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Community fears history will repeat itself at Q Burke Mountain

3310 words / VTDigger.org

It’s the day before Q Burke Mountain opens for the winter, and Ary Quiros could just as well be preparing for battle as for business.

The new CEO is opening the ski resort for the first time since he started at the mountain the previous winter, and he’s amped. If Quiros, 36, can turn this chronically failing but beloved ski area into a stable business, he will succeed where prior, much wealthier, owners have failed.

The arc of history and local expectations give him long odds. But Quiros — and his staff — are determined.

Wearing a weathered, Army green jacket and frequently checking a watch face practically the size of his wrist, Quiros shuttles from one outpost of operations to another to check on his troops: snowmaking, ticket sales, kitchen, pub and cafeteria. Finances. Marketing. Housecleaning.

“It’s like being in the Army again,” Quiros says. The 12-year veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is now a captain with the Vermont National Guard. He relishes intensity in the field, clarity of mission, camaraderie, and he applies his military leadership experience to Q Burke Mountain operations.

Ary Quiros served in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division in Iraq and held other posts in Afghanistan and South Korea before taking over as CEO of Q Burke Mountain ski area in Vermont. Photo by Hilary Niles/ VTDigger

“You take care of them,” Quiros says about both his military units and staff. “They watch your back, and you move forward.”

The responsibility to provide for and protect his staff weighs heavily on Quiros, perhaps even propels him.

And his military analogy for mountain operations is echoed by his father, Ariel Quiros, who purchased Burke Mountain in 2012.

Ariel Quiros says half a dozen buyers before him couldn’t close the deal because of the mountain’s high-profile history and reputation with banks and investors: Bankruptcies dating back to the 1980s. A bounced tax check to the town for $97,374.30. More bankruptcies. A public auction. Ginn Companies’ $675 million default with Credit Suisse bank.

“Boom boom boom, bombs away,” Quiros says. “Everybody’s shelling the mountain, all the banks, doesn’t wanna fund it. All the businessmen failed.”

Some of them, Quiros notes, possessed or managed wealth that far exceeds his own, built from international trade since the 1980s. Bernd Schaefers was a German movie producer who made “The NeverEnding Story” and “In the Name of the Rose.” Donald Graham founded investment firms that collectively manage upwards of $7 billion. Developer Bobby Ginn presided over real estate transactions across the country that also measure in the billions.

None of their business plans at Burke held. Some went down in flames.

And plans now are as grand as ever: to brand the mountain as year-round training grounds for elite athletes. Buildout is expected to cost about $108 million and will include four hotels, an aquatic center, tennis facility and indoor mountain biking park.

But this time, even more is at stake.

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