Sugarloafing #271

Tom Fremont-Smith:

highlights from this week's program.

Bruce Miles:

Well, I like skiing, I guess because it's just a real free feeling when you're out there, you're on your own on the hill. The conditions change from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour. You get to challenge yourself, but it's the speed a little bit going down the hill and you're surrounded by incredible scenery.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

But out west, you add the avalanche control piece to it and that is actually a really, really neat aspect of the job. And learning snow science, it's almost like archaeology in the snow. If you dig a snow pit, you get to watch. You can see every weather that has happened throughout the entire year.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Mean Radio Show Number 271, Sugar Loafing, airing for the first time on Sunday, November 27, 2016. There are many ways to enjoy Sugarloaf, one of Maine's largest ski and snowboarding mountains. Today we speak with Bruce Miles, president of the Sugarloaf Ski Club, about the ski Skate program, which gives local children the opportunity to enjoy all that the resort has to offer. We also speak with Tom Fremont Smith, President of Winter Stick Snowboards. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Within the last couple of years, I had the great privilege to write about the Sugarloaf Charity Summit and also interview people who are part of the Sugarloaf Charity Summit. Today we have Bruce Miles back with us again and not only has he done great work with the charity Summit, but he also is doing some good work with another program, the ski Skate program. He is the president of the Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Club which helps support the Mountain Ski Skate program, which is more than 50 years old and allows students to rent ski equipment or skates and receive instruction from Sugarloaf personnel. Bruce first started teaching skiing and coaching at Sugarloaf in 1968 after graduating from South Portland High School. Thanks for coming back.

Bruce Miles:

Thank you for having me back.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, Sugarloaf seems to be in your blood. You've been doing this a really long time now.

Bruce Miles:

Well, my family, when we started skiing at Sugarloaf was in 1961, and then a couple years later, we leased a piece of land and built an A frame, and I kind of fell in love with it. And after I got out of high school, I lived there for a year between high school and college and taught skiing and coached ski racing and then became a resident of the what was then Jerusalem Township, which later became Carabas Valley Town.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What is it about skiing that really got you interested? What is it about the feeling, the emotion? Why do you personally like skiing and ski racing so much?

Bruce Miles:

Well, I like skiing, I guess, because it's just a real free feeling when you're out there, you're on your own on the hill. The conditions change from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour. You get to challenge yourself, but it's, you know, it's the speed a little bit going down the hill, and you're surrounded by incredible scenery, too, so you're outdoors and, you know, in the cold, fresh air of the winter. And I just. I don't know. I was. My dad started me skiing, and he just. He had a passion for it himself, and, you know, passed that on to me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been a very active part of the Sugarloaf community for a while. Is there something special about Sugarloaf as a mountain that has drawn and kept you there?

Bruce Miles:

Yeah. And I don't want to sound like I'm bragging about Sugarloaf, but the Sugarloafer experience has got more than just skiing. It really has a soul. The Sugarloaf community is a very giving and caring community, as you have learned from the work done in the charity Summit. That's just one of the things that, you know that goes on up there, that it's just a very giving community, but also it's. It's. Sugarloaf itself is. You have to go a little bit further to get there. It's not in your backyard like some of the areas in the southern part of Maine. So you got to really want to go there because of that. We have a lot of people who come up for the weekend and for the vacation weeks, they don't just drive up for the day, so they buy season passes as opposed to just day tickets. So you get to know people. So it's like a big family. You see people you know at lunch or in the afternoon or in the lift lines. So it's not like you're skiing with 15,000 people that you don't know. So it is really a Sugar Loafer community. You know, that's the term. You're a Sugar Loafer if you're up

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

there because you've been skiing for a big chunk of your life. Have you noticed as a person, an evolution in the way that you approach skiing?

Bruce Miles:

Well, it's a lot easier to learn now for people, you know, the equipment changes have been the biggest. That and the lift changes. Back in the 60s when the mountain only had T bars, if you got eight runs in from top to bottom in a day, you'd be doing well because the lifts were slow and you waited a long time in line. Now with the high speed lifts, you can get four runs in an hour on one of the high speed, detachable lifts. But the equipment has made it so much easier for a person to learn to ski, no matter what their age is. It's just not the old days. People used to ski on skis that were at least a foot longer than their height, and now the skis are much shorter. They have more of what they call a side cut, which makes them easier to turn. The boots are much more comfortable than they used to be, and the clothing is lighter and warmer. So the experience of being out there is more readily learned by people, you know, but, but the experience is still the same whether you're on, you know, new, new equipment or old equipment or whatever. Getting out there and, and being outdoors and gliding down the mountain, you know, to your best of your ability is still the same as it always was.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is there a difference in the way that you teach skiing today versus back then?

Bruce Miles:

Well, you know, back when I first started teaching, it was. It was really, there was a bunch of movements that you had to learn that were very, I don't want to say dogma of skiing, but there were movements that you learned that were. They were tied to the equipment. You had the long skis. And it took a person a while to master some of the early, early moves in order to, you know, they could probably take lessons for a couple of weeks or more and still not get to experience going to the top of the mountain because they weren't ready. Now now with the new equipment, you can, in a couple of days you could be skiing down from the top of the mountain, you know, on an intermediate trail. But the way you teach really hasn't changed. I think, you know, teaching anything, any sport, it's a lot of personality involved and being able to communicate. It's all about communication skills to your student to help them reach their comfort level and show them how to attain the moves they want to make.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how about approaching teaching a really young child versus teaching an adult who hasn't skied before?

Bruce Miles:

Teaching young child is much easier because, number one, most kids don't have fear. Fear is a learned thing, right? You know, you touch something that's hot and all of a sudden you learn not to touch it again. But the first time you don't know, so you just reach out. So kids, you know, they learn quickly. They have, you know, most of them have good balance. They aren't, they aren't too worried about what they're going to look like. They aren't worried about falling. They seem to, you know, fall and pick themselves up and don't get too upset. And you can, you can teach kids without talking much. You know, you just, you just show them something, you know, and say, follow me or do this. And they usually will try to mimic, they always like to mimic what you're doing, no matter what it is. As you know, you know, if you say something all of a sudden, two days later, the kid might repeat what you said because they heard it and they remembered it. And so it's. So it's really easy to teach a kid, I think, to ski or snowboard than an adult. But saying that I feel that it's easier to teach a, I don't want to say non athletic person sometimes because skiing is a technique sport and not necessarily a muscle sport. If you learn how to ski, you know, technically correct, it makes it easier on you and you are less tired at the end of the day because you're using your whole frame as opposed to using muscles to make it all happen. But adults do want instruction. Usually they want to be explained. They want things explained to them. Why do you want me to do it this way? Or why can't I do that? Whereas kids don't really get at that level. Young kids, it's just more of a. They try it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you still have people who continue to ski in their later years? We've had a lot of. I have patients and they worry I'm going to break a bone, I'm going to break A hip. But then I have other patients who. It doesn't seem to bother them. They can be 80 years old and they can be out there every single day. What's your observation?

Bruce Miles:

Well, my observation is that in the last 20, 25 years, a lot of people have ditched the idea of going south for the winter and they're staying and doing something more active. And I noticed that my wife and I moved away for five years from 91 to 96. And when we came back, I did notice there were a lot more retirees skiing at Sugarloaf. And a lot of it is the equipment. They find the equipment so much easier to use now. But I think that people are retiring more active anyway now. And the people that skied most of their lives, so they have a comfort zone with skiing. And there's a lot of camaraderie and social aspect. In the morning at about the lift opens at 8:30, the main lift at Sugarloaf, usually by about 10 minutes past 8, there's a line of people there waiting. And those people, this is during the week, the Monday to Friday crowd. Those people probably are 75% retirees. And so they're over 60, quite a few. Many of them are in their 70s and quite a few are in their 80s, you know, and so it's. They like the active lifestyle. They're not ready to go down and, you know, play shuffleboard and go to the early bird specials in Florida, which is great. You know, I was really. I love seeing it. We have a group. We have a group of people at the. In the ski club that we call the Cardiac Club. And that was started about, oh, gosh, probably 40 years ago now. And we were all in our late 20s and 30s then. And we call it the Kayak Club just because, you know, we were a bunch of. We weren't old by any means, but we weren't the young hotshot ski racers and stuff. So we started this group within the ski club that has. They meet on Saturday mornings, get together, ski together, and then we socialize afterwards. And many of our members of the Kayak Club now are in their early 80s, late 70s. I'm on the young end. I'm 67. But it's a great group. And they're tough people. They love to go and they push themselves and they get that competitive spirit amongst themselves.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The reason that I'm interested in how long people ski is that your program, the ski skate program, you're not just setting kids up for the short term. If you can get kids out there they could be doing what you're doing at age 67 and still ski, and they could be having great times with their peers, and they could be maybe living longer, possibly. And if not living longer, at least they could be enjoying the lives that they have in their later years.

Bruce Miles:

Absolutely. Skiing is a lifelong sport, and it's like any sport. They say you shouldn't wait to learn how to play golf because it's easier to learn when you're younger. So it's like that was skiing. If you start any sport younger, it's easy to learn, and it is a lifelong sport. You don't need four other people to play a pickup game of basketball or play football or whatever. But skiing is something you can do by yourself or with a friend, and you can keep doing it no matter what age, and to get the basics down so you have a comfort level with it when you're young. That's great. So, yeah, I'm hoping that these young kids that are in the program, that some of them will stick with it for the rest of their lives and be involved in the industry, too. Become coaches or ski instructors or lift mechanics, whatever, you know, groomers. Most of the people who work in the industry do ski or ride, you know, snowboards. So I know in my own case, you know, I started skiing at a very young age, and it just changed the direction of my life. It introduced me to a whole different culture, I guess, or a whole different group of people that it wouldn't have mattered if I just stayed in South Portland and, you know, work down here. And it's just in the track, you know, in the skiing world is not a huge world. It's. But the people are connected. Like, I can go. If I go out west to Aspen or Vail or someplace, chances are pretty good if I'm there a couple of days, I'm going to run into somebody that knows somebody that I know that skis at Sugarloaf. And so it's. It's a. You know, it's that type of a world. When I lived, we lived in Europe from 91 to 96, and I could ski over there in the Alps. And if I was there for a week, I certainly would run into somebody that has skied at Sugarloaf at one point or another or skied in Maine. So it's a small world, but you make these contacts, you know, and it's a great, great family.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So tell me about the ski skate program. It's been in existence for more than 50 years, and what you're doing is trying to make it possible for kids who live locally to enjoy the sport. Essentially, yes.

Bruce Miles:

The ski skate program started out basically in the mid-60s. The current. Well, at the time, the president of the Sugarloaf Ski Club was a guy named G. Norton Luce. And his wife was very active in the ski club too. And they were living in what was then called Sugarloaf Township, which is now part of Carabas Valley. And they. Norton was also on the board of what we call the US Eastern Ski Association. And the story goes that a friend of his that was on the board with him owned a ski shop and they were getting rid of a bunch of kids skis that were old and they didn't really have any use for them in the selling. So they were going to take them to the dump and Norton said, no, give them to us. We can put them to use. So Gene Luce, his wife, and Norton, they got these skis and they divvied them up between the two schools that were community schools up there at the time, Stratton and Kingfield, which were very small schools back then. They probably had 50 kids, K through 8. And then they talked the mountain to do, giving them lessons. And Harry Baxter became the head of the ski school then. And so they started this program where the kids could share that equipment and come up and get a lesson at the mountain and also get a hot chocolate and just have a great time. Then the skating component started later on after the outdoor center came in. The skating and the cross country scan started after the. The outdoor center was built, which was about 75, I think it was somewhere around there. And the mountain has done a great job. The ski school is really into it. The instructors that work with the ski school that are involved in this program really love doing it because these kids are just, they're just so great to work with and they're so excited about getting out of school for the afternoon and coming up and. And learning how to either ice skate or cross country ski or snowboard or ski. And so they come up anywhere from four to six times during the ski season and they ski for the whole afternoon. Basically they get rental equipment included. And what they do is the rental shop operator, Mike Buxton is very enthusiastic about the program and he'll go down and visit. Now it's four schools, Kingfield, Stratton, Phillips and Strong. Those are in our region up there. And he goes down and measures the kids and fits them to boots and skis so that when they come up in the wintertime, the first day they come Everything's ready for them. They've got it laid right out. And a kid comes in and he sees his or her name on a pair of skis. Those are mine, you know. And so they go over and they grab the stuff and they start putting it on and get ready for their. For their lesson. And when they take a break or at the end of the day, they have their hot chocolate and a cookie and get in the bus and go back home. And it's just a great, great program.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What's the aging, the age group of these children?

Bruce Miles:

The age group is, I think it starts with first grade, goes up to eighth grade, the kindergarten. I don't think that they're doing it currently, but they may be starting. I'm not 100% sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you'd have the opportunity potentially, to learn multiple different things. So you could do cross country, you could do skating, you could do alpine skiing.

Bruce Miles:

Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Over the course of years.

Bruce Miles:

Yep. They don't. In fact, during the year, they don't. They aren't. They don't have to stick with one thing. They could do cross country and then do an alpine experience, you know, on two different weeks. So they're not stuck just in one. One sport. So. And, you know, this program helps. Like, Mount Abram High School has a. Has a pretty good ski team. And also what they call the RSU 758 district, which is what is our district up there, has a good middle school team, too. And those kids all got their start. I always, I look, I look at a boy named Sam Morse, who is. I think he's 20 now, and he's on the US Development Alpine team. And he started out skiing in the ski skate program out of Kingfield when he was a kid. He and his brother both did. And so here he is, you know, so there is a potential there for kids that really grab ahold of the sport. There is other support for them along the way to help them, because as we all know, skiing isn't inexpensive. It's not inexpensive, but there is help for these kids that show promise, just like we just got done with the Olympics, you know, and those kids aren't all from wealthy families. And if they show promise, there's help for them to attain their goals.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you're saying that once these kids get out of the skiskate program, if they still are interested in doing the sport, then there are other opportunities?

Bruce Miles:

Yes, we have a foundation at Sugarloaf that's the ski club is in charge of, and we have different scholarship funds and some of these kids that are 7, 8 years old and they're in the ski skate program, if they also, if they really take a shine to it and they want to be in an organized program that is a season long program. The mountain has programs called Mini Kuffas, which is like 6, 7 year olds, 5, 6, 7 year olds, bubble cuffers, which is stats at 8 or 7 or 8 and goes up. And then we also have what we call the CVA weekend program. And so all these programs, we help scholarship them so kids who really want to be involved in those programs can apply for scholarships through the ski club and get financial aid to help them with that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How many kids do you think that you're helping every year?

Bruce Miles:

Well, the ski skate program exposes probably 400 kids in the area roughly. I think each of the elementary schools probably have 100 kids roughly in them. So that's the exposure of that through our scholarship programs for the other, you know, weekend programs and stuff, we probably help another 50 to 60 kids each year. We give out about $30,000 right now a year in financial aid to youth that want to be in programs. Others just learn to ski a ride or competitive. When they get into the CBA weekend program, it becomes all about competition Then, you know, ski racing, snowboard competition, freestyle.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how many kids do you think you've been able to impact over the years?

Bruce Miles:

Oh, thousands. You know, really thousands. I've really never given it much thought as far as the numbers go, but I'd say, you know, thousands because the, back when the foundation was first formed for the club, it was in 1968 and we, every kid that was in the program was getting some form of financial aid because we always ran a deficit that we had to make up. You know, the cost of the program on purpose did not cover the whole cost of the, of the thing. So we raised money to defray about 20% of the cost of the actual cost. So yeah, thousands of kids over the 50 years, I'm sure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So the Skiscape program, it sounds like, is funded by Sugarloaf and also the foundation.

Bruce Miles:

Well, it's, it's really, it's funded by Sugarloaf. Sugarloaf is the, is the real, the Mountain Corporation is, is the real facilitator of it. I mean it's about $5 a session per kid for lifts, lessons, rental equipment, hot chocolate and a cookie. The district, the schools have to transport the kids up. What the ski club has been doing is we started a fund specifically for the ski skate program and we named it After Norton Luce, actually. And we give some money to each of the four schools so that they can make their decisions within their schools to either buy clothing that can be shared amongst the kids at their school because, you know, clothing is specific to skiing. You know, warm up pants, warm jackets. I mean, some of the kids would show up with, you know, not proper mittens. You know, the cold weather is a big factor and ski clothing is not the cheapest kind of clothing to buy. So they, we give them money and they can use it for that. They can also give, they can give out that money to help defray the cost, that $5 cost to some of those kids that can't afford the five bucks to come up. You know, it doesn't sound like a lot of money to us, but you know, it does to a family that's struggling to make ends meet. So. And we, I'm not going to say that we have a huge impact on it yet, but we are working towards making it bigger and better. In fact, we just as a ski club. One of the projects I've been working on for 20 years is a new competition center in clubhouse and that finally, thanks to a generous donation from the Bill and Joan Alphon foundation, we were able to start the fundraising a year ago. And the total money raised was right around $2 million to build this new building. And it's under construction right now. And we've been working on this for about 20 years. So that's kind of hampered our ability as a club to put as much money as we want to into scholarships. But now that that's, it's not finished yet, but it's behind us. You know, it's a done deal. It's very exciting. Now our focus is going to be on really increasing this whole scholarship program we have. And one of our donors for the, for the competition center also indicated that he wanted to help us with that program, the scholarship program specifically helping to make the skiing and riding more affordable for local families. So, you know, in the western mountains of Maine. So we're very excited about that. So you'll be. Hopefully I'll come back here another year and talk about how we've been able to raise a million dollars to, to, you know, really make it so everybody, every kid that wants to, can get up there and do it. You know, and there's a lot of, there's a lot of things. It's not just the lift ticket of the equipment. It's transportation on a, on a Saturday or a Sunday. It's the warm clothing, you know all those, all those components that have to get in there to make it all happen. But it's all doable. And there are models around the country, very successful models from other, what I call ski towns like Jackson Hole Area or Vail, places like that, where they've really made a big impact on the families of the local communities, the families that work in the area and provide all the services that we need to have a recreation resort.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

On our Show Notes page we will be sure to put a link to information about the Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Club, which I'm sure has a website that you'll provide to us. Yes, we've been speaking with Bruce Miles who is the president of the Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Club, which helps support the Mountain Ski skate program. I really appreciate all the work that you're doing for, I was going to say kids in the state of Maine, but it sounds like a lot of these kids are kind of grown up. So you've, you've been making an impact for a while. So I appreciate that you've been doing this and you've been so dedicated to this and also that you've taken the time to come in and speak with me again. And we will have you back to talk about this new addition to the Sugarloaf Mountain. Thank you, Bruce.

Bruce Miles:

Well, thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

know, Sugarloaf is one of my favorite topics of conversation. Well, I like Sunday river too, so I want to be careful there. I like the mountains, I like the skiing. And today we have a true fan of Sugarloaf. Sugarloaf Tom Fremont Smith, who has been with Bigelow Mountain Partners llc, owner of Winter Stick since making an investment in the company in 2001 as president, Tom guides the growth and development of Bigelow Mountain Partners and Winterstick, which makes snowboards at Sugarloaf. Thanks for coming in today.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you've been doing some interesting things with Sugarloaf, but I want to actually go back a little ways. Because you actually have experience as a firefighter and advanced emt.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

Correct.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's very interesting. I don't know how one makes the progression from one to the next, but you must, because you've lived it. Tell me about that.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

Well, for me, actually. So it goes actually all the way back to my history at Sugarloaf. I went to Carabasa Valley Academy. So being a CVA kid, I graduated in 91. And I, of course, had to pick a college that was not near a ski area and the U.S. nationals. The prior couple years had been in Crested Butte, Colorado, where the home of Western State. So, upon graduating from cva, I went out and started living in Gunnison, Colorado, and going to school at Western. And the butte was just half an

Bruce Miles:

hour up the road.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

And what you did for a pass is you go work for the mountain. And my first year, I was working as a. As a boot fitter, you know, in the rental shop and then progressed to the repair room because that was kind of the natural progression. But I wanted to be on the ski patrol. And for Crested Butte, it's a very jagged, steep Mountain. There's 112 known avalanche paths on the mountain, and you have to be an EMT to work on that ski patrol. So I basically became an EMT so that I could ski powder.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, it seems like it's worked out okay for you because you've continued to be able to have this connection with the mountains, really, through your whole life.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

Yeah. Yeah, it's correct. So I, you know, from becoming a wilderness EMT out there and then doing the whole avalanche control part of the job out there, which is different than, you know, being a ski patroller. And at Sugarloaf, you know, is. Is. Is trying because you might have more trauma, you know, because it is icy, hard mountain, you know, so all the. All the eastern ski areas, but out west, you. You add the avalanche control piece to it, and that is actually a really, really neat aspect of the job. And learning snow science, it's almost like archaeology in the snow. I mean, you. You can. If you dig a snow pit, you get to watch every. You can see every. Every weather event that has happened throughout the entire year. So you might see Rotten snow that happened in November down there at the bottom that's created this weak layer in the snow. So anyway, it was something I really, really enjoyed and lived out there for about 10 years. And then when I came back east, there was really only one place I wanted to come back to. And after two years in Boston, my wife and I, then girlfriend, now wife, moved back to Maine. And we have been here since then, since 2000. So we're happy to be back in the state.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Your wife, Leandra Fremont Smith, actually does interior design and she's often featured on the pages of Maine Home and Design. You have a very interesting match up there. Was there a Sugarloaf connection? What was the. How did you guys get together?

Tom Fremont-Smith:

You know, actually our connections from. Is Mount Desert island and actually a bit, a bit of Sugarloaf because my first roommate at cva, his sister, his little sister, her best summertime friend was Leandra Collier. And so Leandra and I would bump into each other from time to time at different parties and, or just gatherings. And you know, but I was 18 and you know, she was 14 or you know, 14 and a half. So there was no, you know, I, we didn't sort of travel in the same circles, but we knew each other and then later on in life when in our 20s, we bumped back into each other and I said, oh my. Wow. Wow, she's cute. Maybe, maybe she'll go out with me. And so a couple kids later, we're. We're back here and enjoying it. And she actually gets to be on the pages of the magazine all the time. She's been having a great time doing her interior design stuff and it's been fun, the two of us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the questions that we ask people when they come in is, is there a place in Maine that you love? You say all of it, but Acadia in late September. What is it about Acadia in late September that especially appeals to you?

Tom Fremont-Smith:

We, everybody kind of knows about Acady national park. At least most Mainers do. Right? And you, you only, you get vacation time in, in July or August, but those months, it's beautiful up there, but it's just crowded. And I really like it when it is. You know, there's so that, that fresh foliage leaves laying on the ground, you get that pungent smell of the, of the decaying leaves. And you're on those carriage trails and there's not really all. The only traffic that's up there at that time of year are blue hairs in their, in their RVs. So the trails are Empty. The carriage roads are empty.

Bruce Miles:

And.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

And you can just be out there and you say thank you to. To, you know, to the founding. The founding fathers, you know, the Charles William Elliots and the. Then the John D. Rockefellers and George Dorer and all those guys that started the park. And you can really sort of sense what it was like way back in the beginning at that time of year, because it's just so quiet. And that's why I love it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You may also have especially loved Acadia this past September, because before that you had something really traumatic happen in your life, something very unexpected.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

I did, yeah. I actually had myself a heart attack. You know, I'm 43, pretty fit and leander, and I were actually mountain biking up on Acadia July 11, and I felt the squeezing sensation in my chest and. And as an emt, I sort of knew that it must be exercise induced angina, which is a fancy word for chest pain. So we went to the ER and they did an ekg, which was negative. They did a troponin test in my blood to check for the enzyme or protein. That basically is the only thing. The only time you'll find it in your blood is if you've actually had damage to your cardiac tissue. And they did a second test just before they were about to release me because there was nothing on the ekg. And the PA who was working in the ER that day said, oh, well, congratulations, you've had yourself a heart attack. And it was a total, total shock because I just. I couldn't believe that, you know, I was this sort of fit, younger guy and she was telling me that I'd had a heart attack. And so next thing I know, I'm getting got to ride in there. So in the life, in the life, flight, ground, ambulance, which is actually pretty nice, ambulances, ambulances go. And I'm usually not the patient. You know, I'm used to being in the back taking care of people. And this ambulance was pretty nice. So I was jealous of that and went up to Bangor and they brought me to the cath lab and I was actually joking with the cardiologist because they give you, you know, sort of a cocktail of medications so that you are comfortable but you can still talk to the doctor. At least in my case, they kept me so that I could still communicate with them and I knew exactly what was going on. And. And when he stopped joking with me about, you know, what we were seeing on the screen, I knew something was up. And he actually turned the screen to me and he said, well, you. You could see a clot here and a clot here. And it wasn't my first time in the cath lab because I brought patients to the cath lab before, and the technician or the cardiologist was always nice enough to let us sort of sit in and look and see what our patients were having. And, yeah, there they were. Four 80% occluded coronary arteries.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

That's crazy. At the age of 43.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

Yeah. No, yes. Yes, exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

For somebody that doesn't have any risk factors.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

Well, that's the thing is, I didn't realize I did have risk factors, but my family, we just didn't really talk about it that much. So my dad had a heart attack and a stroke. My uncle died on the tennis court from cardiac arrest. My grandmother had a valve replacement. And then after this happened to me, I found out that all my aunts and uncles are all on statins. So guess what? I did actually have it in my family. And I just didn't. Didn't think that it would happen to me. I didn't. You know, we. I knew that I had borderline high cholesterol, but my doctor and I decided that we. I would just. I would eat healthy, you know, plenty of omega 3s and exercise, you know, and, you know, eating plenty of salmon and all those things that they tell you to do. And I was. I was doing them and assumed that that was keeping me healthy. And it probably was. I mean, maybe things would have been worse had I not been doing all those other things, but the bottom line was, is they didn't. My heart didn't suffer any damage, really, so that I got new plumbing and. And now when I'm on a statin, you know, and probably will be for the rest of my life, and a baby aspirin, and. And I hope that I will be one of those people that actually ends up being in better shape on the other side, you know, cardiovascularly. So we shall see.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you chose to actually have open heart surgery versus having stents placed?

Tom Fremont-Smith:

I did, yeah. You know, I got some good advice from. From a friend of mine who is a cardiologist down here actually, at Maine Med. And, you know, we were talking on the phone about it because there was another cardiologist who said, okay, we could fix this with stents. You know, we can just place the stent. You know, you'll be out of the hospital in a day, and you just have to be on Plavix, you know, and so on. And, you know, the studies really show that if you can if you are young enough. I guess the risk factor that he was worried about was, you know, you do open heart surgery, you know, they stop your heart. You know, you're on the. You're on the heart lung machine for, in my case, for five and a half hours. I was, you know, my heart was not pumping as they worked on it. And that's the risk. I guess that's why they would, you know, if you, if, if, if you're, if you have risks, they would rather do the stents because you're going to have a better chance of waking up, you know, of not having a complication during open heart surgery. But we figured that I'm pretty active. My kids are active, my wife is active. We, you know, we have a second home at Sugarloaf, you know, that we enjoy a lot. And I didn't want to give up. I didn't want to be somebody else. I wanted to be me again. And so the best choice was to go and actually do the open heart surgery, really fix things so that I can get 40 years instead of 10. So that was the decision behind that. And knock on wood, I'm here talking to you now. So, so far, so good.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

As part of this active life that you have, you have been making snowboards and promoting skiing and snowboarding at Sugarloaf and really anywhere that one would snowboard. How did you get involved with Bigelow Mountain Partners and Winterstick?

Tom Fremont-Smith:

So Bigelow Mountain Partners, BMP was founded by two friends of mine that I also went to Carabasa Valley Academy with Christopher Lorenz and Augustus Lookner. So Gus and I were in the graduating class of 91 at CVA, and Chris was in 89. And those two had been working together as partners through the late night, late 1990s, and they stumbled upon, through another mutual friend, a snowboard brand. It was actually the original snowboard brand. Winter Stick was started in 1972 by a guy by the name of Dmitri Milovich. He came up with the. He's an engineer and a surfer from Connecticut. And he had this idea to create a surfboard that would work on snow. And so the best place for him to do that was out in the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. And so Winterstick had sort of. Well, I have to sort of tell the story of Winterstick before I can tell my story with Winterstick. And so Dimitri started making these shapes in the early 1970s, and he patented or actually trademarked the name swallowtail in 1972. And it basically was a, you know, A fish shaped snowboard or surfboard that attached to your feet and you would ride powder on it. And he made a few dozen of them through the early 70s and gave them off to friends. He actually is famous famously for calling the news media and saying, wow, there are these crazy kids up in big Cottonwood Canyon doing this. I don't know what they're doing. They're sliding on snow and you should get up there. And so he, after making the call, he jumped in his van and ran up there so that he would be seen on these things, the Winter Sticks. And it was actually called Winter Sticking in Utah for many years, right up into the, up into the, into the 80s. When as Dimitri says, and I actually had the opportunity to have lunch with him a couple years ago, he said that Jake Burton called him and said, hey, we're actually going to call this snowboarding now. Because at the time it was just Dmitri Milovich with Winterstick, Tom Sims out in California with Sims snowboards and Jake Burton who was putting metal edges on his. You know, Jake was sort of going off of the idea of the Snurfer, which had the rope in the front of it. So they were, they were coming at these things totally different. Jake was really building a, a more of a type of a ski that had edges on it for skiing hard snow. Dimitri was building a surfboard to ride in powder and Tom Sims was, was doing a sort of a snow skateboard and was more into the half pipe and that and that type of thing. So. So anyway, my two partners had got involved with Winter Stick when it had just, it was, it just gone through a bankruptcy and they ended up rescuing the brand with Bigelow Mountain Partners rllc. And that's just when I had come back from Crested Butte. I wanted to stay in the ski industry. Leander was finishing up school actually at Harvard, the extension school in Boston. And so I ended up partnering with, with Chris and, and Gus to help save this iconic snowboard brand. And I've been involved ever since.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's been an interesting year for you, or at least an interesting summer, let's say. And you have two children, a daughter and a son. It's always the sort of thing I don't know when I was diagnosed with cancer in my early 40s and I had no risk factors either. And that really kind of shifted my perspective on things and really caused me to think, all right, what do I really want to do next? And what do I want to. Am I going in the direction I want to go in did that happen for you? And if so, did you gain any insights from this?

Tom Fremont-Smith:

You're asking me? From the injury, you know, from July 11th of this year? Yeah. You know what? I think it's too soon to be. To be honest. I mean, when I first came home from the hospital, I was like. It was like, almost euphoric. I had been sitting in at MGH because I went down to Boston for the surgery, and I. I really was looking around, just being. I am so happy and, oh, I don't care if anything happens to me today because I've. I've made it one more day. And so since then, I've sort of gotten back into the old circle of like, just, you know, you. You're just working and, you know, and taking care of your kids and, you know, packing lunches and going to soccer practice and lacrosse practice, and. Our lives are extremely complicated now. Not just mine and my wife's, but all of us. You know, every parent I know is getting pulled in 25 different directions with their children and their careers and their health. And so it hasn't really sunk in with me on a major change. But I will tell you that we are. I guess I was already a pretty healthy individual. So maybe for me, it's not going to change things too much. I just want to be able to get back to the point where I can go ride my mountain bike up a Sugarloaf, you know, and play, you know, some tennis with. With my kids, because they're starting to be able to hit the ball, you know, and. And Leander's a hell of a player, you know, so she's. It's fun to go out here, go out there and get whipped by her on the, you know, on the, on the tennis court or, or ski, you know, the. The backcountry, snowboarding and skiing. Because I. I ski and I snowboard. I just want to be active. I just want to be me again. And that's. And that's. And that's why I chose the open heart surgery, because I knew that if after talking to the doctors and they said, we can really fix this and you will just be like a normal individual, aside from the pain of the surgery with your chest, which lasts for a month or so, you'll be back. So I guess I rambled a little bit. But really what I'm trying to say is I just want to continue to be me and be active.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the things that has been kind of a theme for you is your relationship with Leandra and the fact that you both have sort of grown together over the years, and you've grown into now having this family. How do you support one another in your very different business interests?

Tom Fremont-Smith:

You, Me. You. You have to be. There has to be a lot of give and take. You know, we're a little bit like ships passing in the night sometimes, where I'll need to be. Up to Sugarloaf. We just. We just completed a. We actually just built a factory up at Sugarloaf for Winter Stick. So Winter Stick hadn't owned its own manufacturing since Dimitri had been building his boards in Utah back in the 70s. So now we have our own factory up at Sugarloaf. And so that makes me. I need to be up there a couple days a week. And Leandra is either usually with a. You know, with a. With a client, and she's got a lot of clients in the Boston area or up on that district of island and then to her own clients here. So the two of us are on the road a lot, and we. So it does take a lot of. A lot of give and take so that we can both get what we need to get done for our jobs, but at the same time, be there for our kids, be there for each other. And I think that's why we bought this place up at Sugarloaf, because it's a place that the four of us all can just be together. You know, we're outdoors and. Or indoors. Could be 40 below and blowing them. We don't feel like going up on the hill, but we've got our space. You know, we've got our little camp that is ours, and it's our time as a family. And I think that that's really, really important for people in these days of just everybody being pulled in so many different directions. So that's how we've been doing it, and so far, it's been working.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Tom Fremont Smith, who has been with Bigelow Mountain Partners, llc, which is owner of Winterstick, since making an investment in the company in 2001. As president, Tom guides the growth and development of Bigelow Mountain Partners and Winter Stick, which makes snowboards at Sugarloaf. He's also married to Leandra, father of two and survivor of major heart trauma this summer. And we're really glad that you're with us still, and we're really glad that you do as much as you do to contribute to Maine and the Sugarloaf community. So thank you for that and thank you for coming in.

Tom Fremont-Smith:

Great. Thanks very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You have been listening to Love Maine radio show number 271, Sugar Loafing. Our guests have included Bruce Miles and Tom Fremont Smith. Follow me on Twitter as DrLisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Sugar Loafing show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think that you raise a really important point and having lived in Yarmouth off and on for decades, I mean you're right, it's not all doctors and lawyers and high income earning people. I mean there's a broad range of people and sometimes I believe that people who live in Yarmouth who don't have they don't have parents who are making a lot of money, I think sometimes it can be really hard for them and they can feel really disadvantaged within that school system. So it sounds like that's a discussion that you've been having recently at the education foundation level.

[Unidentified voice]:

Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What is it about your background in law that makes you interested in this?

[Unidentified voice]:

Well, I don't know if it's the background in law necessarily, although law is a highly academic pursuit. So I've just done a lot of school, so in that sense I know about education systems. I've also spent part of my educational career, academic career in Europe, so I have that perspective as well. And again, growing up the son of two professors, it's just a big part of me, I think that more what it is is that the legal profession in Maine, especially when I first moved back to Maine, I was working at one of the law firms in town. The law firms in Maine, I think, do a wonderful job getting their associates involved in the community. Before I came back to Maine, I was working at large New York law firms, where the expectation was, was just to sit at your desk and bill as many hours as possible. We were not made aware of opportunities in the community, and we were not encouraged to go out and get involved. Whereas when I started at the law firm in Maine, it was made clear to me right away that I needed to go find organizations, boards to join. And that was really a part of my work. And so being given that encouragement and the opportunity to go out and find what in the community looked like a good community service endeavor for me, was really just such a great opportunity. I was able to do a little looking into what was in Yarmouth and found the education foundation. And it was just a good situation, I think.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Now, as the president of the Yarmouth Education foundation and previously working on the board. What have you. What have you been surprised by? What have you learned that you really didn't think that you would learn going into it?

[Unidentified voice]:

Well, I've learned first that, you know, it's a very competitive world, and school systems outside of Maine and outside of the US really are pushing the limits of education, and we can always be doing more. So when we get applications for grants in the STEM field, you know, biology, those we feel are critical, and our mission is to fund things that are outside of the school curriculum. But you start to wonder, well, should this be outside of the school curriculum, or should this actually be something that every student is learning? And why are they not? Why does it have to come through as a grant application? I mean, we're very fortunate in Yarmouth to have such great teachers who think of these things, who are out there listening to conferences about education and new things in education and bringing these forward. But I think that really, you know, the importance of giving the students these opportunities can't be ignored. The other thing I've learned is how somewhat political all of this can be. And so you have to be very diplomatic in how you interact with teachers and administrators and parents.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, explore that a little bit for me. Why such a need for diplomacy? What is it that that so brings, I don't know, emotions to the surface or strong thoughts about or feelings about the subject.

[Unidentified voice]:

Well, in Yarmouth, people pay a high rate of tax, property tax, and so they're going into it already saying, well, we've already given a lot so that our children can go to this wonderful school system. The Yarmouth Education foundation goes out and says, can you give a little more? So we're soliciting money in the community. Then we have to be really good stewards of this money and think very hard about how to give it back in the form of the grants that we make. And so you have teachers who come forward with applications. And I know you know from my experience that being a teacher is very time consuming and it's hard to prepare a nice grant application when you're teaching and grading papers and doing all these other things. Not to mention you have your own family. And so sometimes a grant proposal comes to us.