Lila: Weren’t the Olympics there as well?

Elizabeth: Yes, the Olympics were held there in 1960. We have also hosted World Cup races a number of times, so it's no stranger to competition. It was also home to the legendary freeride skier Shane McConkey, who founded the International Freeskiers Association. So it's not just  steeped in ski culture, it is a mountain that defines ski culture.

Lila: Sweet. Can you describe your career progression at the mountain, detailing your journey from your initial role to your current position?

Elizabeth: I was a Ticket Scanner for one season. The next season, I was a Ticket Sales Agent. In August of 2018, I was hired as the Web Coordinator in the marketing department. About a year into being the Web Coordinator, I was promoted to Web Specialist. I was managing our website full-time and then some of our social media a few days a week as well. I was a Web Specialist for about two years, and then I was promoted to my current role as the Web and Content Manager, where I oversee all things related to our content management system, our e-commerce platforms, social media, and some photo and video production.

Lila: Can you describe your responsibilities as the Web and Content Manager? 

Elizabeth: The biggest parts of my job are writing and project management. On the website, I am making sure that our website is functional, that it's factually correct, and that it's all up to date. On the content side, I run a weekly meeting for our content team where we come up with a plan for everything that needs to be filmed or photographed that week. We also talk about what we're going to post on social media and in the blog, share in a press release, or send out via email. As a manager, I oversee a Web Coordinator and a Social Media Specialist, so I try to be a strategist and a support role for them.

Lila: What are the challenges you face in this role?

Elizabeth: It's a very, very demanding job that is constantly changing. Trying to triage and figure out where to put your energy can be really hard. I find that a lot of people who are social media managers take on the feeling of representing the brand themselves. When people are mad at Palisades as a company, it feels like people are mad at me because I'm the one publicly speaking for the company and that is really difficult to separate. 

Lila: I didn’t even think about that aspect of your role. What is your favorite thing about your job? 

Elizabeth: One of my favorite things is how much I get to be out on the mountain – and that’s not just snowboarding. I do get to snowboard all the time, but I also get to climb lift towers, go in snowcats, and help fire up snowmaking guns. Also, it has always been the people that are my favorite, from the first day that I worked there, both guests and employees. 

Lila: You played a significant role in the official renaming of the mountain from Sq**w Valley to Palisades Tahoe. Could you discuss the process behind this change and explain the reason why it was necessary?

Elizabeth: Our name change was very overdue. We'd been talking about it for a long time because several times a week we'd get messages on social media with someone being like, how could this still be your name? The Washoe Tribe had been protesting the old name for decades. When the Olympics were hosted at Palisades Tahoe, that land was still under litigation. The tribe had not ever formally given up their right to the land, but the resort carried on with the Games anyway. In the spring of 2020, I wrote a letter to Ron Cohen, our former president, with some ideas for the name change and some thoughts on how we could work with the Washoe Tribe. The process started soon after and I got to be involved. 

Lila: Can you tell us an aspect of this process that you’re particularly proud of, and explain its significance both in terms of historical context and contemporary impact? 

Elizabeth: One of the things I'm most proud of was I co-wrote our Name Change Blog Series, authored in tandem with the tribe’s former Historic Preservation Officer, Darrel Cruz. It reviews the history of the Washoe Tribe, but it’s also a lot about the Washoe Tribe currently, because, you know, people often tend to think of native tribes as something that were. That they existed in the past and they're not here now. But the reality is, especially in Lake Tahoe, that the Washoe Tribe is very much here and present and still doing a lot of work. We didn't want to erase the work that they are doing. We also didn't want to absolve ourselves of responsibility and just remove our name from every building and from every t-shirt and pretend it never happened. Part of this has been, how do we accept responsibility for having this name for so long? And it's beyond the name. We used to have a lot of terrible signage with caricatures of indigenous people. We had a ski school that was called ‘Four Little Indians’ at one point. We have a lot to atone for and this was really just step one of the process. 

Lila: That leads into my next question because in addition to the name change, you have been actively involved in maintaining and strengthening the mountain’s relationship with the Washoe Tribe. Could you elaborate on the initiatives you've undertaken to support this relationship and explain why it is important?

Elizabeth: I'm focused on programming. For example, on the one-year anniversary of the name change, we hosted a panel with leadership from the resort and the Washoe Tribe to talk about our relationship. I also oversee the Washoe Cultural Talks, which Palisades hosts every summer. For those, there is a different speaker from the tribe each week. Personally, I think it's the best activity we've ever offered. Working with the Washoe Tribe has been a unique experience because a lot of times, working for a large company, our partnerships -- even when they're totally genuine -- are financial transactions. With the Washoe Tribe, it is: What can we do for each other, as friends?

Lila: That's so nice! I love that! Your blog, Inside Edge, recently was named the best blog in the ski industry by Ski Area Management. Could you describe how you started the blog and the topics that you typically cover?

Elizabeth: The blog existed when I came into my role, so I can't take full credit for starting it, but I have changed it a lot over the years. We have six key categories that we post in now: Athletes, Conditions, Experiences, Operations, Stories, and Weather. For athletes, Palisades Tahoe has an official athlete team made up of some of the best athletes in the world. We post updates on what they've been up to each month. Additionally, we're always posting results from our youth ski and snowboard program, Team Palisades Tahoe, which is the largest team in the world. Our goal is to be the number one supplier of athletes to the U.S Ski Team and the Freeride World Tour. And we are. 

We also share Conditions blogs because Palisade Tahoe guests are very, very passionate about the ski experience. They are really just high octane skiers who are there to ski. They want to know what the snow is like and what terrain is skiing the best. A lot of times we have those posted by third party people, like employees or other publications so that guests know it's not just us twisting the truth internally, but it's actually a different, reputable source. 

Much of the work that I tend to do is in the Stories section. I have found that our audience is passionate about the people who work and ski here. The community is not just important to me, it's important to everyone who is a part of it. At least once a month, we feature the in-depth story of a different person. 

Lila: So in addition to the Inside Edge, your operations communication work received the National Ski Area Association's best campaign award. How have your operation blogs transformed the ski industry?

Elizabeth: Before I was even in the marketing department, the main thing I saw was that guests were unhappy with Palisades’ operations communications. All of the social media comments were extremely negative. The way Palisades is situated in the Sierra Nevada mountain range causes it to be affected by wind very easily. It experiences very extreme weather, often more extreme than other parts of the Tahoe basin. It almost has its own little microclimate. On official channels, we were saying the lifts were closed or on “wind hold” and not giving an explanation as to why. We have a very, very educated audience. These are people from San Francisco, from the Bay Area, from Reno, who are hungry for information. I realized that people think of Palisades Tahoe like a sports team. They want stats!

So I brought this idea of posting more transparent information to my boss at the time. He set me up with our Vice President of Operations, Michael, and Michael and I started meeting once a week. I would basically take the notes from our meeting, organize them, and make it a public document. One of the first times I posted, the blog got 45,000 pageviews. I think people couldn't believe what we were posting. It was a complete change because we weren't known for being transparent. Since then, radical transparency has always been my goal. That was in 2021 and now over the years, I don't even really have to talk to the VP of Ops to get my information anymore. We're still close, but he eventually would say, Why don't you talk to the mountain manager? So then I would call the Palisades Mountain Manager, Jimmy. And then over time, I realized I could get even more granular. So then I started calling the Grooming Managers, the Lift Maintenance Managers, and now I mostly talk to frontline people. I get a lot of the information that I post publicly from people who are actually out there doing the work: fixing or operating the lifts, grooming runs, and making snow. 

It has completely changed guest sentiment. The reason we won the NSAA best campaign is that it's not a traditional marketing campaign, which focuses on your designs, your vibes, and where you put your dollars. This was really about how we decided to tell our story in the best way, to be honest with our guests, and to give them exactly what they wanted from us. I also was awarded the Spirit Award (Palisades Tahoe’s Employee of the Year award) in 2023 for my Operations Blog work. I’m so proud of what my team has created. 

Lila: That’s incredible. That is definitely my favorite thing you’ve done. 

Elizabeth: Thank you. 

Lila: Could you provide an overview of the SheGrooms conference you attended in May, including its purpose, key objectives, and your personal experience from attending?

Elizabeth: Since I do the operations blog and operations communications work, I thought it would be good for me to attend SheGrooms. The SheGrooms conference was started by Allison Marriner, who is the Grooming Manager for Mount Hood Meadows in Oregon. This was its second year, and it is intended for any woman who is interested in mountain operations, especially grooming. I thought that this would be really good for me because there were also parts about snowmaking, vehicle maintenance, and leadership. Plus, I’ve been learning to operate a snowcat for the past two seasons, and it's one of my favorite things to do on the mountain. The conference was split into classroom sessions and on-snow sessions. It was really a well-rounded, cool conference. 

Lila: The ski industry is traditionally male-dominated. At the conference, did you discuss the sexism you've experienced and how you handle those situations? 

Elizabeth: We did. I’ve experienced it more in an administrative setting than out on the hill. Something I've really noticed is that men tend to give very secretarial tasks to the women in the office. Like, oh, I want to do a team building exercise. Girls, can you plan it? Oh, I didn't write anything down. I didn't take notes from that. Can you share notes with me? Can you take notes? That is frustratingly common. In general, though, I reject the claim that the ski industry is male-dominated. We girls are out there, and we’ve always been out there.

Lila: What are the challenges that you face as a single mother in the workplace who is actively trying to climb the corporate ladder?

Elizabeth: The biggest challenge I face is with childcare and childcare costs. If my daughter gets sick, there's no one else who can go pick her up or stay home with her. I have to use my vacation and sick days to do things like that. This past year, I've had to actually really switch up the hours I work and sometimes work at night so that I can pay less for daytime care. That has other implications because people at work don't understand why I'm not there for the first hour of the day or the last hour of the day. That kind of thing can boil over and create tension, but also I really don't have another choice. I've watched a lot of young mothers leave the Tahoe area in recent years because of this.

Lila: Thank you for speaking about that. What are your career aspirations, and what are your hopes for the future of the ski mountain industry? 

Elizabeth: For myself, I deeply believe that the operations world and telling the story of the operations world is where I belong. If I were to stay within the current structure of Palisades Tahoe my dream job would be to be something like the VP of Operations. I’d like to be the one not just making the decisions, but enabling my teams to make the best decisions they can make for the mountain and for the industry as a whole. 

In the ski industry, what we have been moving towards is getting all mountains to be four season mountains because snowfall is not guaranteed or reliable. I see a lot of merit in investing in snowmaking, but also in investing in making sure you have activities all year round so that you can stay afloat. We see a lot of pushback on this at Palisades. People like it when it's quiet. They don't want things to change, and I totally hear that. But also, if we can make more money in the off-season, that probably means we can stay open longer for skiing. We can invest more in things like new snowcats. It will have serious positive implications for the mountain as a whole, especially for the ski experience.

Lila: And lastly, what advice would you offer to a recent college graduate who is uncertain about their career path?

Elizabeth: I think that the best thing is to be open-minded. I always loved skiing growing up, but I did not ever kind of set my sights on working in the ski industry until I took that ticket scanner job and thought, hey, I have a marketing degree, I could work in marketing here. It also is really a game of networking. Every job I've ever gotten and even every promotion I've ever gotten has really been about building relationships. All of the work that I've been awarded for, both the operations communications work and the storytelling blog work is all about building relationships with people, being able to get along with anyone, being able to find common ground and compromise on absolutely anything. It's all about who you know. So just stay open-minded and don’t burn bridges. 

This interview was conducted in June 2024. Elizabeth Worgan has since been promoted to the North American Marketing Manager for PistenBully in Reno, Nevada. PistenBully is the worldwide market leader specializing in tracked vehicles for grooming ski slopes and trails.