College of Engineering Magazine- Fall 2000

From ENG to Ski, Fletcher Has Climbed High

By Bari Walsh

When Alan Fletcher ('60) was young, he'd lead intrepid friends on treks into the hills near his small hometown of Littleton, Massachusetts. There was a particularly tall hill that the boys liked to climb, with panoramic views from the top. They'd build a fire at the summit and set up camp, spending nights outdoors under the stars. Often, while lugging water and other camping supplies up the hill, Fletcher would find himself thinking what a great ski area the hill would make.

So when he grew up, he built one there.

Fletcher is the founder and owner of the Nashoba Valley Ski Area, a small resort about twenty-five miles west of Boston that boasts one of New England's most popular ski schools. Over the years, the resort has become a year-round operation, with summer activities including a swim club, a day camp, and an adult volleyball league. A restaurant overlooks the hill and its main chairlift, serving fruit and vegetables grown right on the property, which has itself expanded over the years. Fishing ponds are stocked with trout and bass. And there are always new trails to plan, new ski runs to dream about. In short, the ski area-once a lark, then a hobby, and later a full-time job-has become Fletcher's life. Standing with a visitor on the summit of his hill, on the very spot where he built fires as a kid, Fletcher has the air of a man perpetually amused by the surprise of a childhood dream come true.

He studied electronics for two years at Wentworth Institute of Technology before enlisting in the Navy, where he worked on submarines as an electronic technician. Afterwards, still unclear about what he wanted to do with his life, he came to BU and took "heavy-duty" courses in mechanical and thermal engineering, math, and chemistry. Then an elective programming course set him in a new direction. "The next thing I knew, after graduation, I was working for a company that sold memory systems in the data processing business." He stayed in the data processing industry for ten years.

In the meantime, in 1963, he bought the first parcel of what would eventually become a 300-acre spread of land in Nashoba Valley. He says he decided to build his own ski area during his Navy stint-he was stationed in Key West, of all places. "It was partly selfish," he relates, with typical understated humor. "I like to ski."

The place opened in 1964, with four rope tows that "kept falling apart. We learned by trial and error." He and his crew made snow, perhaps the most daunting task that ski operators face, right from the beginning. "I'm still learning," Fletcher says. "Some of our guys here have fifteen and eighteen years of experience, and they're still figuring stuff out." With so many variables, in terms of both weather and equipment, "it's complex, sort of an art form. The fourth or fifth year we were doing this, I said, 'I'm going to write all this stuff down; then I can give it to someone else trying to do this and he'll be off and running.' Well, I got to step 184 or something, and I didn't even get out of the pump house. I said, forget it!"

His engineering training gives him a comfort level with all things technical, which is crucial. Not only do he and his employees grapple with fickle snowmaking machines and temperamental chairlifts, they also have to maintain a stable of snow groomers-mammoth hydraulic machines that grind the snow up and spread it out to produce the kind of smooth and consistent runs that skiers demand. He says he'd be "dead in the water" without an engineering background on which to draw.

Throughout the sixties, while he and his wife were starting a family, Fletcher lived two very busy lives: during the week, he did sales, marketing, and product management in the burgeoning computer industry; at night and on weekends, he was at Nashoba, clearing trails, maintaining his groomers, and overseeing the work of his trusted property manager. As the seventies began, and he watched for a second time as his employer was bought out by another company, he grew discouraged with the corporate world. He decided to take "about four months off" to work at Nashoba Valley full time. During those four months, he "put together a marketing plan and a development plan for the place, one for a year and the other for five years." It seemed only logical to stay and get those plans off the ground, and what with one thing and another, "I haven't been able to get out of here since. My mother was furious. She said, 'Nobody retires at thirty-eight.' I told her, 'I'm not retiring.'"

And he hasn't, although today he says, "I don't really have a job; I've got a bunch of guys who work for me, and I get the overview. If there's a problem, I can jump right on it, because I don't have anything else to do! It's really not like going to work.

"I run this place the same way I did thirty years ago," Fletcher says-with a small-towner's touch and a good-humored spirit of camaraderie. There's no "new economy" at Nashoba Valley; some of Fletcher's employees have been with him since the beginning, and they show no signs of going anywhere now, even after retirement age. When he runs into them on the property, tending to some old oaks in the forest or to a groomer in the diesel shed, he greets them with a joke and a smile, and he gets some ribbing in return. It's a family. Fletcher tells a funny story: when he bought the first parcel of land, a guy who'd worked the property before showed up with an ax. "I said, 'What are you doing?' and he said, 'You building a ski area?' I said yes, and he said, 'You're building a ski area, I'm cutting the trees.' And he's been here ever since." That seems contagious at Nashoba Valley.