Carrig leaving Heavenly in Vail restructure

By Kathryn Reed

Vail Resorts is undergoing an upper management shuffle that is sending Heavenly’s Blaise Carrig to Colorado.

Carrig was brought in to be chief operating officer of the South Shore resort when Vail bought the ski area in 2002.

Blaise Carrig

He and John Garnsey are co-presidents of the Mountain Division. Neither will have every day responsibilities at any resort. Carrig will work in Broomfield with oversight still of Heavenly, Keystone and Breckenridge. Garnsey will oversee Beaver Creek and Vail from his office in Avon.

Carrig is on vacation and was not available for comment Friday.

CEO Robert Katz made the announcement Thursday.

“As we continue to look toward our future, I am announcing some changes to our organizational structure that will better position our company for future growth, both within our existing resorts and as we pursue new opportunities,” Katz said in an email to employees. “These changes will allow some of our key leaders to have greater capacity to participate in our strategic efforts, and will give opportunities for other individuals to take on new and larger roles within the company.”

A general manager will be hired to run Heavenly and one to run Beaver Creek. To begin with those jobs are only open to current Vail Resorts staff. Heavenly has eight people on its senior management team.

Russ Pecoraro, spokesman for Heavenly, said a time line has not been established to hire the general manager. He said the plan is to replace whoever is promoted from within.

No jobs are being lost or layoffs incurred from the change in structure, Pecoraro said.

Other changes will occur in the human resources and finance departments, but none directly impacting staff at the Lake Tahoe resort.

Heavenly Mountain Resort wraps up its season Sunday, days after the corporate office reported skier visits are up 2.3 percent and lift-ticket revenue up 4.6 percent for the 2009-10 compared to last season.