Great Barrington, MA –Ski Butternut’s operations manager, Reuel Sheldon, is retiring after 30 years of service at the ski resort in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.
Sheldon is stepping own after seeing the mountain through many great years and some challenging times, including a life altering injury to the resort’s iconic owner, Channing Murdock, in 1994 on the heels of the worst winter on record and a devastating F4 tornado that ripped across the mountain May 29th (Memorial Day) in 1995.
Prior to working at the ski area then known as Butternut Basin, Sheldon was the head of the Monument Mountain Music Department’s K-12 programs. He started in 1977 as a night groomer operator running the LMC 2100, an old Tucker and DMC 3700 snowcats. His calm demeanor and decisive action quickly gained the trust of Murdock, who after five short years promoted Sheldon to Operations Manager.
Under Sheldon’s watch the mountain’s infrastructure was substantially enhanced. A new Maintenance building was constructed. The Rental Shop was moved from the Clubhouse into the old Maintenance building, where it still resides today. The Clubhouse was greatly expanded to allow for more room for food service, a larger Ski Shop and offices for the Ski School. Rentals went through another major expansion and more recently a complete retrofitting to accommodate storage of more than 2,000 sets of skis and 350 snowboard setups. Over the summer of 2007 a new pump house and valve house were constructed, resulting in a huge increase in snowmaking water pumping capacity from around 1,600 gallons per minute to 3,600, allowing the mountain to make more snow faster with more than new 230 energy efficient snow guns. Under Sheldon’s tenure three quad chairlifts were erected, including The Top Flight Quad in 1993, The Highline Quad in 2004 and The Cruiser Quads in 2005. In addition four carpet lifts have been added, enhancing the experience for beginners and young children, and a Tubing Center was introduced in 2003.
Promotions from within have taken place to fill the void left by Sheldon’s retirement. Succeeding Sheldon as Operations Manager will be Jeff Harvey, who moves up from the position of Lifts Manager. Harvey has been mentored by Sheldon for a few winters in anticipation of this move. Sean Welton, who joined Butternut at the start of the past winter from Saddleback in Maine as Assistant Lifts Manager, will take over Harvey’s position as Lifts Manager.