With the holidays behind us, most of the U.S. is ready for winter to be over. In Michigan, though, there are still three or four months of snow ahead. This is the second in my series of articles about how the state’s manufacturers help its winter sports enthusiasts enjoy all that cold weather. (See the first one here.)
Even in snowy Michigan, sometimes Old Man Winter needs a helping hand.
Toward that end, back in 1974, a couple in Midland charted a course that would change the ski area snowmaking business forever. Skiing enthusiasts Jim and Betty VanderKelen believed they could come up with better solutions for snowmaking machines, and they founded Snow Machines, Inc. (a.k.a. SMI Snowmakers) to do just that. Starting in their garage to manufacture their inaugural machine, they launched the SnowStream 320 (the first such machine that didn’t use compressed air to make snow).
They struggled in their early years with a poor overall skiing market and the challenge of breaking into the business.
But after a few years, they began to grow, and the company took over a corner of a local carpet warehouse. Eventually they’d take over the whole building. Growth was driven by the introduction of numerous different models, aimed at optimizing snowmaking for the terrain and climate of different resorts, and by superior machine performance in energy efficiency and snow quality.
Some things have changed over the years. The VanderKelens’ son Joe took over the helm as President in 1992, and continued to grow the company. “We’re on five continents now,” said Joe VanderKelen’s daughter Brooke Alba, who handles the company’s sales and marketing. “And we’ve added automation to our machines as well.” The company opened a second manufacturing location as a result of that automation, in Salisbury, Pennsylvania, where its controls and automation programs are designed and manufactured. The company has offices and support staff around the US and world. With subsidiaries in Sweden, France, China, Austria and New Zealand, along with strong partner relations in most other skiing markets like Japan, Korea, Norway, and Russia.
Plenty has remained the same over all those years as well. “The majority of our snowmaking machines are all still made right here in Midland,” said Alba. “They’re still built to order, and customized for each customer.” The company makes two basic types of machines, stick and fan. Manufacturing them includes a variety of operations, from welding the base tube and adding flanges and heads for the stick units, to constructing the chassis and installing a specially modified fan, hoses, nozzles, and a compressor optimized for low temperature operation on the fan units. The control panels from the Pennsylvania location are wired in, and every unit is tested when it’s complete.
Manufacturing is complicated by the number of models and levels of customizing. “We make ten different styles of machine each week,” said Alba. “And we usually have a narrow manufacturing window.” Orders spike in late summer and early fall, as ski hills prepare for the season. SMI has optimized their processes and staffing to handle this, and is able to turn out 80-100 stick units and 40-70 fan units per week. One part of that optimization is using local suppliers. “We source a lot of materials from other Michigan manufacturers,” Alba said.
Another part of optimizing is having experienced employees – the company has a strong core of long-time team members that they supplement with temporary workers during the busy season. Alba was highly complimentary of her teammates: “The strong experience and knowledge of our employees make the company successful.”
SMI continues to face a competitive environment. “You wouldn’t think we have a lot of competition, but we do,” said Alba. “There are a number in North America, Europe and Asia, and now China has some too. There are seven to ten major competitors overall, and each is good at a particular element of snowmaking.” The company has several current advantages, and is working to build more. “Service and technology are our big assets,” Alba said. “We have technicians across the world who will take a call at any time. Since the bulk of snow is made during ski hill downtime, usually in the middle of the night, that response is key.” Product quality is another big advantage. “Our machine life is about two times that of our competitors,” Alba pointed out. “Our motto is, ‘Service, Technology, Longevity.’”
The company’s R&D organization, also headquartered in Midland, is working on how that motto carries SMI into the future. “We’re always looking for ways to produce more snow with less energy,” Alba said. “We’ve driven an 80% reduction in our machines’ energy usage since we started. And we like to try new and creative ideas with our suppliers.” R&D is working on constant improvements in snow quality as well, with a goal of providing consistent snow quality from the top to the bottom of the hill, despite differences in temperature.
They’ve had some major successes in that regard. The company’s machines made the snow for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, where the ski crews wound up pushing the natural snow off the hill in favor of the stuff SMI made – the racers liked their snow quality better.
They plan to be around for a long time to come. “We’re a family business with a lot of pride in what we’ve accomplished – the Olympics and other big events around the world, our business growth, and being part of something bigger than ourselves,” Alba said. They’re a proud Midland, Michigan company, and they plan to continue to reinvest both there and at the Pennsylvania location. “We believe in U.S. manufacturing and producing rugged long lasting equipment,” said Alba. “It’s preferred around the world. We sometimes have a higher-priced product, but people believe it’s worth the price given the high product quality and long life.”
And they have fun. “We get to travel to beautiful locations all over the world, and we get to work with great people,” Alba added. “Ski resorts are a close-knit community – there are only about 450 in the United States.” With continuing opportunities in mature markets here, in Europe, and in New Zealand, and with fast growth in the sport expected in China thanks to their hosting the 2022 Winter Games, the future looks bright.
