After decades of corporate ownership, Killington Resort and Pico Mountain are being sold to a group of investors with local ties.

The Rutland-area resorts announced on Thursday that POWDR, a ski area company based in Park City, Utah, is selling the property to longtime passholders. The ski areas did not disclose the sale price.

Little about skiers’ experience will change, Killington said in a news release. The new ownership group is led by Phill Gross and Michael Ferri, who own homes in the area and pledged to keep on the existing staff, including Killington and Pico president and general manager Mike Solimano, who has worked there for 22 years.




Gross is on the board of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Association and is a founder of the Killington World Cup Foundation, according to the press release. His LinkedIn profile says he’s also a cofounder and managing director of Adage Capital Management, a Boston-based money management firm.

Ferri is a partner and owner of Valvoline Instant Oil Change franchises on the East Coast. His three sons attended the private Killington Mountain School, where he has been a trustee since 2008.

Neither has ski area management experience, according to Storm Skiing Journal and Podcast, which reported that the Killington sale is one of several that POWDR plans for the 10 ski areas it owns in the U.S. and Canada.

“We don't pretend to know how to run a mountain,” Gross said in an interview with Storm Skiing.

“Mike and his team are going to be given free rein to operate the business and do what they need to do to make it the best resort in the East,” Gross said in the interview. “Nobody in the buyer group is going to be involved in making operational decisions in any way, shape, or form. We’re going to be focused on providing resources and letting that team do what they need to do to operate the mountain.”

Killington will continue to be part of the Ikon Pass, a popular program that offers unlimited access to more than 50 resorts around the world for about $1,360 for adults, the resort's press release said.

POWDR will keep a minority stake in the resort, with a seat on the board. The sale is expected to close in the fall.

The annual women's FIS Ski World Cup events are expected to go on as planned in late November.
The privately owned resort does not release its annual skier and snowboarder visit numbers, but Storm Skiing said Killington, with 20 lifts, is the largest and busiest ski resort east of the Rockies. Vermont’s Alpine ski areas reported a combined 4.1 million skier visits during the past winter, according to the trade group Ski Vermont.

POWDR bought Killington in 2007 and has invested heavily in snowmaking, lifts and a base lodge in the years since then.

In the past few years, the town of Killington has been working with the resort and a company called Great Gulf on a plan called Killington Forward to supply water and road improvements for a large development that is planned for the resort's mountain base. Great Gulf plans to build condos, townhomes, single-family homes, a new retail village and a lift lodge on nearly 1,100 acres, according to forbes.com — part of a plan that the purchase doesn’t change, the press release said.

Under the new owners, “we’re going to have the resources to continue to improve the resort,” Solimano said in a statement on YouTube. “We’re expecting a really smooth transition.”
Steve Costello, a local resident who long served in an economic development role as Green Mountain Power's "ambassador to Rutland," said he welcomed the news that Solimano would stay on. He credited Solimano and other top leaders at the resort for increasing Killington's ties to the local community.

"It's a huge economic driver, obviously," Costello said. "In the past, there was sometimes a feeling that the resort didn’t care about what happened outside of the resort, and that largely disappeared under Mike Solimano."



Killington was created in 1958 and in 1984 was restructured as S-K-I, a company that owned other New England resorts. It was purchased by the now defunct American Skiing Company in 1996, while POWDR acquired it in 2007, according to a history on the ski area's website.