One-on-One interviews with Gwyn Howat, Ops Mgr at Mt. Baker Ski Area

by Mike McKenzie, NW Business Monthly

Gwyn Howat often is literally walking on a cloud, because the bulk of her work takes place at 3,500-to-5,100 feet above sea level. But on a recent Wednesday she was figuratively walking on a cloud, but couldn't talk about it much until around midday...because she was in a dentist's chair. "Live goes on," she said, laughing, less than 12 hours after enjoying one of the highlights of her career.

Whatcom Women in Business (WWiB) voted her from among six nominations as its 2011 Professional Woman of the Year at an awards banquet Tuesday night, Oct. 25.

Soon after leaving the dental office, she once again was on her frenzied schedule of activities tied to co-managing the operations of Mt. Baker's prestigious ski area. "We have to wait until the snow flies to open the season," she said, "but we're in the start-up process -- hiring staff and all." Usually, the ski season opens in mid-November.

Drawing on her feelings about the recognition from her peers, Howat said, "In my experience through the nomination and as recipient of the award, what struck me was how, as women in business, things are so different from my grandmother's time. I couldn't help thinking how she be very proud of me."

She cited a litany of things women typically couldn't avail themselves to during her grandmother's era: voting, working and/or equal wages, owning property and signing legal documents, military, religious marital and parental rights, owning property. "All those dreams of Susan B. Anthony's and my grandmother's generation have been realized through my mother's and my generations," Howat said. "In my lifetime with the women in my family, it's all changed, and I've benefited from it."

Primarily because of physical demands, her chosen career field is male-dominated, which heightens the honor of the award, she said. "I am a product of the changes, I live it every single day."

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Here is the long version of the interview story with Howat that took place before the award recipient was determined, condensed in the print magazine that can be linked to in digital version on this site:

Dynamite. Certainly, somebody might describe Gwyn Howat as a business professional with that term. A continual over-achiever, in athletics and at work, at a go-go-go pace, here and there and everywhere. 

And, dynamite is part of her job.

Knowing how to handle dynamite in case of an avalanche is one small, yet very large piece of an enormous mosaic of her responsibilities as one of two operations managers for Mt. Baker Ski Area. "Public safety,” she says in a telephone interview, "is top priority. My public includes our 350 employees.”

At any given time, between mid-November and the end of April, Mt. Baker on the eastern fringe of Whatcom County might have a population of 3,000-5,000 sliding on its slopes. Howat and Boyd Stark, a 35-year worker at Mt. Baker Ski Area, are responsible for them, day-to-day, under the general manager and president of the last 43 years, Gwyn’s father Duncan Howat.

Mt. Baker’s unique location makers sets it apart uniquely from virtually all others among the approximate 750 ski areas in the United States. "We’re completely off the grid,” Gwyn Howat explains. "It’s 52 miles to the nearest city, 20 to the nearest town and don’t blink or you’ll miss it, at the end of a two-lane, dead-end road.”

Point being, managing Mt. Baker Ski Area is a monumental task. "We’re responsible for much more than the typical ski area our size and even larger,” she says. "Add to that we get more snow; we’ve had the world record for most snowfall ever recorded on earth.”

The leadership qualities and physical capabilities that she acquired growing up immersed in athletics have made Howat one of "a handful,” she says, of women in charge in the male-dominated business of ski area management. She estimates perhaps two or three others might be in upper management.

She’s used to the odds. She was on the first-ever girls basketball team at Sehome High School, and the first to win a state championship. Later, she competed in rowing at the University of Washington. "Pain,” she says in describing that experience. She competed in bicycle racing with her father, and "he taught me the masterful technique of blocking out by battering me under the boards” in basketball.

Her mother, Gail, a retired school teacher, taught her work ethic and "pressed my creativity.” Older sister Gail, also a high-honors athlete (especially as one of the first women in professional snowboarding) was also a strong influence. Her career has spanned the world of international snowboarding, when she was a professional photographer and marketing manager for a professional team, Gnu Snowboards. She has earned international acclaim for her innovative work in developing that sport.

She returned home in 1991 as marketing director for Mt. Baker Ski Area. She has evolved into overseeing administrative duties, development of special projects, handling the daily operations of ski lifts, food service, facilities, instruction, rentals, retail, et al. As a business, the operation – always locally-owned through closely-held family stocks, and remaining one of just a few that have not been bought out by large corporations – Howat says, "We are easily the main economic engine of the eastern 542 corridor, accounting for 350 jobs and the largest tourism draw in the region.”

In the spirit of WWiB’s mentoring mission, Howat also develops staff training and management subsets. A line in the nomination form for this award states: "You might see Gwyn in a casual business suit in Seattle meeting with regional Forest Service officials one day, and the next day see her at the ski area sitting on her snowmobile talking with customers about their mountain experience.”

Among the most special among Howat’s list of achievements at Mt. Baker Ski Area is the internationally-heralded Legendary Banked Slalom that attracts Olympic and international champions of snowboarding. It is the longest running snowboarding event in the world. Howat has run it for 20 years and built it to what she terms "cult classic” as a unique event because of the physical natural half-pipe on the Mt. Baker slopes.

"It’s a great business story unto itself,” Howat says. "We have no cash prizes in a sport that usually has thousands in prize money, and it is self-sustained within the entire snowboarding industry. It is known as the ‘truest’ event in the sport.”

Howat also finds time to give back. She traveled the nation in support of signing up voters for the presidential election, she has taught English second language, worked with the March of Dimes, and organized countless local events such as the Salmon Run paddling race on Lake Samish. The list of boards she has served runs to 10 organizations.

The Howat name has been attached to Mt. Baker Ski Area into a second generation now as Gwyn supports her father’s legacy.

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