Everett Kircher was a young man with a restless spirit of a personality. Bored with his experience at the University of Michigan. He left school after two years, dabbled in the car business and went from there to purchasing land with two friends and the equipment necessary to start, what would eventually be Boyne Mountain, followed by Boyne Highlands, both in Northern Michigan and later Big Sky in Mountain-more properties were added to the portfolio as years went on. Everett ran Boyne with the idea that you had to put profits back into the business to make it successful. With necessity being the mother of invention, Everett knew that snowmaking was necessary to extend and ‘fund’ the ski season and getting skiers to the top quicker and more efficiently, he invented state of the art machinery (the first three person lift, later, larger and higher speed lifts- to do both, which eventually were used across the industry. He brought in Olympic Skier, Stein Erickson, and other European experts to staff the ski school and made Boyne a destination resort for Midwest families for a memorable winter experience, complete with gourmet Alpine fare, evening lounges, nice lodging, an ice skating rink and heated out door pool. Also part of the Boyne experience in the early years were celebrity events with occasional well known personalities from the world of professional skiing. In the lodges at Boyne, there are large framed images of these special times throughout Boyne’s history. I recall a photo with all the big names in skiing with Spider Sabich and Wide World of Sports staff at the bottom of the main lift.
When discussing with a friend of his what it takes to maintain such a winter wonderland of a business, the friend suggested making a summer golf resort part of the annual component. Everett began plans to make it happen and to this date, the Boyne corporation has numerous high caliber golf courses to add to their fleet of fun. In 2005 they added a new ‘grand hotel’ complete with new restaurants and indoor water park and in the last few years they added to their ‘fleet’a walking suspension bridge connecting two peaks, enjoyed by paying customers to enjoy the beautiful view of the valley. You could say that Kirshner’s success and the Boyne corporation following his death in 2002 was/is that they stay relevant. From Kirshner’s inventions in the ski industry, to adding golf courses to their resorts to a new lodge to a walking suspension, Boyne’s success has continued because of their keeping people interested and coming back for more, not merely resting on their laurels or their good name. Longtime employees of Boyne, recall Kircher at a good leader who communicated to that guests were there to have fun and it was up to them to make it a fun place to be. Kircher made his properties exciting places to work, guests picked up on that and often returned year after year.
A few inspirational leaders who championed successful companies and organization through the years.
So how does one like Everett Kircher or any other successful person, business, partnership, family or marriage stay relevant? “Relevant things are appropriate and make sense at that particular time,” according to the Oxford dictionary. To be relevant, a business or organization needs to be pertinent to the needs of the times, sometimes altering an original business plan or mission statement that may have been successful at one time, and may have even put a business or organization or business ‘on the map.” Over time, it is imperative that the organization frequently assesses of they are continuing to achieve the goals of their mission statement and meeting the goals set to achieve with a constantly changing market place and customer. As mentioned above, reinvesting in the business by upgrading and maintaining are givens. Another common denominator a strong leader who inspires members of the team to work together in a positive environment. Strong leadership inspires the administration down to the hourly worker to make the company or organization successful. Think of some of the strongest people in business or sports who have led some of the winningest industries from Richard Branson from Virgin, to Belichick who coached the New England Patriots to baseball manager Buck Showalter who has run the Yankees, the Diamondbacks to the Orioles and Mets. Others to add to the list, Henry Ford, Mary Barra (at GM), Walt Disney & Estée Lauder, just to name a few leaders who run or have run companies that have been successful for a long tenure.
Businesses that have stayed relevant over the years.
Another Michigan business that comes to mind for me is the successful restaurants of Frankenmuth, Zhenders’ and Bavarian Inn. To suit the needs of a changing population, who may not all want a family style sit-down dinner, patrons can now have an abbreviated dinner in the bar, with less side dishes or a cafeteria style ‘pick what you want’ style dinner also available on the premises. An indoor water park and hotels added several years ago brought more traffic during the winter months after the holidays when Michiganders were cooped up in their homes and looking for a chance to get their kids a change of scenery, again assessing the customers needs and investing in the business.
National companies have to change to adapt to changing population, for example Netflix, which is now one of the worlds top streaming movie providers actually start in 1998 as a company that allowed consumers to rent and buy physical DVD movies. The company added a subscription offer in 1999 where people could rent receiving the DVDs in the mail. In 2007 the business model changed to streaming content and they took off from there. As people began to go out to the movie less and stay in more to watch their movies. Netflix became more and more popular. Netflix success was because they stayed relevant and it changing entertainment industry, assessing the needs of their customers, the market place and reinvesting in the company with new technology and services.
And one of the most popular companies that has changed through the years to reflect the needs of a population to communicate is Apple. In 1976 they rolled out personal computers as time went on the big computers became smaller and smaller. They had some difficulties growing the company And then in the 90s when Steve Jobs returned to the company, focus was on new designs and innovations for a population that wanted more and more means of communication and technology, assessing the needs of the marketplace and reinvesting in the company. In 2023. Apple reported a net income of nearly 97 billion for the fiscal year.
On a personal level, how do relationships, marriages, families, and people stay relevant? When we look at relationships, whether personal or business in order to succeed, there has to be a good deal of mutual for respect, assessing one another’s needs and investing in the relationship to build upon what is already there. Also important is that each partner needs to bring something to the table of the relationship utilizing the gifts they have and the role they play. This may mean doing their homework so that they are informed and educated as to what involved for the relationship to flourish. It means taking time to invest in themselves and their knowledge to put their best put forward. It also means maintaining, doing the things to care for one’s self, doing the things that they need to so that they are a valuable part of the team.
Let’s look at a family. Everybody in the family needs to be responsible for their role. The person who is the head of the family needs to be a leader. A leader that is not afraid to make the hard decisions for the better of the family. Within a family, parents need to be responsible for the financial well-being of the everyone it means being responsible with the finances and using them wisely and teaching the children to be good stewards of the finances as well. Parents are responsible for teaching the skills their children will need to succeed in the world in terms of their faith, education, physical well-being and fitness. As a parent or grandparent, when you children or grandchildren see you making the most of each day, taking care of yourself, eating right, exercising, learning new skills and staying strong in your faith, you are leading by example.
In terms of a marriage, both partners benefit when each puts the other first after their faith. It means taking care of one another and taking care of oneself. It means doing the things that one needs to do so that they increase the chances of a long life together like eating healthy, spending time for spiritual and personal growth and development so they bring the best to a marriage. It’s not fair to neglect yourself to your partner. Your partner should not get the leftovers of what you have after you’ve taken care of everybody else they should get the best of what you have to offer, also important in a marriage is having interest and educating yourself so that you bring the best you have to them. This takes time and effort, but when both partners make an effort to put their best foot forward, they both benefit. How you treat your spouse, is a lesson to your children as to what a good marriage looks like and gives them an example for their own life.
It’s very easy to get caught up in day-to-day life and go through days which become weeks which become months and years on auto pilot taking our lives our families our jobs for granted. Each day is an opportunity to make ourselves smarter, kinder and better. What I mean by better is that we strive for excellence in ourselves. None of us are perfect and striving for perfection can be exhausting, but waking up each morning, thanking God for the gifts we’ve been given and using those gifts for good. When we use to the best of our ability the gifts God gives us and feeling a sense of gratitude we don’t want to squander what has been given to us as it is an opportunity to make things better for the people around us. We all have our good days and bad days and some days are better than others but the more days that we can wake up striving to do the best allowed that day, we can go to bed at the end of each day saying I gave it my all and it was a great day. Staying relevant each, and every day keeps us engaged in life, keeps us on her toes and keeps life interesting.
