FRANCONIA NOTCH, New Hampshire — SE Group, a mountain and resort planning and design firm serving the ski resort industry for 50 years, will be honored with the New England Ski Museum’s Spirit of Skiing Award at the group’s 31st Annual Meeting on October 25, 2008 at the Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, NH. The company, originally named Sno-engineering, was founded in Franconia, NH, home of the Ski Museum, and has since become an international presence, designing mountain and resort communities all over the world. Some of the firm’s recent projects are in such exotic locales as Ping Tian Mountain Resort in the Tianshan mountain range in northwestern China, and Paland?В¶ken and Konakli, the skiing venues for the 2011 University Games in Turkey.

The Spirit of Skiing Award is intended to recognize a person or group whose work exemplifies the memorable adage that ‘skiing is not just a sport, it is a way of life’, and has influenced skiing in a positive manner that enables others to benefit from the sport. This will be the first time the Ski Museum has presented the award to a group rather than an individual. Tom Corcoran of Waterville Valley and Stein Eriksen are the two previous honorees.

SE Group will be represented at the event by principals Ted Beeler, Kent Sharp and Chris Cushing. Beeler will speak about the company and its history, current initiatives and outlook for the future. In its earliest days, Sno-engineering’s Sel Hannah and Joe Cushing promoted concepts of sound design and construction techniques such as erosion control at a time when there was little knowledge about what constituted a proper ski area. Ted Farwell and Jim Branch of the company introduced formal economic studies to a field that had been intuitive at best. It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say that the company invented the profession of ski resort planning.

Also on hand will be the authors of three recent books on skiing history to sign their works. Jeremy Davis, author of Lost Ski Areas of the White Mountains, is a Ski Museum board member and one of the founders of the www.nelsap.org website, which documents the hundreds of ski areas which have closed in past decades. John Christie will sign copies of his substantial book Sugarloaf, which details the history of the Maine resort of which Christie was once general manager. Robin Morning of Mammoth Lakes, CA, will sign her voluminous new book, Tracks of Passion, a history of Mammoth Mountain and its founder Dave McCoy. A former US Ski Team member, Morning is the co-organizer of a ski history conference to be held in the spring of 2009 at Mammoth, and she will brief the group on details of that gathering.

An added highlight of the annual meeting will be the auction of a five-night winter ski vacation at Deer Valley Resort for four people including lift privileges. Deer Valley was recently named the #1 ski resort in North America by Ski Magazine.

The event is open to members and non-members alike. Dinner price is $75 per person, and reservations can be made by calling New England Ski Museum at 800-639-4181.

About the New England Ski Museum

Located in Franconia Notch next to the Cannon Mountain Tramway, NH, the New England Ski Museum is a non-profit, member-supported museum dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting aspects of ski history. The Museum is open from 10 AM to 5 PM seven days a week from Memorial Day through the end of March. Admission is free. For more information call 800-639-4181 or visit www.skimuseum.org.