The Alterra Mountain Company Community Foundation recently announced Robert Foley as its executive director. Foley’s appointment follows a two year gap in executive leadership at the foundation, during which the board of directors has been restructuring the position.
Foley said his new role at the charity, inspired by Deer Valley Resort’s parent company, sits at the intersection of personal and professional passions.
Professionally, Foley’s career in nonprofit and philanthropic leadership has focused on mental health initiatives with various organizations throughout the United States.
“Personally, as a person who loves the mountains and what they represent, being able to support these specific communities, these resort communities, these mountain communities, and tackle some challenges that we don’t often get to talk about, is really appealing and exciting,” Foley said.
Based in Denver, where Alterra is also located, Foley has family ties to Utah and often visits Deer Valley.
The Alterra Mountain Company Community Foundation is a nonprofit affiliated with, but separate from, Alterra Mountain Company. Alterra is a donor to the foundation. The foundation focuses on mental and behavioral health and wellness of people living and working in mountain towns, like Park City and greater Summit County.
“Alterra Mountain Company is about mountain adventure, and the Community Foundation is going to be about mountain wellness,” Foley said.
Since 2024, the foundation has primarily given individual grants, offering them to individuals facing what Foley described as emergent needs for expenses like medical bills, food and rent. The foundation also has what it calls “psychotherapy grants,” designed specifically for those working at Deer Valley.
“Some of our ski patrollers … are seeing significant trauma and accidents,” Foley said. “We want to make sure that even though it’s part of their job, they still have access to wellness services to help them process and deal with (what they see).”
The grant initiatives and organizational partnerships will continue. He recognized his position in the Deer Valley and Alterra communities and the importance of respecting the ongoing work.
Alterra owns 19 resorts, so Foley’s job is to support and advocate for the mental health of people in each of those resort communities. His approach to this is to identify the specific needs of the communities and respectfully meet the need.
Foley said it’s important for him to stay mindful of the fact that, although he’s visited Park City and skied at Deer Valley, he still doesn’t live or work here.
“When I say it’s important to respectfully address those needs, there’s got to be community connection, collaboration, partnership and humility,” Foley said. “Because that’s the only way we’re going to authentically begin to address some of the challenges that people within those communities are facing.”
His role involves finding funding and facilitating connections so professional and community experts can continue their work more effectively. In the past, the foundation has awarded over $500,000 through the hardship grants. The psychotherapy grants enable Deer Valley employees to pay for mental health service and receive help finding providers.
In addition to facilitating direct mental health support, Foley said the foundation will continue to work with community organizations like the Park City Community Foundation that are already established in the area.
“It’s really about connecting with the people who already know, and sharing that knowledge,” he said.
One project already in the works is a behavioral health toolkit. The toolkit is a book of mental health resources that can be used across all mountain communities. It’s designed to be accessible for everyone, not just mental health professionals. Once completed, the toolkit will be a roadmap for identifying and discussing specific challenges within each community, Foley said.
Many mountain and resort towns face similar challenges and mental health risks, Foley said, but it’s important to note that each community is different.
Some of the unique challenges in Park City come from the differences between Park City as a resort town and Summit County as a whole. Because of the wide economic differences in the community, the challenge in accessing mental health care for some might be financial or transportation barriers, while others might not feel shame for asking for help.
“These spaces and places, they’re beautiful. They’re physically breathtaking,” Foley said. “The beauty, the magnitude of those spaces can put a mask on the struggles that people experience there.”
Foley’s goal moving forward with the foundation is to unmask the difficulties with mental health that are still so common in mountain towns.
“We just want to be a resource and make sure that those communities can be beautiful for everybody,” Foley said.