Fit To Ride Program Discontinued

We hope you are having a great summer and you’re looking forward to the upcoming winter. Although the leaves haven’t started turning just yet, it’s never too soon to start thinking about skiing and riding. We wanted to make sure you knew about the upcoming changes with regards to the Fit to Ride program- see the below email from Pat Campbell, our new President of the Mountain Division for Vail Resorts.

As we communicate these changes we wanted to make sure to remind you that we will again offer preseason ski & snowboard conditioning this fall. There will be an enews coming out in the coming weeks providing more details but plan on a late September start. Also, at that same time, we will be announcing other conditioning opportunities in the Vail Valley to help prepare you for the season.

With this change, you may have questions around completing paperwork and getting set up for this season. We will provide more information in the future however our intent is to make sure that returning is even easier this year by providing dedicated paperwork sessions throughout the fall. Again, more information will be provided explaining the new (streamlined) process.

Lastly, below is the contact information for your specific location manager. Please reach out directly to your manager if you have any questions.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Bobby Murphy

Director, Vail Ski & Snowboard School

FIT TO RIDE PROGRAM DISCONTINUED

• Effective immediately, we are discontinuing the Fit To Ride program.
• The safety of our employees and our guests remains a top priority and a core value.
• We intend to continue support for employee wellness and fitness efforts.
• To learn more about this decision, please reference the Frequently Asked Questions here.

Fit To Ride, a program to assess employee fitness for mountain operations roles within ski school, ski patrol and mountain safety, has been in place since 2011. Since we introduced this innovative program four years ago, we have continually refined it with the goal of achieving the best possible outcomes and value for our employees. To that end, we have decided to discontinue the Fit To Ride program so that we can pursue new and innovative initiatives on our “Journey to Zero” for employee safety.

As always, the safety of our employees and our guests remains a top priority and a core value. As such, we are constantly reviewing our safety initiatives to assess their impact. We recently completed an evaluation of our workplace injuries and accidents and we are, once again, challenging ourselves to evolve our Company safety initiatives.

Based on our recent review and ongoing data collection, reducing knee injuries and preventing skiing and snowboarding collisions present the most significant challenges and opportunities to enhance our employee and guest on-mountain experience and, ultimately, safety. Going forward, we will place our effort and focus on these critical safety areas in addition to the many other initiatives and best practices already in place.

Importantly, we intend to continue support for employee wellness and fitness efforts through voluntary programs like Safe Fit, where we provide assessments and athletic training to our employees free of charge. Similarly, we will continue to encourage our employees who ski and ride on the job to pursue fitness and wellness prior to, and during, the season. We will also continue to provide tools and resources to assist employees in achieving those goals. Further, we are in the process of filling the new position of Vice President of Health & Safety who will be charged with charting the course and leading the next generation of initiatives to advance our Company’s safety mission and vision.

To learn more about this decision, please reference the Frequently Asked Questions here. We recognize there will be a number of questions that will come up as we transition out of Fit To Ride and we encourage employees to work directly with their Manager, local HR or the local Health & Safety Team to address additional questions or concerns.

With these changes, we will embark on a new chapter in our Company’s industry-leading safety initiatives. We are excited about the opportunities to collaborate with our resorts and employees during this time and look forward to sharing more about our future initiatives in the weeks and months to come.

Pat
Pat Campbell
Mountain Division President