But thanks to the generous support of the Crowley family, one Rubenstein School student can spend their break learning the ins and outs of the ski industry and gaining invaluable experience and knowledge for their future career.
The Crowley family, owners of the Wachusett Mountain Ski Area, are longtime supporters of UVM and the Rubenstein School. In 2015, the Crowley Family donated $250,000 to the School to support internships for Rubenstein School students, with a focus on internships related to parks, recreation, or tourism. Most of the internships take place in the summer, but this past winter, the inaugural Wachusett Mountain intern got to work.
Leo Dabelstein ’26 grew up in Burlington, and like many Vermonters, loves winter sports. His parents taught him to ski at Smugglers Notch, and he developed his talents across the state throughout his childhood and is now on the snowboard team at UVM. His passion for winter sports helped him get through turbulent times during COVID-19 related shutdowns. “I went to Burlington High School and we lost our school building and had online learning extended,” Leo explained. “We went to classes in the old Macy’s downtown.”
All these changes impacted Leo’s interest in learning. “I was feeling like school wasn’t for me,” he said. After graduating high school, he began his freshman year at UVM and joined the snowboarding team, which improved his outlook on education. “After I joined the team, I thought, ‘whoa, this is really cool. I really enjoy this and want to do more with it,’” Leo said. “I thought, this is totally it. I can make a career out of this, like Dave Kaufman did. You see so many alumni who are doing incredible things in the ski industry.” Leo wanted to be one of those Catamounts doing incredible things.
After switching his major from computer science to Parks, Recreation, and Tourism, he took Ski Area Management with Dave Kaufman and knew he had made the right decision with his new major. Leo especially valued the networking opportunities that Ski Area Management students received during the course. “We got to meet John Hammond, the president of Sugarbush, and the VP of Stowe, and so many more industry people,” Leo recollected. “I realized that these are incredible connections, and that this is where I want to be: not behind a desk, but hands on, making a difference and doing work that helps people find happiness.”
Leo learned about the opportunity at Wachusett from Dave Kaufman. “Dave raves about Wachusett,” Leo explained. “They’ve got it figured out. They’re independent, they have great things establishing them without being part of a megapass or a massive corporation. It felt like an opportunity to get thrown into the mix and learn a lot.” Leo certainly did get thrown into the mix: he worked 130 hours over ten days during the holiday break in December 2024 and January 2025.
“At first, it was pretty intense,” Leo recollected. He had to get a lay of the land quickly in order to make the most of his limited time. “After a few days, I met everyone else on staff, got their numbers, and just started asking who needed help and when.” This baptism-by-fire approach helped Leo learn the ropes of the resort quickly. “Carolyn (Crowley Stimpson) trusted me to plan my own schedule,” Leo explained. “It pushed me to be self-motivated while also spending time with each department I was interested in.”
By the end of his internship, Leo had spent time in almost every department. “It was pretty non-stop work,” Leo said. “I was working at least ten hours a day.” Leo picked up on some important truths about the ins-and-outs of a resort as he made his way throughout the various departments. “The biggest thing I learned was how connected many of the departments are,” Leo recollected. “I worked in snowmaking, parks, and grooming. All three of those are interconnected because snowmaking has to blow for the park and for the mountain. Grooming has to connect with snowmaking and make sure they're not grooming areas that are being blown.”
Additionally, Leo quickly realized that a successful mountain employee is a versatile one. “A lot of the snowmakers are cross-trained in different departments,” Leo explained. “With snowmaking, it’s either on or off. If it’s snowmaking temperatures, they're on every day until it stops. When it's a stretch of warm weather, they can't make snow, so they pivot to working on the parks or grooming. That’s something I hadn’t considered and a major thing I learned and am taking away from this experience.”
The Parks, Recreation, and Tourism program at the Rubenstein School requires that all majors complete an internship. This integrative approach ensures that students have the hard skills required to succeed in careers in the outdoor recreation and tourism industries. Students and alumni of the program are often surprised at how frequently and strongly the concepts they learned in the classroom come into play in their jobs and internships, and Leo was no exception.
“I took Parks and Protected Areas with Pat (Stokowski) and learned a lot about land management,” Leo said. “Since Wachusett sits on an old growth forest, that impacts what can be done with that land. Trails can’t be cut in the woods there without approval from the state, which was interesting to see in play after learning about it in class.” Dave Kaufman’s beloved Ski Area Management class taught him other important lessons, and included a week at Stowe Mountain Resort learning about the industry. “That coursework translated really clearly to work at Wachusett,” Leo said. “All these classroom concepts were making so much sense. Taking that class prepared me for the hands-on work at Wachusett and showed me what to expect.”
Thanks to the Crowley family’s generosity, the Wachusett Mountain internship is a paid position. “That was a real difference-maker for me,” Leo said. “I normally would have had to work over winter break to make money for next semester, especially since I live off campus.” Many internships are unpaid and require not just a commitment of time and energy but also a break from a paying job to accept the opportunity. The Rubenstein School offers many donor-funded internships so that students don’t have to make that difficult trade-off to advance their careers.
After completing his Wachusett Mountain internship, Leo was able to secure another paid opportunity in the ski industry—a seasonal job at Bolton Valley Resort working on building and maintaining the terrain park. “The Wachusett internship opened the door for me,” Leo said. “I reached out to Nate, the manager of the terrain parks at Wachusett, and said, ‘thank you so much for this opportunity and the experience. I just got a job in a park. This is pretty much all because I now have experience thanks to Wachusett.’”
Parks, Recreation, and Tourism students who are interested in applying for the Wachusett Mountain internship should contact Kim Coleman for more information.
