Hi, my name is Mike and I work at Horizon Media.
One night in October of 2012, our team went out for dinner with our clients. Our CEO, Bill Koenigsberg, was in attendance.
The weather was starting to get colder and the conversation turned to skiing. Bill asked the table who was excited about the upcoming ski season, and many of us said that we were. I went on to tell Bill jokingly how strong a skier I was, and we joked about how excited we were to ski the bunny hill all winter long.
Then Bill asked me, “Mike, wouldn’t it be great if we had a place for the agency to go and ski as a means to build team rapport?” I replied, “’absolutely. That would be amazing!”
He then said, “Mike – I’m putting you in charge of securing a ski house in Vermont for the agency.” I replied, “Okay, let’s talk about it early next week.” He replied, “No – let’s not talk about it, let’s just get it done!”
The next morning around 8:45am, Bill was coming up the stairs as I was walking down to the 15th floor and he jokingly asked me if I had found a place yet! The idea had become official. It passed the ‘wine test.’ I began to look for places at Stratton and recruited a team of people from across the agency to help me bring the idea to life. Within two weeks we had a lodge, an agency reservations system, waiver forms, and hundreds of people who had expressed an interest in skiing with their teams.
The ski house has been a big success and hundreds of people have utilized it with coworkers, friends, family, and clients. 2016 will be the 5th consecutive year!
It is a great perk for the agency and a valuable team building opportunity for all. I’m glad I went to that dinner!
Horizon Life means… bringing wild ideas to life.