History piled up like an epic snowstorm Wednesday night at the University of Utah’s Cleone Peterson Eccles Alumni House, where athletes, resort leaders, historians and longtime winter sports fans gathered for the annual Ski Affair.
The celebration, hosted by the J. Willard Marriott Library’s Ski and Snow Sports Archives, paid tribute to two cornerstones of the state’s snow culture — Colin Hilton, president and CEO of the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, and Ski Utah, which this year marks half a century of promoting the state’s resorts and snow.
The Archives presented Hilton with the S. J. Quinney Award, recognizing a career that has helped preserve and expand Utah’s Olympic legacy. Ski Utah received the History Maker Award for its 50-year record of growing and representing Utah’s ski industry.
The Quinney Award is named for Stephen J. Quinney, a Utah attorney, businessman, state legislator and one of the early visionaries in Utah’s ski economy and community identity. Quinney helped establish Alta Ski Area in the 1930s and is remembered by the Archives as “the father of Utah’s ski industry.” The award bearing his name honors those who share that same commitment to advancing winter sport.
Raised outside Buffalo, New York, Hilton spent his childhood waiting out snowstorms that regularly buried his hometown.
“How crazy is it,” he said, “that a kid who grew up in western New York listening to the radio in the mornings, waiting for the school closures because of the lake-effect snow off of Lake Erie, would be receiving an award about contributions to ski and snow sports?”
He said that growing up in that environment taught him to embrace winter rather than avoid it, developing a mindset of participation and exploration that would guide the rest of his career. A volunteer position at the 1993 World University Games sparked his interest in sport event operations.
At 26, Hilton was assigned to help design the rowing and canoeing venue for the 1996 Olympic Games — a project that required building a temporary 16,000-seat grandstand over the water. He said the challenge was unlike anything he’d faced before, and then the local power company warned that the site left thousands of spectators exposed to lightning and sudden storms common to the area.
“We then had to figure out how to safely evacuate three times a full set of 16,000 spectators back to a safe place and back to their seats later on,” he said. “But life doesn’t have a blueprint. You just build confidence by taking on what needs figuring out.”
Hilton joined the Salt Lake organizing committee to oversee the outdoor venues for the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. His role in coordinating those operations helped establish the framework for maintaining Utah’s Olympic facilities after the Games.
When he joined the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation in 2006, after working as Park City’s first economic development director, Utah’s Olympic venues were still adjusting to life after the Games. What had been sites built for elite competition needed to find a sustainable role in the community.
Nearly two decades later, under Hilton’s direction, the Utah Olympic Park, Soldier Hollow Nordic Center and the Utah Olympic Oval have become year-round training and recreation hubs that reach far beyond Olympic athletes.
The facilities host hundreds of local, national and international events each year and draw visitors from around the world. In the last year, the foundation reported over 140,000 athlete training days, more than 250 international competitions and around 90,000 out-of-state visitors, generating close to $12 million in tourism spending and supporting more than 1,000 jobs statewide.
For Hilton, the goal has always been to turn Utah’s Olympic legacy into a place where anyone can participate.
“These Olympic venues, while built for elite athletes, can do so much more,” Hilton said. “They’re community recreation centers for our youth. There are ways we engage the public into trying public bobsled rides, or come up to the park and learn to do a back flip into the freestyle pool, or come learn to skate at the Olympic Oval.”
That approach has redefined the foundation’s mission with programs to include youth development, adaptive-sport training and public recreation.
“This, to me, is why I get up every day. This is the joy we see as kids in our facilities, whether it’s ice sports or ski sports or sliding sports,” he said. “And I just feel lucky I get to lead a team of about 600 employees between these three venues to be able to create these environments and to give them inspiration to think big.”
The History Maker Award went to Ski Utah, the statewide marketing and advocacy group that began in 1975 with a single staff member and a simple mission to show people just how much Utah’s snow has to offer.
At the time, Utah had 13 ski resorts and little national recognition compared to Colorado or California. Today, the state counts 16sixteen resorts and welcomes millions of skiers each year.
In the 50 years since, the organization has grown into a central voice for Utah’s ski industry, representing 16 resorts, thousands of workers and a $2.5 billion winter economy.
In the early 1980s, the organization helped trademark the phrase “The Greatest Snow on Earth” and has continued to broaden its reach through new campaigns, technology and youth initiatives. The Interconnect Tour, launched in the mid-1980s, showcased the proximity of Utah’s resorts by linking them in a single ski day.
In 1989, the group launched the Fourth Grade Learn to Ski and Ride Program, which they said has since introduced hundreds of thousands of children to snow sports across the state.
“We knew it was important to inspire the next generation of skiers and boarders and have since introduced hundreds of thousands of youth to the joy of skiing and snowboarding,” said spokesperson Tom Kelly in a short film presented Wednesday.
President and CEO Nathan Rafferty said Ski Utah’s 50-year story is one of shared effort and adaptability.
“When Ski Utah was created, the world didn’t yet know about our snow,” he said. “Today, we’re a unified voice for an industry that welcomes millions of skiers and riders from every corner of the globe.”
Rafferty credited collaboration among resorts and communities for the industry’s growth and resilience. Looking ahead, he said the same creativity that built the industry will be needed to face future challenges, from climate change to housing and workforce shortages, especially as Utah prepares to host the 2034 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
“Utah has always met its challenges with creativity and grit,” Rafferty said. “That spirit will carry us through the next 50 years, too.”
He closed by reading his poem, “The Next Run,” one he first shared at a Ski Affair a few years ago, just ahead of Utah’s record-breaking 2022-23 snow season. The tradition might be something of a snowdance, marking the hopeful start of another winter.
“50 winters, 50 springs, tracks through time and mountain things, from powder days to closing nights, we’ve carved our turns beneath these lights. We’ve watched the storms. We’ve chased the flakes, shared lifts, laughs and small mistakes, and now the season calls again. The chairlifts hum, the cold sets in. Here’s to the riders yet to come. The next run is always the greatest one,” said Rafferty.