Mr & Mrs Turoa farewelled

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 7, Issue 338, 5 June 1990, Page 6

Mr & Mrs Turoa farewelled

A couple whose life has been Turoa Skifields for the past 15 years were farewelled by Ohakune friends last Wednesday.

Mary and Tony Wright were spirited away to the Lions Den for a surprise farewell, following the news that they would be moving to Taupo to live. They have been planning the Taupo move for some time but signing a rental agreement on their house meant moving last week. Tony Wright resigned

as Managing Director of New Zealand Ski Fields earlier this year and is now looking at two business opportunities. He said one is an investment opportunity, with a tourism business based at Taupo and the other is a management consultancy based on an overseas franchise. Tony Wright has

been the driving force behind the development of Turoa as the second largest New Zealand commercial ski field. He and Mary were educated in Masterton, were Tony was a chartered accountancy partner for eight years, then they spent three years in Zambia. It was in Zambia working for Coopers and Librand that the idea of becoming involved in ski field development came up. A senior partner in the

firm expressed an interest in the idea and Tony had learned of the Parks Board's advertisements for development proposals for Turoa. Personal challenge He spent six weeks here in April and May 1974 working on a feasibility study, returning on leave in 1975. At that time he was negotiating with the government on behalf of Populaire, who finally lost interest in 1976.

He said he decided to stick with the project, having seen it as a great personal challenge. Later, Alex Harvey Industries expressed interest in it and by November 1977 AHI confirmed their decision to go ahead. By then much detailed design work had been done and construction began a few months later in January 1978. He worked full time on the project during those two years leading

up to the go-ahead, securing the option personally, which AHI later bought from him. He said there was a lot of political resistance to the idea, with the then Labour Government against foreign ownership of a development within a national park. Also, the Tourist Hotel Corporation were given, as of right, first priority on any national park develop•ment so they had to wait for the corporation I to decide they didn't I want it. A change of I government also saw the restrictions relaxed and so the project was able to proceed, construction was completed in August 1978 and the field formally opened in 1979. Ten year project Tony says from the start through to this year the ski field has taken all his time and energy, that it has been a very demanding involvement and that now is a good time for him to look for new horizons. He said he always saw it as a ten year project and, being a "project person", that it was timely to move over and let some new ideas come through. "It's been an exciting challenge to create today's Turoa ski fields, and no matter what happens now Turoa will still be there," he said. "And that is very satisfying." He said if the New Zealand Ski Fields public company concept had worked, that . would have provided him with new challenges, but successive bad snow seasons had stopped that from happening. He says Turoa was also the first professionally run New Zealand ski field and that brought its own challenges. "Before we got involved New Zealand skiing was largely run

by enthusiastic amateurs," said Tony. "We were the first major corporation to get involved in a major field in a major way and we introduced professiohalism to the industry that hadn't been seen before." "With that challenge we built a top management team and we gained a lot of satisfaction out of building a great management team." He said his team have mostly been here more than ten years and probably needed to also look for new horizons. Down town changes It's not only the face of the mountain that has changed with the development of Turoa but the look of Ohakune, the support town. "It was important to quickly drive forward the growth in visitor accommodation because the growth in the ski field was dcpcndant on the accommodation sector." So the company bought 50 acrcs from the Ohakune Borough Council for the Turoa Alpine Village and started the ball rolling with more than 30 chalcts. and a number of club buildings. "We gave prctty good financial terms to clubs to get things going." The Parks Board was against on-mountain accommodation then, aftcr the problems of Whakapapa, but Tony says the company also sought assuranccs from the board that they would continue to stop such development for the sakc of Ohakune's development. "National Park has had a ski field abovc it for 50 years and development is still slow there." Future positive As for the future of Turoa, the Wrights are positive. "All Turoa needs is a change in present weather cyclcs and it Turn page 11

Wrights farewelled

From page 6 will see prosperity again. Its advantage is its altitude." Tony sees snowmaking as an important, but not critical component in the future. "We did well without it - it's a good ski field without it." As for Ohakune, summer development is still needed, he says, but it needs to be through individuals. "I've always believed that Ohakune summer activities should not be developed through the corporate concept. Individual operators put their personality on those activities." He believes summer tourism development will be a slow process, but that it is important for Ohakune.

Family job Mary Wright says her job has been the family and the home through the past 15 years, though she also ran a retail, sheepskin business for five years in partnership with Pam Brown and served as a councillor on the Ohakune Borough Council for 18 months. But the family is what she wants to talk about, saying that the past 15 years have bePn a very happy time. She remembers an old gentleman from Matamata, about 70, saying to her when they were due to move to Ohakune, that a family that skis together, stays together, and has found that to be true.

"Skiing and spending time on the mountain has taught our children a terrific sense of self reliance." Their daughter Cassandra, now 22, is nursing in Wellington and their son, Huntly, 20, is studying for a bachelor of Arts at Massey. Tony finished the Bulletin interview by saying that with all the efforts he and his team put into developing Turoa, they would have achieved nothing if it weren't for the efforts of the "local" locals who built the Ohakune Mountain Road. "It is a beautiful road that gives people access to the national park and the mountain."