Robert Bunny Bass

Born into, and ultimately head of, the G.H. Bass footwear family and company, "Bunny" combined a love of the sport of skiing, a businessman's recognition of growth opportunities for his family's business, the political skills to assemble Like-minded people to work toward common goals, and the personality to motivate everyone with whom he came in contact to eagerly follow his lead in both his entrepreneurial and recreational pursuits.

As one of the early Directors of the Sugarloaf Mountain Ski Club in 1950, Bunny was a part of the small group of visionaries who foresaw the potential for developing Maine's second highest mountain into a major ski facility. Elected the Club's third President in 1952, he spearheaded the dual efforts to hold annual downhill competitions on the mountain and to install the first lift, a 700 foot rope tow.

With the formation of the Sugarloaf Mountain Corporation, to which the Ski Club transferred its assets in exchange for stock in 1956, came the construction of a base lodge and the first Constam T-bar.

As "Bunny" led the fund-raising and development efforts at Sugarloaf, he became the visible manifestation of not only the mountain but of the potential for major winter recreation development in Maine. He was the quotable spokesman in the media for Sugarloaf and spent endless hours and his own resources spreading the word around Maine and New England.

His early Bass Ski Boot Catalogs not only pictured one of his company's most popular boots, the Sugarloaf, but contained a picture of the snowfields on the cover and an entire section devoted to Sugarloaf Mountain, boasting of its early season snowfall, FIS qualifying terrain and vertical descent.

As subsequent President and Board Chairman of the Sugarloaf Mountain Corporation, active member of the Maine Ski Council, from which came many of Sugarloaf's early Ski Club members and Shareholders, United States Eastern Amateur Ski Association, the Eastern Ski Area Operators Association, and the New England Council for Economic Development, "Bunny's" enthusiastic involvement in and sup¬port of Maine's emerging ski industry lent credibility to what people might have other¬ wise assumed was a fleeting folly at best and a foolish investment at Worst. By his sheer presence, he gave the industry in general and Sugarloaf Mountain in particular, the credibility they so sorely needed in their formative years.

As Sugarloaf expanded with the eventual installation of five t-bar lifts by the end of the summer of 1961, Bunny's hand on the fiscal tiller encouraged the original group of investors to support both the development plans and the need for additional resources to finance them. Although this early growth was financed through a combination of shareholder investment, retained earnings, and the personal generosity of a handful of individuals like "Bunny" who personally guaranteed the early bank loans, the installation of a 54 car four-person Gondola to the summit of Sugarloaf in the summer of 1965 and into the early spring of 1996 took the mountain into a whole new realm - as a player on the world destination resort scene. As Bunny once said, "the gondola may not have transported a lot of people every hour to the summit by today's lift capacity standards, but it got a lot of people from Boston to Sugarloaf."

The investment needed for the Gondola as well as base area expansion required the corporation to look outside of itself for major financial help, and Bunny's presence at meetings in bank board rooms provided all the assurance that Maine lenders needed to be assured of the viabil¬ity of the project. They just knew that if he thought it was ok, it was ok for them.

It has been said that "every great enterprise is the lengthened shadow of one man". Sugarloaf and Maine's ski industry stand today as monuments to the vision and commitment of "Bunny" Bass.