Like many mountain towns, Park City has a boomerang effect. People live here, discover the magic and leave for other opportunities, then find themselves once again waking up to a view of Jupiter Peak or driving by the White Barn. Nick Sargent is one of those people.
The Vermont native discovered Park City in 1992, when he moved to town to tune skis at Rennstall, now known as Jans Rennstall. After two years, he left for another job, then returned for six months in 1999. Since 2016, Sargent is on his third go-round as a Parkite, living a block from the Town Lift and leading the Snowsports Industries America (SIA) trade association from a Prospector Avenue office.
A lifelong skier, Sargent has both the passion and the knowledge to serve as president of SIA, which provides research, education and other tools to businesses in the winter outdoor recreation industry. Now 55, he learned to alpine ski as a youngster at Vermont’s Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont and became a racer. He also cross-country skied to his elementary school. “It was a real pain in the ass back in the day,” he admits, “but, in hindsight, it was a real treat.”
Nick in Europe working on the World Cup circuit / Credit Nick Sargent
When he moved to Park City the first time, after graduating from Western State College (now Western Colorado University) in Gunnison, Colorado, “I really honed in on elite ski tuning,” Sargent says. That dedication to World Cup–worthy bases and razor-sharp edges earned Sargent a job with Dynastar and Lange. He spent the next four years working in Europe, tuning skis for the female World Cup athletes that Dynastar sponsored. “I was on the road for 300 days a year,” he recalls.
A marketing and promotions gig with Adidas Salomon (then one company) brought Sargent back to Park City for half a year before settling in Denver. “I had a knack for marketing and knew a lot of people in the ski industry,” he says.
He demonstrated that knack during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, when he helped Adidas Salomon transform the former Miners Hospital in Park City into a temporary brand showcase and hospitality hub for entertaining VIPs. But the company ran afoul of the International Olympic Committee’s strict promotional standards. “Today, in the IOC handbook, there’s a section on what you can’t do based on what we did with that [building],” Sargent says. “We got away with what we did because guerilla marketing was new at the time.”
For 11 years, Sargent oversaw global alliances for Burton Snowboards, in Burlington, Vermont. It wasn’t his first experience with snowboarding — as a kid, he’d hike up with a Burton Backhill board, as riding wasn’t yet allowed at Stowe — but he was very much a novice.
His moment of reckoning came early on during a company marketing trip to Breckenridge, Colorado. Taking advantage of his colleagues’ late bedtimes, Sargent awoke early the first morning and spent a couple of hours in a snowboarding lesson.
The ruse worked, sort of. “I went up with Jake [Burton] on the chairlift later that day, and he said, ‘You don’t know how to ride, do you?’” recalls Sargent. “I said, ‘I just learned this morning!’”
When Sargent was recruited to lead SIA, challenges other than learning how to snowboard awaited. The board of the Washington, D.C.–based trade association had decided to move it closer to a western ski hub, with Park City as the first choice.
“It made a lot of sense,” says Sargent, who is only the third leader in the association’s 75-year history. In addition to its ski resorts, Park City is also home to U.S. Ski and Snowboard, which oversees competition, and brands like Rossignol and Backcountry. But the move also required Sargent to lay off employees, eliminate operational redundancies and rein in the budget. And he sold SIA’s annual Snow Show trade event, once a key revenue driver, amid a changing business landscape. Now, the association helps stage the consumer-oriented Snowbound Expo in Boston each November.
When he’s not helping SIA’s members decipher shifting tariffs and new sustainability regulations, or touting the benefits of snowsports participation, Sargent practices what he preaches. “I love ripping groomers at Deer Valley or skiing Pinecone Ridge at Park City.”
Though the Park City that Sargent lived in during the mid-1990s differs drastically from today’s growing, busy ski mecca, he’s not planning on leaving anytime soon. Seems like the third time’s the charm.
Nick Sargent’s Park City Picks
Best thing about Park City: My favorite part is the proximity to the Salt Lake City International Airport, because I travel a lot. Also, the access to outdoor activity is amazing. I can Nordic ski or mountain bike from my office, and Park City Mountain Resort is right in front of the office, so I can walk to the lifts.
Go-to place: My favorite hangout is the Viking Yurt at Park City Mountain Resort. It’s a family-owned restaurant halfway up the mountain [at the top of the Crescent Express lift]. I love getting a coffee and a chocolate-chip cookie; they bake them there fresh every day. In the spring, I’ll have a glass of wine and a sandwich.
Guest service: I like to take visiting friends to Yuki Yama on Main Street for good sushi or Sammy’s Bistro in Prospector Square, which has a little bit of everything and is an easy crowd pleaser. And the Twisted Fern [on Snow Creek Drive] has an amazing burger and the best fries in town.
Cowboy up: The Kemo Sabe shop at the top of Main Street has a speakeasy on the first floor. A door that looks like part of a wall opens into it, and there’s a one-way mirror so you can see everyone outside trying on their hats. It’s fun to have a whiskey sour or a mule there.
Hidden gem: Goldener Hirsch in Deer Valley has a coffee shop at the back of the hotel. I have a lot of morning meetings there. You go in, take your boots off, and they’ll deliver coffee to your table. Amid a resort that’s always busy, it’s a little less busy.
Favorite nonprofit: The Park City Community Foundation. They raise a ton of money for local nonprofits. It helps keep the vibrancy of town alive.
