Subsidiary | |
Founded | 2002 |
Headquarters | Salt Lake City, Utah |
Key people
|
Mark Bee, President |
Website | doppelmayrusa.com |
Doppelmayr USA is an aerial lift manufacturer based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, and a subsidiary of the worldwide Doppelmayr Garaventa Group. The North America company was formed in 2002 after the merger of Garaventa of Goldau, Switzerland, and Doppelmayr of Wolfurt, Austria. Its only competitor is Leitner-Poma. Between 2002 and 2010, the company was named Doppelmayr CTEC.
CTEC, which stands for Cable Transportation Engineering Company, was the successor to Thiokol, a company which built 41 ski lifts between 1971 and 1977. By 1977, Thiokol had decided to stop producing ski lifts and sold their designs to two employees, Jan Leonard and Mark Ballantyne.
CTEC's first lift produced as an independent manufacturer was at Seven Springs Mountain Resort, Pennsylvania, in 1978. Leonard oversaw engineering at the company's Salt Lake City facility while manufacturing was performed in Sacramento, California, where Ballantyne worked. CTEC slowly grew to become one of three major lift manufacturers in North America along with European-owned Doppelmayr USA and Poma of America. In 1989, CTEC partnered with Von Roll to build its first detachable chairlift at Solitude Mountain Resort, Utah.
From 1990 onwards, CTEC used detachable grips built by the Swiss company Garaventa. In 1992, CTEC and Garaventa merged and the new company was named Garaventa CTEC. Prior to the merger, Garaventa had built only a few lifts in North America, including Aerial Trams at Snowbird, Utah, and Squaw Valley Ski Resort, California. The combined company utilized the designs and manufacturing facilities of CTEC since Garaventa never had much of a presence in North America besides supplying parts to CTEC. CTEC's growing reputation combined with the European ownership and parts supply of Garaventa allowed it to win contracts for large lifts such as the Gold Coast Funitel at Squaw Valley, Placer County, California, gondolas at Telluride Ski Resort and Vail Ski Resort, and Steamboat Springs Ski Resort in Colorado, and Deer Valley, Utah, . In 1999, Ballantyne left the company to form a window and door distribution company but Leonard remained president.