Robert Ward "Bob" Parker
Marriages
Barbara Guy
Obituaries
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel page 8A Death Notice - June 30, 2017
Robert Ward Parker, 94, Grand Junction, died June 29, 2017, at HopeWest and Hospice Care Center. No services are planned at this time.He was a ski area resort executive.Survivors include one son, Guy H. of Palisade; one daughter, Katherine Lynn Parker of Denver; and two grandchildren. Memorial contributions to HopeWest, 3090B N. 12th St., Grand Junction 81506.
Vail Daily page A2 - July 7, 2017
Robert Ward Parker, a veteran of the famed 10th Mountain Division who returned to Colorado to become an integral figure in the post-World War II ski industry, died June 29 in Grand Junction. He was 94.
Much of his life was involved with skiing, from his childhood in New York and Wisconsin to training for mountain warfare in the Alps. Later, after working as a mountain guide and a ski journalist, he helped create the Vail ski area.
At Vail, which opened in 1962, his marketing efforts to draw the world's attention were so successful that only a decade later, it was the favored mountain resort for Gerald R. Ford, even before he became the U.S. president. Parker also helped create a second ski area, Beaver Creek, during a time of increasing environmental scrutiny.
SKIING INTO HISTORY
Parker was born on July 9, 1922, in Evanston, Illinois, to Lester W. and Katherine Howard Parker. Because of his father's work as a teacher, the family moved about often when he was a youngster.
Parker first skied as an 11-year-old in Rochester, New York, using boots strapped to skis, the technology of the time. Three years later, in Wisconsin, he used the first toe-iron, heel-strap bindings, similar to those used today by telemark skiers. Safety-release bindings didn't come until much later. The following year, in 1938, he rode a ski lift for the first time, at Rib Mountain, Wisconsin.
When the United States entered World War II, Parker was a freshman at St. Lawrence College (now University), where he was on the ski team. He had aspired to become a member of the National Ski Patrol, but instead enlisted in the 87th Mountain Infantry Regiment at Fort Lewis, Washington. The regiment became part of the 10th Mountain Division, the U.S. Army's effort to prepare for winter battles in the Alps or other mountainous terrain.
The division trained from late 1942 to early 1944 at Camp Hale, a new army base located along the Continental Divide about 130 miles west of Denver. The division attracted an unusual mix of skiers from elite schools, as well as ranchers and lumberjacks experienced with mountain travel.
In late 1944, the 10th Mountain Division was sent to Europe to help dislodge the stubbornly resistant German forces from Italy's Apennine Mountains. Bloodied by fighting that was among the fiercest of the war, the 10th then pursued German forces across the Po River and, when the war ended, were driving them from the foothills of the Alps.
In Italy, Parker served as a radio operator in a regimental intelligence and reconnaissance platoon. He was later cited by the Army for calmly operating his radio, even when it was necessary to expose himself to enemy fire.
Near the town of Castelfranco, he was in a vehicle that drew fire from a house. A citation issued by the U.S. Army several months later recounted that he leaped from the vehicle armed only with a carbine and approached the window from which the shots had originated.
"He leaned into the window and, seeing one of the hostile soldiers trying to escape, he fired one shot, severely wounding the enemy," the citation said. "Immediately, he sighted more enemy in another room, and by quick thinking, he was successful in the elimination of these soldiers also."
The Army awarded him a bronze star with oak cluster.
AFTER THE WAR
After the war, Parker enrolled at the University of Washington, earning a bachelor's degree in English in 1949. While in Washington, he became president of the university ski club, guided climbers on Mount Rainier and met his future wife, Barbara Guy. He also spent a season as a ski patroller in Aspen.
In 1950, he and Barbara moved to Europe, where Parker worked for the U.S. Army as an educator while also earning a certificate in French from the University of Grenoble. He also was awarded a diploma in mountain guiding by the French National Alpine School. They remained to ski, climb and bicycle extensively in the Alps. His 10th Mountain Division experience in Colorado had instilled in him a love of mountains, and this time in the Alps sealed the passion.
In 1952, he began writing about skiing as the European correspondent for National Skiing, a trade publication. In 1955, after moving to Denver, which was becoming the center for North American skiing, he served five years as editor of Skiing magazine. He stayed until 1962, when, after an argument with the publisher, Merrill Hastings, he took a job at Vail, the ski area then being readied for opening.
VAIL ORIGINAL
At Vail, Parker left his most indelible mark. The ski area was conceived in 1957 by Pete Seibert, another 10th Mountain Division veteran, and a local ski enthusiast, Earl Eaton. Creating a ski area — and a few years later, the eponymously named town — from a sheep pasture required everybody involved to wear many hats. Parker wore more hats than most.
He named many of the ski trails, organized ski races and tapped his contacts to gain national and even international attention on a shoestring budget. He even reshuffled supply lines from Europe to ensure delivery of the resort's first gondola in time for its scheduled opening.
Much of his early marketing involved ski racing. The U.S. Olympic Ski Team agreed to train at Vail in 1962, even before operations formally began. He was among those who lured Pepi Gramshammer, a famous Austrian ski racer then at Sun Valley, to relocate to Vail. In 1965, he worked with others to make Vail a venue for what in 1967 became the World Cup races.
In 1963, when snow failed to arrive early, he recruited Utes from Southwestern Colorado to perform a rain dance, which the Utes agreed could be called a snow dance on this one occasion. The snow didn't arrive immediately, but it did come before the all-important Christmas crowd.
Parker coined the phrase "Ski Country USA" for Vail but agreed to let it become the namesake for Colorado's skiing trade organization. He served as president of the organization. A later director, Bob Knous, remembers that Parker was clear about the need to "remember the past, see the future and apply it to the present."
During Parker's time at Vail, the ski industry rode a bulging baby boomer demographic and broadly rising prosperity to transition from a novelty sport enjoyed by economic and athletic elites to a mass-participation sport.
Vail, with its moderate slopes and easy accessibility, reflected that transition. During Vail's first season, one day the resort had only 12 paying customers. By the time Parker officially retired in 1987, Vail Mountain was doing more than 1 million skier days per winter, tops among North American ski areas.
RISING SUCCESS
Vail's success was enabled by affordable, long-distance airplane travel. Under Parker, Vail created the first resort joint marketing program, working with American Express and two airlines.
"I don't know if he was the first to figure it out, but he was the first to stand up and do something about it," said Bill O'Connell, who worked as a marketer under Parker
O'Connell said Parker was open to new ideas. In 1980, for example, he asked for funding to reach out to Australian skiers. Skeptical at first, Parker warmed to the idea. Vail soon captured a major new international market. In the early 1970s, Parker launched a marketing campaign in Mexico, which resulted in a strong relationship between Vail and Mexico's wealthy elites that also continues to this day.
"This sounds pretty cocky, but it seems to me that everything we wanted to do, we did. And everything we did, worked," said O'Connell, who no longer works for Vail.
Harry Frampton, who arrived in Vail in 1981 to lead the ski company for four years, said Parker impressed upon him the importance of delivering a quality product.
"He believed strongly that if the product was terrific, the profits would follow," Frampton said. "He was the conscience of the company."
A tragic blemish in Vail's success was a gondola accident in 1976 that claimed four lives. By then a senior vice president of operations for Vail Associates, Parker played a key role in hearings that absolved Vail of negligence.
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFORTS
During Parker's early years at Vail, the nation's attitudes and laws governing environment protections shifted dramatically. Parker was engaged in several efforts to preserve public lands near Vail with wilderness attributes.
One case involved a highway route. State highway officials in the mid-1960s favored a route for the new Interstate 70 through the Gore Range Primitive Area. Truckers and chambers of commerce from Denver to Grand Junction agreed that short, faster route from Frisco to Vail was better. Colorado environmentalists argued for hewing to an existing route. With Parker's influence, the ski company backed environmentalists. They prevailed, with the result that I-70 today crosses Vail Pass instead of entering a tunnel under Red Buffalo Pass.
In 1969, he became the lead plaintiff in a famous lawsuit, Parker vs. United States, once again involving an effort to preserve the integrity of the same proposed wilderness area by precluding a timber sale planned by the U.S. Forest Service.
Congress, in creating the Eagles Nest Wilderness Area in 1976, included both disputed portions of land.
But the same increased scrutiny of environmental impacts created greater challenges for the ski company when it set out to create a second ski area, called Beaver Creek. The ski company envisioned it as a prime venue for the 1976 Winter Olympics, which Denver had secured as host city. Colorado voters thought otherwise, in 1972 yanking state funding for the effort. Denver was forced to withdraw, the only time a host has abdicated either Winter or Summer Games.
Beaver Creek was opened in late 1980, setting the standard for state regulatory review of ski areas. It was, however, the last major ski area built in the United States for several decades.
Terry Minger, a former town manager in Vail, called Parker a marketing genius of the early ski industry, perhaps the best. But Parker was also something more, he said: a visionary, the biggest-picture thinker among Vail's founders.
"Parker was about the world and how that little place in the Gore Range fit in the world and what it had to offer the world beyond an expensive hamburger and an incredible ski experience," Minger said.
HALL OF FAMER
Parker was inducted into the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame in 1980 and the National Ski Hall of Fame in 1985.
After leaving the ski company, Parker moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he intensified his study of Southwestern archaeology. His research resulted in at least one non-peer-reviewed paper.
He also continued to write poetry. Three of his poems were published in the New Yorker in 1951 and 1952. He self-published a book of his poetry in 2006, and in his later years, he also published a book called "What Did You Do During the War, Dad?"
Parker is survived by his son, Guy Parker; daughter-in-law, Lori Parker, granddaughters Chandler and Arden; and also by daughter Katherine Parker and a son-in-law, Mark Mikow. Memorial services are pending.
Vail Daily page A2 - September 23, 2017
VAIL — We still benefit from Bob Parker's genius.
Robert Ward Parker passed from this earth June 29, 2017. On Friday, Sept. 22, hundreds of friends gathered in Vail's Gerald Ford Amphitheater. Fittingly, Friday marked the opening of this year's Vail Pioneer Weekend.
If our lives are the sum of the stories people tell, Bob Parker — writer and author, poet, romantic, adventurer, lover of life and Vail's original marketing magician — will never die.
"We'll do it, there's a way to do it, and we got it done," Parker said in a video during Friday's event.
“The creation of Vail was not the work of a few so-called pioneers. Vail was a pioneer community.”Bob Parker
Parker was heard to say that "the creation of Vail was not the work of a few so-called pioneers. Vail was a pioneer community."
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Terry Minger called it the "10th Mountain Division DNA" from Pete Seibert, Sarge Brown and Bob Parker.
"He always believed we could, and should, be more, do more. That is one of the most important strands of the DNA he left us," Minger said.
Parker was among the 47 percent of 10th Mountain Division soldiers who made it home from World War II. He almost didn't. His unit came under enemy mortar fire, and two nearby buddies were killed instantly. Parker was seriously injured.
"Bob and his fellow founders of Vail serve as a tremendous source of inspiration," Vail Resorts executive Chris Jarnot said. "I'm biased, but I believe the story of Vail, and the people who founded it, will be one of the truly extraordinary stories in the history of American business."
Speaking of stories:
In 1961, Parker convinced the New York Times to publish a full-page story about a new Vail Pass ski area, which, as we know, would not open until Dec. 15, 1962. The Swiss company that was manufacturing Vail's iconic gondola was months behind schedule. Parker visited the factory, arranged for the Swiss to pick up the pace, and then arranged for trucks, ships and planes to deliver the many, many parts from Europe to a port in Texas, and finally Vail.
There was the December 1963 Ute snow dance. Parker came under fire for promoting "heathen tactics." It snowed two days later, ending a snow drought. Parker also pioneered cloud seeding.
"We were snow farmers," Bob Knous said. "You have to play all the angles if you're going to have a good crop."
ALSO VAIL'S CONSCIENCE
Sure, Parker was Vail's original Marketing Magician, but more importantly, he was the storyteller and occasionally the conscience.
Parker lobbied for the current alignment of Intertate 70 through the Eagle River Valley and away from a wilderness area through Red Buffalo. He lobbied against a Front Range plan to suck water out of the Holy Cross Wilderness.
Always a wilderness advocate, he was part of a group who became the first group of private citizens to successfully sue the U.S. Forest Service. They wanted to halt a logging operation near Vail. They did.
"This is one of the great honors of my 93 years," Dick Over, a 10th Mountain Division veteran, told Friday's crowd. Over enlisted in the 10th when he was 17 and met Parker in 1943. They landed in the Aleutian Islands, driving out the Japanese one island at a time.
Parker and Over helped put together 10th Mountain Division reunions, which were enjoyed in ways that only people who've experienced death on the scale of a world war can enjoy and appreciate life.
Filmmaker Roger Brown was fresh out of Dartmouth when Parker brought him to Vail in 1962 to make promotional films for the new ski area.
"The problem is, we don't have much money," Parker told him at the time.
They paid Brown with a building lot in Vail instead of cash.
"We were in here for the long term, some for our lifetimes," said Brown, who has an armload of Emmy Awards to his credit. "His spirit never left Vail. We all owe Bob a great debt of gratitude. I owe him my career as a filmmaker."
George Gillett lived next door to Parker on Vail's Forest Road. They'd occasionally stroll as Bob told stories and imparted wisdom. Gillett listened and learned.
"We have inherited the benefit of Bob Parker's genius," Gillett said.
Before Gillett bought Vail, he skied Vail in 1963, three months after it opened. He and his wife, Rose, first skied at Red Mountain, Wisconsin, where Parker also learned to ski.
Rod Slifer came to Vail from Aspen in May 1962.
"Bob helped get us through some of those early, rocky years. He kept saying, 'Vail is going to be great!' He said it so often that it became true," Slifer said.
Vail Daily page A2 - September 21, 2017
VAIL — Vail's 50th anniversary was easy. The first one was tough.
It was Sept. 18, 1962, three months before the resort even opened, when Vail's marketing magician Bob Parker announced tentative plans for Vail's first anniversary celebration. The lofty goal was to "establish Vail as the finest winter resort in the Western Hemisphere."
Job descriptions did not exist in early Vail. Everyone worked together, and they worked all day every day.
"We were working at something we enjoyed," Parker said. "These were guys who had never worked on a ski resort but had in common a belief in the project."
Parker died June 29 in Grand Junction at age 94. A celebration of his amazing life is at 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 22, at Vail's Gerald Ford Amphitheater.
MARKETING MAGICIAN
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Here's why Parker was a marketing magician.
On Feb. 18, 1962, the New York Times ran a full-page story about the new Vail Pass Ski Area.
Bear in mind that February 1962 was 10 months before the area would open and three to four months before the first shovel of dirt would be moved.
Nine months later, the New York Times was back for another full-page story. The Nov. 18, 1962, edition gushed that the new ski center "emerged from the chaos" and that "the mountain sits near the center of awesome topography."
On July 15, 1962, with Vail in complete construction/chaos mode, Parker managed to get Ski Magazine to do an extremely friendly photo session. Photographers spent four days in Vail amid that chaos, shooting the magazine's fashion edition. Ski Magazine used some of those photos for a feature about new resorts, led by Vail.
Parker convinced Sports Illustrated editor Ezra Bowen to do a complete color photo story about Vail. Bowen included Vail in his new ski book to be published in the fall of 1962.
On Nov. 7, 1963, the Denver Post reported that "one of the West's most fabulous resorts is developing here."
Which brings us back to Vail's first anniversary Parker was planning well before the ski area ever opened.
He wanted to get Pete Seibert on "The Today Show" with Hugh Downs, invite movie stars to town, have stunt-skiing exhibitions by professional skiers, invite the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Junior, Joey Bishop, Dean Martin), invite Bobby Kennedy to town, convince Lowell Thomas to do a broadcast from Vail, develop a new gimmick like a torchlight parade to become a Vail tradition akin to cliff divers in Acapulco, get the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to perform.
But no matter how good things are, they can always go wrong.
Parker implored people to "Remember the Squaw Valley debacle at the (1960) Olympics. Don't allow them to say, 1. They caught cold in an open bus, 2. They lost their luggage."
Bob Parker quotes were drawn from previous Vail Daily and Vail Trail articles. Some information for this story came from "Tales from the 10th," by Lauren Moran, and John Horan-Kates' book, "The Vail Way." Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 or rwyrick@vaildaily.com.
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Vail Daily page A17 - September 20, 2017
Celebration of Life
A celebration of life, in memory of the late 10th Mountain Division veteran and Vail pioneer Bob Parker, will take place this Friday, September 22, at 11 a.m. at the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater.
