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Redemption – Schmunk brings Rocky Mountain magic to the West Coast

"Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.
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"Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory."

– American journalist and writer Herbert Kaufman

In a recent article, America's influential Conde Nast Traveller ranked Tofino's Long Beach Lodge as one of the top three resort hotels in Canada. Behind the coastal upstart were all of Whistler's big hitters — the Four Seasons, the Fairmont, and the Westin. Impressive results for such a young property, no? And although he's not the type to gloat, I know the Lodge's general manager, Perry Schmunk, derives great pleasure from that ranking.

Remember Schmunk? The surprising flatlander who went from non-skier to CSIA examiner in four years? The esteemed director of the Blackcomb Ski School who was handed his walking papers by WB management in May of 2000 due to a "a change in leadership style"? The desperate dad who did everything he could to stay in Whistler in order to be close to his daughter from a former marriage — including a stint driving cab?

It's been a long and hard journey from the prairies to the coast, admits Perry. But he wouldn't change his final destination for anything in the world. Now the mayor of the 1,800 residents of Tofino, the born-again surfer says he feels more fulfilled today with his new family and new job than he ever has in his life. Nice.

Sometimes bad things happen for a reason. Hmm. Not quite right. Let me put it another way — sometimes individuals are strong enough to transform devastating setbacks into learning experiences. Hizzoner is one of those gents.

Picture it. Barred from teaching skiing in the place he loved, the then 35-year old faced a bleak future. He tried everything. Hired a lawyer. Together they perused the Park Act to see if there was any way to challenge WB's monopolistic practices. He went so far as to plead his case to both provincial and federal members of parliament. But he got nowhere fast; Intrawest's influence in those days, he says, was just too strong. He even explored the possibility of bucking the system and starting an independent school in Whistler. "You know," he adds, "if I'd been younger, single, I would have done it." He sighs. "But I had a growing family to look after and the rewards didn't justify the risks."

In desperation, he took a step back and returned to Banff to work for the Ski School that had first set him on his course. And he quickly made his mark. "There'd been a recent change in management there," he explains, "and they were open to new ideas." Soon he was running the marketing program targeting destination tourists for all three Banff Ski Areas. "I enjoyed the stay," he says. "But I'd learned my lesson in Whistler. I didn't want to get stuck in a small employment pool ever again. What if there was another management change and my supporters backed out? What then? I didn't trust the ski industry anymore — particularly with the consolidation trends happening at the time." Another long sigh. A smile. "You see, I was tired of playing hockey in a league with only two or three teams..."

So Perry took a deep breath and leapt into the unknown. "I ended up at the Metropolitan Hotel in downtown Vancouver as their new director of marketing," he recounts. Never one to quail at hard work, Schmunk was soon running the whole show. "I was keen to learn and still needed to fight my way financially out of my Whistler hole," he explains. And laughs at the memory of those crazy years. "So I ran the Met during the day as acting GM and then drove to Whistler (we lived in Squamish at the time) where I held a relief night audit position at the Listel hotel. Remember, I needed the money — but I also needed to learn how to run a hotel in a hurry — and there's no better role than night audit to understand in detail how a hotel works!"

Wait a second. Sounds more than crazy to me. Sounds impossible. This is how he describes a typical work day during that crucial period in his life: "Wake up, leave Squamish at six in the morning (I had to beat the Lions Gate traffic) go to the YWCA for a work out, shower at the Y, get to the hotel by 8:00 a.m. to receive phone calls from the Met's head office (based in Toronto). After that, I had an 8:30 a.m. daily operations meeting with hotel staff, followed by one-on-ones, revenue meetings, financial reviews, guest interactions etc...."

He'd leave the Met around 5:30 or 6:00 p.m., drive back to Squamish, have dinner with his family — maybe, if he was lucky, catch a quick nap between 8:00 and 11:00 p.m. — and then he'd get up and drive to Whistler where he'd start work again at midnight. "You know, the usual," he says, with just a hint of mirth in his tone. "Checking in a few rowdy guests, dealing with noise complaints, running the day end reports..." He was busy until about 4:00 in the morning, after which he'd grab another quick nap for an hour or so before finishing the nightly reports. And then he'd be ready to start the whole inconceivably demanding cycle all over again. "This," says Schmunk only semi tongue-in-cheek "was my intense, self-inflicted hotel-management learning curve."

Intense indeed. But it did lead to new opportunities. "While at the Met," he continues," I met Suzan Gomez." A former GM at the legendary Pan Pacific, he explains, Gomez knew everyone in the business. "She was semi retired at the time, but she still did some hotel industry consulting on the side. The owner of Long Beach Lodge Resort was looking for a manager and contacted Susan to help him find the right person. She said she just might know someone..."

Perry met the owner of the Lodge in Victoria — his hometown — and the two men immediately hit it off. "So he invited Kate, the kids and I to come up and take a look at the resort and Tofino," says Schmunk. His tone suddenly changes. The wonder of that visit still resonates strongly. "We'd never been there before," he says. And laughs. "I didn't realize Canada had beaches like this. I guess I was naïve. But I just didn't expect such a beautiful setting."

It was now September of 2007. And Schmunk had a feeling that he and his family could build a future here. "I thought to myself, nobody knows about this place. Holy crap! This place is going to go off. This place reeks of opportunity."

Another happy burst of laughter. "The next morning I drive into town. The first thing I see is a guy riding a bike with a surfboard carrier on the side — and a board attached! I go into a coffee shop, and it's the owner who is actually serving me my cappuccino." He can barely suppress his excitement now. Nearly five years have passed since that day, but the magic is still strong. "I remember taking a walk on the beach and grabbing a big breath of salt air and thinking what an incredible place this is." No question. Perry was in love. He took the job without a single second thought.

But it was his boss's thoughtfulness that really sealed the deal. "Kate and the kids were still living in Squamish then — so I had to commute back and forth from Tofino." A quiet smile blooms across his features. "My boss, Tim Hackett, owns a private plane. One morning I get a call. 'This is your pilot speaking,' says the voice. 'When would you like the plane?' And I think to myself: Yeah! Tim gets it. We're a team. We're different than the rest."

And that difference continues to be celebrated. "For example," he says, "We're building a surf center at the Lodge. We could have built a spa like everyone else. But I told Tim, no. Let's set our own path. Let's do something original and exciting. And he fully supported that idea."

I can't really explain where the man gets his energy from, but once committed to a place, Schmunk doesn't hold back. "I guess I got involved in politics because of my job as Chair of Tourism Tofino," he says. "I'd sat in on a number of council meetings and it was pretty clear to me that the local council needed some help. So I decided to get involved. I didn't think I could be much help if I only ran as councilor — not enough influence." He chuckles. "So I went for the mayor's job instead."

Like other resort towns in B.C., Tofino was hit hard by the 2008 recession. "There was a big environmental lobby here," explains Perry. "They were so anti-business that they stalled development in town. Which, in turn, mostly hurt the little guy. And with the recent recession, well, you can imagine how tough it's been on local businesses... way too much turnover.

"Tofino, as it is now, is not quite big enough to survive. Not enough going on. So we need to grow — just a little bit — in order to get to a sustainable level." He stops. Takes a breath. "Those are the issues that I ran on." And the environmental lobby? "I stuck to fundamentals," he says. "When my opponent started talking about wave energy, I pointed out that Tofino didn't even have a commercially viable recycling program yet. I argued that we first needed a base to work from. Let's develop the essential stuff first, I said. The pie-in-the-sky programs can come later."

He may be a relative newcomer in town. A ski guy from the mountains. But the Tofitians love their new mayor. And all for the right reasons. "This is an amazing place to live," concludes Perry. "And I care deeply about the town's future. Hopefully my experience will allow me to help Tofino grow into the community it deserves to be."