After leading the charge marketing Park City’s tourism economy and the businesses that run it for the last 21 years, Bill Malone, the CEO of the Park City Chamber of Commerce and Visitors’ Bureau is retiring.
Malone arrived in town just after Salt Lake City had been awarded the 2002 Winter Olympics. Since then, has seen three ski resorts become two and all being sold at least once. He has witnessed record skier days, the construction of large, luxurious hotels as well as business plummet not just after the great recession in 2008, but just months before he had planned to retire.
Malone alerted the board of his retirement plans earlier this year.
“I’ve been trying for a while – trying to find a way out, you know – an exit strategy,” he said. “And we have a great committee that the board has formed and they're working on it.”
He says it’s the best job in town, despite the start of the COVID-19 pandemic this year, which closed the ski resorts a month early as well all businesses – except those deemed essential.
Malone says he’s not leaving until he knows the chamber is in good hands.
“I’m here until the next person takes the seat,” he said. “I will just do a transition when we feel like we have the right person to put in that slot.”
Miles Rademan is a longtime Park City resident and the namesake of the annual Spirit of Hospitality award that is handed out every year by the Chamber. As someone who has attended Chamber Bureau meetings for the past 33 years, Rademan has high praise for the work Malone has done the past two decades.
“He’s really a consummate professional,” Rademan said. “He really understood, understands I should say, how chamber bureaus work especially when in our case which is you know it's really like a 90% convention and visitors bureau with the chamber on top, in terms of revenue. He’s a real integral part of the community – he really understood the community, he understood the business community and he ran a very professional organization.
And he says Malone won’t easy to replace.
“I think he’s been the right person, in the right place, at the right time and we've been very lucky to have him in that position. He’ll have very hard shoes to fill.”
The board of directors has received a number of applications and Malone says a committee is in the process of interviewing candidates for his replacement.
