This issue we have used Rob Aivatoglou’s talk at the NAMA Chairlift Chats as his column. Hopefully we will see Rob's columns return next season as there are many who follow his writings on people and places of Mt Buller.
NAMA Chairlift Chat 28 August
Dr Michelle Stevenson, NAMA Curator
A love of skiing, community, some close calls, friends and long involvement in the ski retail business connect Mike Balfe and Rob Aivatoglou.
Mike began his ski career with day trips to Buller with his dad, sleeping in his ski gear so he’d be ready to jump out of bed and go when his dad knocked on the door at 5am.
Rob on the other hand grew-up on the mountain as his parent’s George and Margaret ran Moloney’s and went to school on the mountain in his early years.
While Rob mostly free-skied, Mike joined the squad and later race club.
Both grew up during the days of Buller’s two-lift system. Rob was fortunate enough to get a season’s pass for both Blue and Orange ‘sharing the love’, while Mike was an Orange Lifts skier, except on bad weather days ‘when Bull Run was the only place you could see’ which meant a Blue Lifts ticket.
Both worked as ski instructors before moving into retail. Rob went to university in Germany but ended up doing two winters instructing, while Mike took a year off university in Melbourne to spend a season instructing which morphed into three or four plus winters overseas.
Mike also started Guest Services at Mt Buller with a small group of six staff meeting buses and directing them to the village. It meant he was stuck in an office so he finished at the end of the season and went to manage Auski, thanks to an introduction from Viv Green.
While young and with no retail experience, Mike brought a lot of knowledge about skis and skiing to the role, he also brought in new younger staff and changed long-term practices to make the business more efficient. Unfortunately, it resulted in a coup amongst the staff and returning from an overseas ski trip one year he found himself out of a job, but it would lead to him entering the wholesale business and becoming the biggest wholesaler of ski hardware in Australia.
Rob on the other hand grew-up on the mountain and spending time in his parent’s shop, even ferrying guests to Falls Creek (from Buller) for day trips one particularly bad season.
After a detour into the sports marketing world managing athletes for 14 years, and also bringing Warren Miller movies to Australia, he then returned to the mountain to take over the family ski hire business – by then renamed George’s Ski Hire.
When asked if athlete management or ski retail was the more challenging Rob invited people to spend a Saturday morning on the shop floor to experience the pace.
Both, Mike and Rob also have a love of heli-skiing with Mike having gone on an annual trip to CMH for the past 22 years, while Rob’s up to 17 at Mike Wigley’s.
What keeps them both in the industry is a love of skiing.
Après@NAMA and Chairlift Chats will be back next season every Thursday in July and August from 5:30-7pm. In the meantime the museum is open daily for the rest of the season from 12pm to 5pm. Thanks to everyone for their support this year.
