1. By: Josh Callahan

2. Tom Hilgrove
58 years old
Graduated from the University of Virginia
with a Bachelors of Science in Business
Administration
President and Owner of Rink Management
Services Corporation
My Boss

3.  Get to know him better
 Learn about how he started in sports
management
 Learn about the origins of the company
 Get advice about the sports management
industry and staring a business

4.  J: Do you consider yourself still active in sports today, outside of
work?
 T: Yeah, yeah definitely
 J: What sort of sports are you participating in?
 T: I play golf and I play squash.
 J: How often would you say you are playing?
 T: Squash, I was playing like 3 times a week, recently. Since the 1st
of the year when ACAC Short Pump opened up, they have
uh, squash courts, so um, I've been playing about 3 times a week
on that. Golf in season, uh, I'll play 20 times; I would say 20 to 25
times a year I'll play golf. And then the other thing I do which is
not a sport, but um, I do heat yoga. I go to heat yoga.

5.  J: Did you go to college thinking you wanted to work in the sports world?
 T: No, ended up in it after college, and it was pure happen stance.
 J: What did you study in college?
 T: Business, I have a degree in Bachelor of Science, uh, administration, Business
Administration.
 J: Did you have any ideas as to what you might use that towards?
 T: Ummm, No, Not really, um, I kind of always , I mean again you know the clarity of
hindsight, but, you know I kind of always felt like I wanted to be in business to
create, to start a business. I always thought that, but you know again you it was
totally random how I ended up at Killington. I uh, you know, I graduated in
December and I was just visiting some relatives, I had an aunt that was sick, and I
was up in Massachusetts. And so they said why don’t you get a job at
Killington, there hiring anyone these days. So I kinda went up there and got a job.
Really just bussing tables to start, and um you know one thing led to the other. It
wasn’t that complicated, you could of done it, anybody sharp could of done it.
Um, and then one thing led to another and you know I had a descent carrier
there.

6.  J: How did you start your first company?
 T: Um, How did I end up starting my first company… I was, when I worked for Killington for
a couple years, I worked at another ski area for a season. And then I picked up a couple
companies to pick up as a manufactures rep. I worked for a company that
did, uh, manufactured snow making equipment and designed snow making systems.
And then I picked up, uh, Borvig Ski Lifts. I sold, I sold for both of those on commission, and
I covered New England for them.
 J: Then you ended up moving to Recreation Management?
 T: Then I got offered Borvig, Borvig offered me a chance to come on board as President
actually. I went board as President… And Campgaw Mountain, which is in Bergan
County, New Jersey, Bergan County put a Request for Proposal out for, to manage
it, and you know I went to the owner of the lift company and said hey look this is our
business its right down here, it outa do great, you know, yada yada yada yada, um, do
you want to go in on it together, which we did. And after about a year, year and half we
just decided that I took over the ski area and left the lift company. So that was in 88, 1988
I did that. So that when I formed Recreational Management, We started out with
Campgaw Mountain Ski Area…

7.  From there uh, we just grew it, we added another ski area and
we added a bunch more of the uh of the uh, ice rinks and then
we built it up and then in 1998 I sold it to Trizec Hahn. And they
bought it, they owned at the time Skate Nation, which is based in
Richmond, they had 6 facilities. So I moved to Richmond, which is
how I got back, um, and, you know everything was swimming
along, they were gonna put 700 million dollars in the company. I
mean it was uh it was pretty heavy I mean if things had gone the
way they were planning it I think it could have been a big deal.
But what did happen was Family Golf came along and offered
Trizec a stupid amount of money to get out of the deal…And I
did the transition and then I left and restart, 1998 or 99, Rink
Management Services. Now I was based in Richmond…And then
7 months later they went bankrupt or declared bankruptcy. And
all of my contracts, um, had you know a clause where declaring
bankruptcy could void the contracts, so a lot of our contracts
you know, a lot of the people just came back to our
company, because they knew me and they didn’t like Family
Golf.

8.  J: What advice would you give to someone who wants to go into
sports management?
 T: Let’s see, yeah a couple of things, um, one is that it always
looks better from the outside then the inside. Um, like people
think, like you know when we ran ski areas, you get to ski every
day, no I haven't skied in the last 4 years. You know you're in it
every day you don’t get to do it… Here's another example for
you, you really love golf, you work at a golf course you work
Saturdays and Sundays and holidays. You know you're working
while everyone else is recreating. You know a lot of people have
a hard time with that… So you've got to make sure that you're
passion for the sport equals the reality of what being in the sport
is. That would be one, I would advocate getting a lot of
technical, if you're in school get technical training, i.e. computers
particularly accounting, um, even if you decide to go into Sports
Management, I mean you've been in our shop it’s all
accountants.

9.  J: What advice would you give to an aspiring entrepreneur?
 T: Uh, entrepreneurship is all about sacrifice. What are you willing
to sacrifice to get to where you want to be? And for young
people it involves time. And for young married people it’s about
not being around your kids as much. Um, you know, you’re a
smart guy, anyone that’s successful, %85 of them are working
twice as hard as the guy behind them. There's occasional talent
that doesn’t have to work quite as hard, but even those guys
work hard. And you know if you happen to come from money it’s
a little bit easier. But you've still gotta work hard, and, um, so to
be an entrepreneur I would say, oh and um, you asked me what I
would have done differently I probably would have worked a
couple more years for somebody else. But you know when you
know everything...HAHAHA.

10.  I enjoyed learning more about my boss and
the company I work for
 I was not surprised about too much however it
was interesting to learn about the beginnings
of the company and how Tom got into sports
management
 I appreciated the advice he gave me