that's been a huge, huge part of how we've been able to find the, you know, properties that meet kind of our cash flow targets.  [00:09:26] Jonathan Bombaci: We've also down the reputation of buying the properties off of the worst landlord in the city. And so one of the habits we have is, you know, when we buy a property, go to town hall, tell them who we bought it from. They're like, oh, thank God. And then they tend to give us a hit list. The second to worst landlord, and the third second to worst landlord because, you know, we like the operational deficiencies and a lot of times it's decent properties with bad management. And so once, once we take 'em over, a lot of times the cities are very happy and more often than not, they actually give us a list of other properties they wouldn't mind if they changed hands.  [00:09:59] Sam Wilson: Is that list curated based upon code violations, upon tenant complaints, you know, things of that nature that they just repeatedly see these landlords in court or in code, you know, violation of those sort of things. Is that kind of how hit list, if you will, is developed? [00:10:16] Jonathan Bombaci: Yeah, yeah. You know, order health violations, you know, notice of violations, you know, continuous problems with trash or just ugly from the outside, or a lot of times when we talk to them, it's like, when was the last time that you guys have been in this building? And they're like, you know, five years, 10 years. They want to get in, they want to do inspections, they want to check the power system. They want to do those types of things, but most of the time the landlord buying off of 'em are, are pretty aggressively against allowing the city into the buildings. [00:10:45] Sam Wilson: How do you make a seller like you when they are that, I'm gonna say type of landlord, I think it sounds like acquiring assets like that could potentially be an adversarial buy. That's probably not the right way to say that, but is there a way or a strategy for you guys to have a very friendly transaction with a seller of that type? [00:11:09] Jonathan Bombaci: I think we divide and conquer. So I think we have four members of the team. Myself and another member of our team, Matt, tend to try to befriend the sellers, you know, we're the face, we meet 'em the first time we walk the properties, you know, you know, for lack of a better word, we're kind of like the yes guys. Like, oh yeah, of course. Like, you know, we understand that you don't have any section eight units at this 132 unit property and you're not violating fair housing laws. Like I completely get that. You're awesome. Like those types of things. And then on the back end we got Todd and Nate and our legal team that are like, all right, how are we gonna fix this? How are we gonna use this to our advantage later on? But I mean, we kind of divide the team where it's like, you know, when there's bad news throughout the deal, it's coming from, you know, within when there's good news throughout the deal, we make sure it's coming from either, you know, it's coming from a friendly face and then we kind of like, you know, play good cop, bad cop within our own organization to kind of make sure that the seller wants to talk to me, but Todd is the guy behind the scenes that's squeezing him on all the things that he's doing wrong. [00:12:11] Sam Wilson: I love it. and that makes sense. I mean, cause it's one of those things where I feel like for us, we always work really hard to have, like, I don't wanna be part of a deal that's toxic, like buying, buying toxic deals and my life is too short where I have to surround myself with people like that. But I think having an effective strategy, like what you guys have developed, because there is bad news sometimes to sellers. There are times when it's like, Hey, this is, you know, it's just this is the state of your property and this is what it's gonna cost you in order for us to get this across the finish line. That's reality. But having a strategy for how you guys deal with that is really cool. Tell me about your team. How do you guys round each other out? How have you developed that team and how did you figure out who was gonna handle what seat on the bus? Todd, would you like to take this?  [00:12:55] Todd Wheatley: Sure, sure. Happy to. So, yeah, we all come from real estate. We all had real estate experience where we kind of dove full time into this. We all come from different corporate backgrounds, so I was in information technology, John was in insurance. So we all have kind of a professional corporate background, but from different kinds of angles and perspectives and we set out, so both us as managers and sponsors, we set out having very clear kinds of roles. So as John mentioned, we have somebody that focuses on acquisitions and negotiations. We have others that focus on investor relations and tags. We have others that are focused on financials and operations. So having those clear lanes within our team especially, and then as you alluded to in the open, We've built aims and processes for our companies, including property management, maintenance technicians, inhouse accounting, mortgage brokering, and so we've added those very specific partners to the team and those people to the team as we've grown and we've done that through our organic network. I mean, one thing that John hasn't really mentioned, but he should be very proud of, and I'm proud to be a part of it, is he established these networkings. We have hundreds of people, both task clients, peer investors, folks of all different angles of the industry, and that has become our real estate network and we can often tap people in that network to play these really, really important roles. As we grow and we have the familiarity with these folks, we know what they can do and it's a win-win. It's a symbiotic relationship because as we grow, we create these needs and they can then kind of jump on the bus and help us and bring it to the next level, so to speak. So it hasn't been easy, as I'm sure John would attest to, but it's been very fun. We've developed most of these functions in-house so that we can kind of have that control over our portfolio and the operations. And it's been a really fun few years.  [00:14:55] Sam Wilson: That is awesome. John, I want to ask you, a particular question about that starting up a meetup of that sort growing it. What are some effective strategies maybe that you use, that you would recommend to somebody else if they were thinking about doing the same? [00:15:09] Jonathan Bombaci:  I think the big push is very early on, we said, no solicitation. We've all been to those meetups where it's like, you know, hey, you have five minutes of value and then 45 minutes of me trying to sell you something. And we didn't wanna be those people, so we do bring in guest speakers. They are people that are soliciting business, but the idea is they're not doing it while they're up there, they need to add value back to the group. I don't carry business cards when I'm at my own meetups. We're very, you know, against solicitation at the meetups and it's all about adding value, and then people tend to reach out the next day or the next Monday if they're interested. But we've taken a very hard dance against people's comments in marketing, and I think that's kind of gone a long way. And we put the content first. We put the people first and then, and then we even put ourselves second, you know, in terms of actually garnering business from it.  [00:16:01] Sam Wilson: That's really cool. And what a unique way to build out, you know, to Todd's comment, to build out your team. I mean, if you got a front row seat to the people that are doing deals that are there, you know, you get a feel for their skill sets, you get a feel for who they are, and then when it's time for you to bolt on a new member or a new new position within the company, it's like, oh. I got how many other people are in your meetup? It sounds like more than a hundred that you can look at and go. Hey, maybe this is somebody to bring on our team. Is that a fair analysis? [00:16:29] Jonathan Bombaci: Yeah. I mean, I think up until recently, every new staff member has come from our bench, right? Has come from someone that, you know, I stick on the bench every year. We kind of go through who's on our bench and what positions might be opening up, and we try to slot people in that. I think we just recently hired two maintenance technicians in northern, in, and Southern New Hampshire that weren't on our bench because it was outside of our target area. But up until that point, everybody else has been hired from, you know, from, from the network.  [00:16:59] Sam Wilson: That's cool. And what an effective way to grow and scale versus, you know,I'm gonna call it spray and pray. You're not out there putting lists on Indeed or anything like that, or, or posts on Indeed going, gosh, I wonder if this is gonna be a good fit. Hiring a random person. And again, not that you can't hire good people that way. But how much more effective to be able to have a front row seat to who they are, how they behave, what type of business they work in. You get to know the person long before you ever have to actually, or want to ever offer them a job. That's a really, really cool and effective strategy. Guys, go ahead if you have you got more to say about that? Please tack it off. [00:17:36] Jonathan Bombaci: I was gonna say, everyone presents their best self when you're doing an interview. Right? You stick 'em in front of a meetup and say, Hey, present something on your last fix and flip. And you can tell out, you can tell real quickly, you know, the type of person they are based off of how they build the presentation. Right?  [00:17:50] Sam Wilson: Oh, that's super smart. I absolutely love it. Guys, you've done incredible things. I mean, 2019, it sounded like, again, you know, I think you said you own 30 units maybe. Then John and I think Todd, by the time you guys partnered up, you had 10. That's pretty impressive growth here in just a few short years. You've given us a lot of things here to think about leveraging partnerships, how to round out each other's teams, staying focused and staying in our lanes. I mean, that's a struggle I think, for all of us, and you've certainly given us a lot of really cool and great things to think about here. Appreciate you guys coming on the show today. I've loved hearing your journey thus far. If our listeners wanna get in touch with you or learn more about you or even your meetup, what is the best way to do it? [00:18:28] Jonathan Bombaci: Best way would just be to go to our website,candorrealty.com or to reach out directly to myself or Todd, I'm sure. We'll provide you with our contact information and people can reach out to us directly.  [00:18:37] Sam Wilson: Awesome. And if we can get that one time, just slightly slower there. That website again there, John. That way if we're just listening, we can make sure we can look it up. Maybe if we wanna catch that up, just the audio only version. So what was that website again?  [00:18:49] Jonathan Bombaci: Sure. It's candorrealty.com, which is the name of our agency.  [00:18:54] Sam Wilson: Fantastic. We'll make sure to also include that there in the show notes. Todd and John, thank you again for coming on the show today. I certainly appreciate it. It was great having you guys on today.  [00:19:03] Jonathan Bombaci: Yep. Thanks Sam.

On this week's episode of the Short Term Show, Avery does a deep dive on franchises with Kim Daly. Kim gives some helpful tips on how to get started, how to choose the right franchise for you, how to keep your mindset right and more. Kim and Avery discuss buying new vs established franchises, the major pitfalls to franchise investing and Kim also breaks down the hefty investment costs. For the past 20 years Kim Daly has been helping entrepreneurs, investors, and stuck 9-5 professionals take control of their lives and step out of the corporate cycle by investing intelligently in the franchise businesses and become "franchisepreneurs." She is an international best-selling co-author of Franchising Freedom and the founder and host of the Kim Daly TV YouTube channel. Before becoming a franchise consultant Kim was an entrepreneur and highly sought after consultant in the health and fitness industry working with brands such as Denise Austin, Dr.Denis Waitley, Gold’s Gym and eDiets.com. She is the creator of “The Daly Plan” – a millionaire mindset coaching program that enabled her to build the largest franchise consulting business in the history of franchise consulting in 2012. She aspires to be the most influential and motivational voice in the franchise industry. Kim is a mom of two teenage boys. She is passionate about fitness and nutrition. She lives on the beach in Southern New Hampshire where she loves to ski in the winter and workout year round. How to connect with Kim: kimdaly.tv How to connect with Avery: The Short Term Shop - https://theshorttermshop.com/ Follow Avery Carl on Instagram - @theshorttermshop For more information on how to get into short term rentals, read Avery’s Book, Short-Term Rental, Long-Term Wealth: Your Guide to Analyzing, Buying, and Managing Vacation Properties - https://amzn.to/3Adg6PA Need lending for your Short Term Rental? Get Pre-Approved on a loan with up to 89.99% of LTV with The Mortgage Shop - https://mortgage.shop/ The Short Term Show is made possible in part by our sponsors. Relay is a no-fee, online banking and money management platform. Spend, save and plan more efficiently with unparalleled clarity into operating expenses, cash flow and accounts payable. Visit https://relayfi.com/theshorttermshop to get started.

Part three of three in the series about Gregg Smart's murder and the trial that captivated the region (and the nation) in the winter of 1991. New Hampshire TV station WMUR 9 aired the Pamela Smart trial in its entirety. It was the beginning of our true crime obsession and illustrated how the media reshapes the narrative to often tell the story they want to sell. Court TV was born.  Gregg Smart is the forgotten victim in the crime of the century - as it has been called over and over given its history of firsts. Gregg was murdered on May 1, 1990. The 24-year-old insurance broker was shot dead in his home six days before his first wedding anniversary.At first, it looked like he'd  interrupted a burglary, because that's what the killers were told to make it look like. As the investigation wore on, it uncovered a plot rife with salacious headlines by a mastermind who was first tried in the media before they were tried in court. The Smart case was a spectacle,  the original crime of the century. The first televised trial.WMUR Channel 9 in Manchester, New Hampshire preempted its daily programming to televise the two-week trial. People stood in line at 2am to get a seat in the courtroom. The pretrial coverage was frenzied. I often cover stories that affected me. This is one of those. I lived in Southern New Hampshire in the late 80s/early 90s. You couldn't go anywhere without hearing  the name Pamela Smart.It's the show's anniversary month. Get 30% off all merch in the store using code: ANNIVERSARY - at crimeofthetruestkind.com(store link: https://www.anngellewood.com/store)Crime of the Truest KindHosted by Anngelle Wood@anngelleAll source materials listed at CrimeoftheTruestKind.comFollow @crimeofthetruestkind Listen + Rate + ReviewEverywhere you listen to podcastsBecome a patron on Patreon! Patreon.com/crimeofthetruestkindMusic from Joe only one Kowalski and Andrew King appears in this episodeThank you for listening. #newenglandcrimestories #ihearttruecrime#greggsmart #derrynh #crimeofthecentury#seabrooknh #winnacunnethighschool#newhampshire #newhampshirecrimeSupport the show

To support independent ski journalism, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This podcast hit paid subscribers' inboxes on Sept. 26. Free subscribers got it on Sept. 29. To receive future pods as soon as they're live, please consider an upgrade to a paid subscription.WhoKris Blomback, General Manager of The Mighty Pats Peak, New HampshireRecorded onSeptember 19, 2022About Pats PeakClick here for a mountain stats overviewOwned by: The Patenaude familyPass affiliations: Indy PassReciprocal pass partners: NoneLocated in: Henniker, New HampshireClosest neighboring ski areas: Crotched (30 minutes), Mount Sunapee (30 minutes), McIntyre (30 minutes), Veterans Memorial (50 minutes), Ragged Mountain (50 minutes), Granite Gorge (50 minutes – scheduled to return this season), Whaleback (50 minutes), Gunstock (1 hour), Storrs Hill (1 hour),Base elevation: 690 feetSummit elevation: 1,460 feetVertical drop: 770 feetSkiable Acres: 115 acres      Average annual snowfall: 100 inchesTrail count: 28 trails, 9 glades (17% double-black, 12% black, 21% intermediate, 50% beginner)Lift count: 11 (4 triples, 2 doubles, 2 carpets, 1 J-bar tow, 2 handle tows - view Lift Blog's of inventory of Pats Peak's lift fleet)Why I interviewed himLiving next door to Vermont is probably a little like being Hoboken. Nice town, great location, all the advantages of city life, but invisible in the orbit of Earth's most famous island. Did you know that the population density of Hoboken is about double that of New York City? Probably not. It's fine. Most people don't. Nobody cares about Hoboken.That's how it seems the ski intelligentsia sometimes views New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, the three ski states bordering Vermont. By whatever accident of geology and meteorology, the Pretentious Beer State possesses most of the region's biggest ski areas and its most reliable snowzone: the Green Mountain Spine. Along this rim sit your headliners: Killington, Sugarbush, Mad River Glen, Stowe, Smugglers' Notch, Jay Peak. If you tried to tell me these were the six best ski areas between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, I'd probably be like, “OK” and go eat my Pop-Tarts.But if The Storm was just a documentary tool for places where New Yorkers vacation, then I would have wrapped this project up two years ago. This is a big New Hampshire house, and always has been: the heads of Loon, Cannon, Gunstock, Waterville Valley, Whaleback, and Ragged have all made podcast appearances. Still, the Vermont interview tally is 15, even though I ski New Hampshire as often as I do Vermont. Clearly I have work to do.So here we are. A New Hampshire ski area with the best attributes of New Hampshire ski areas: service- and snowmaking-oriented; steep and varied; busy because it's close to everything; lots of lifts; lots of community and tradition. If you don't think all that fits into 115 acres, you haven't skied New England. The Mighty Pats Peak jams it all in just fine.What we talked aboutReaction to the Jay Peak sale;Ragged Mountain; Pats Peak in the early ‘90s; a brief history of Pats Peak; Blomback's 100-point list to modernize Pats Peak; “when you operate a ski area 60 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, she's got something to say about that”; how Pats Peak survived when so many Southern New Hampshire ski areas died; the overcorrection that nearly wiped out Pats Peak's competition; the problem with debt; thoughts on the pending comebacks of Granite Gorge and Tenney; why the ski area has dubbed itself “the mighty Pats Peak”; knowing who you are; cheapskate expert skiers; who owns Pats Peak; the value of autonomy; what's kept Blomback at Pats Peak for 31 years; Magic Mountain in the ‘80s; why Pats buys used lifts; where Pats' current lifts came from; which lifts are next in line for an upgrade and what may replace them; the poor-man's detachable; a history of (non-mechanical) high-speed lift fails in New England; the “magic length” of a detach; ski areas are littered with dead halfpipes; some unique attributes of Mueller lifts; whether it's a pain in the butt to have chairlifts made from a half-dozen different manufacturers; why Vortex rarely has liftlines even when the bottom triples have 20-minute waits; how Pats Peak crushes its larger competitors in snowmaking on a regular basis; the ski area's audacious goal to go from nothing open to every trail open in 48 hours; the history, purpose, and experience of Cascade Basin; additional trail and glade expansion opportunities; snowmaking in the glades; why Pats Peak was an early Indy Pass adopter; Pats Peak is the third-most redeemed Indy resort and I mean damn; why Indy draws so many first-time visitors to Pats Peak; a new reason to hate Liftopia; Indy Pass D-day at Pats Peak; reaction to Vail entering New Hampshire; competing with the Northeast Value Epic Pass; “skiing is an experience”; the logic of over-staffing; “service and experience is what sets Pats Peak apart”; and competing against Vail's $20-an-hour minimum wage.Why I thought that now was a good time for this interviewAs the Indy Pass settled in over the past three years, an interesting pattern has emerged: New England absolutely crushes the rest of the country in total redemptions. During the 2020-21 ski season, six of the top 10 resorts by number of Indy skiers were in New England. Last season, that number rose to seven of 10. With long, cold winters; generation-spanning ski traditions; and incredible population density, these results weren't surprising so much as affirming of what anyone who has skied out here already knows: the Northeast loves to ski.But there's data within the data, and surprises abound. Those seven New England ski areas do not stack up according to vertical drop or skiable acreage or average annual snowfall. Sometimes, as in the case of perennial Indy number one Jay Peak, mountain stats – especially 349 inches of average annual snowfall – do trump distance. By the statistical standard, no one is really surprised to see 2,020-vertical-foot Waterville Valley sitting in the two-spot. But statistical assumptions break down after that, because instead of 2,000-plus-footers Cannon or Saddleback claiming the third spot, you have the Mighty Pats Peak, with a third of the rise and a bunch less snow.There are a few obvious contributing factors to the ski area's Indy rank: Pats Peak is the easiest mid-sized ski area to reach from Boston; the mountain had zero Indy Base Pass blackouts until this coming season; Crotched, its closest competitor, was constrained in operating hours and open terrain last year; it's open all the time – nearly 90 hours on peak weeks. But those attributes alone aren't enough to explain how a 770-vertical-foot mountain finished number three out of 82 – 82! – Indy Pass partners for total redemptions last season.A succession of bigfoots were expected to stomp Pats Peak flat over the past three decades, Blomback tells us in the podcast. SKI, Peak Resorts, Vail. But business has never been stronger. The product on the snow doesn't just matter a lot, it turns out – it matters more than anything.Questions I wish I'd askedI already have a bad habit of keeping my guests way too long, but, believe it or not, there are almost always un-asked questions remaining at interview's end: why are all Pats Peak's trails named after winds? How important is it to retain some New England indies as Jay Peak joins a conglomerate? How can Vail make sure Crotched is as good as Pats Peak from a snowmaking and open-terrain point of view? How are season pass sales going? And on and on. Somehow I usually have the sense to keep these under two hours, but that rises more from guilt over time theft than any sense of personal decency.What I got wrongI think I mispronounced “Patenaude” – the last name of the ski area's owners – about every way that it could be mispronounced over the course of an hour-long interview.Why you should ski Pats PeakAs you can imagine, I possess a lot of ski passes. And despite the lack of an in-town bump, I can reach around 150 of them within a five-hour drive. So my options on any given day are fairly vast. While my travels – well documented on Twitter, Instagram, and the “this week in skiing” section of the weekly-ish news update – may seem random, I am almost always chasing snow and conditions. Who, within that vast radius fanning off New York City, is firing? Eerie? Ontario? The Green Mountain Spine? The Whites? And what's the path of least resistance? If the Catskills get hammered, I'm unlikely to plow through to the Adirondacks. If the Poconos get their once-every-five-year dump, I'm going. Almost any ski area can deliver a riotous day with the right conditions. The secret trees pop open. The jumps and drops are more forgiving. The ice evaporates and for one afternoon you can close your eyes* and pretend you're in Utah.But sometimes it doesn't snow anywhere. And I still have to ski every week because you know why. Last December-to-January we hit just such a hellstreak in the Northeast. The kind that makes you wonder how long an industry reliant upon temperatures below freezing can stitch together sustainable seasons. The fats were all in various states of open but many of the littles sat brown-hilled and empty over Christmas week. No one was offering anything resembling their trailmaps.Except Pats Peak. One hundred percent open by the first day of 2022. And why? It was weird. Its base elevation is 690 feet. The mountain sits in Southern New Hampshire, outside of the major snowbelts. Unlike similarly sized Crotched, right down the road, it's not owned by a CorpCo that can helicopter in snow from the Wasatch. It's just a 770-foot local bump owned and operated by locals.And yet there it is, routinely the first ski area in New England to pop its full menu open for the season. How? “We often joke we're a snowmaking system with a ski area attached,” Blomback tells me. Go there and you'll see it. That's what I did in January. And there: Unimaginable snowmaking firepower. Gunning anytime temperatures allow. Day or night, chairlifts spinning or idle. A plume of white powder erupting from the stubborn brown hills around it.And guess what? The skiing is pretty good too. From the parking lot the ski area erupts, fall lines apparent. Lifts everywhere. In the backyard a hidden pod, Cascade Basin, like a second miniature ski area of its own. Glades tucked all around. Weekdays it's all yours. Until school lets out. Then it belongs to the kids. Busloads of them, learning, racing, messing around. To the baselodge, and one of the great bars in New England skiing.Just remember to make your Indy Pass reservation first. The information era has been good for the mighty Pats Peak. Real-time weather and trail reports have made it obvious who's mastered the snowmaking game. Pats Peak isn't the only snowmaking killer in New Hampshire. But I'd argue that there's no one better. I'm not the only one. The place parked out for the first time last season. Blomback and team quickly adjusted, limiting Indy Pass slots and bringing back the Covid-season reservation system. This year, Pats Peak will have Indy Base blackouts for the first time. But these won't matter in mid-December when the big bombers are five percent open and Pats Peak is breaking out new terrain out daily.*Actually maybe don't do this.Podcast NotesBlomback notes that, “at one time, in southern New Hampshire, we lost King Ridge, Ragged, Whaleback, Crotched, Temple, Highlands, and Pinnacle.” Ragged, Whaleback, and Crotched are obviously back, and Pinnacle is orchestrating its second comeback as Granite Gorge. But here's a quick look at the others:King RidgeVertical drop: 775 feet; Lifts: 2 triples, 1 double, several surface liftsThis was a terrific little ski area that made the mistake that just about every terrific little ski area made in the ‘80s: it decided that snowmaking was a fad. Then it dropped dead. Really the important thing about King Ridge though is that it has the single greatest trailmap ever printed (circa 1994):TempleVertical drop: 600 feet; Lifts: 1 quad, 1 doubleThis little spot, just down the road from Crotched, ran for 63 seasons before shutting down in 2001. The quad now stands at Nashoba Valley, according to New England Ski History. The state purchased what was left of the ski area in 2007 and let it fade back into nature.HighlandsVertical drop: 700 feet; skiable acres: ; Lifts: 1 triple, 2 T-bars, 1 pony, 1 ropetowHighlands stood as a ski area from the late ‘60s to the mid-90s. Today, it's the only lift-served mountain-bike-only area in New England (the rest all offer wintertime skiing). This one, seated just a few minutes off I-93, seems like a good candidate to re-open for skiing at some point, perhaps with a parks focus.Crotched EastWhile Peak Resorts famously resuscitated the then-long-dead Crotched in 2003, they did not revive all of it. The ski area was once a two-sided operation, consisting of Crotched East and West (also known as Onset or Bobcat). West is present-day Crotched. East sits right next door, liftless, fading away. I doubt Vail has any ambitions to revive it, though they could certainly use the extra capacity. Crotched circa 1988:And this is what survives today:Similarly, Magic Mountain, Vermont has an abandoned ski area on the backside (which you are still allowed to ski, though the lifts are long gone). Here's what the place looked like in its 1980s ultimate form, when Blomback worked there:Magic today:Blomback and I discussed the phenomenon of the Vortex double chair, which terminates just alongside the Hurricane and Turbulence triples, but rarely has a line, even when the other two are backed up for 20 minutes. This, Blomback says, is because the double loads above the lodge, rather than continuing the 50 vertical feet to the true base at the Peak chair. The same phenomenon happens all over, but the similar instance we discussed was Sunday River's Locke and Barker chairs. Locke, a triple, rarely has a line, while Barker – a high-speed quad – often has lines longer than the gestational cycle of several species of mammal. Why? I don't know. There is a lot of terrain crossover between the two lifts. The main difference is that one is faster (and racers often commandeer large chunks of Locke). I've always wondered what would happen if Sunday River were to bring the Locke loading station down beside Barker? Unless they upgrade it to a high-speed lift, I can't imagine it would matter much – which is fine with me, as I'll lap the slow lift with no line all day long:The Storm explores the world of lift-served skiing all year round. Join us.The Storm publishes year-round, and guarantees 100 articles per year. This is article 102/100 in 2022, and number 348 since launching on Oct. 13, 2019. Want to send feedback? Reply to this email and I will answer (unless you sound insane, or, more likely, I just get busy). You can also email skiing@substack.com. Get full access to The Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast at www.stormskiing.com/subscribe