“The stronger the back of the house, the better off the front of the house will be,” stressed Jay Gable, the new General Manager of Wintergreen Resort at a gathering of property owners.

“All of our back-of-the-house departments' (kitchen staff, housekeepers, cart attendants, lift operators, maintenance, etc.) staffing levels are weak right now.”

Gamble spoke at the Wintergreen Valley Association annual meeting at Tuckahoe Clubhouse on October 9th. He noted that, “I know Wintergreen's history and reputation. It's very much an honor to be here.” See the Sept. 7th official announcement of Gamble’s appointment here.

Gamble said he had been on the job for less than a month. While he has been swamped with moving and catching up with what’s what at the resort and has been working some at his former job as the chief at Ragged Mountain Resort, he was willing to take questions from the audience. “Finding out what are the needs. That's what my focus is right now,” he said.

He told the 70+ Stoney Creek residents at the meeting that he has made a commitment to stay in the job for three years, retiring “as I enter my 70s.” He noted at one point, “I'm under no allusions. There are issues that need to be resolved.”

Gamble said that he saw one of his primary roles as giving his department heads what they needed to get every section running well, saying, “It's like being a parent; we have to love all our children equally. Sometimes that's not easy. There are some areas here that have been neglected.”

In his opening remarks, Gamble said, “If I had a magic wand, the first thing I’d do is get 50 more good employees.” The current lack of people to staff the resort’s operations was mentioned several times in his presentation.

Many of the questions to Gamble involved the resort’s restaurants, especially the valley’s Stoney Creek Bar & Grill. One member of the valley association audience said she could see many of the area’s other restaurants were “doing ok” and could not understand why the valley restaurant wasn’t doing better. Others asked if the resort was considering leasing out the valley’s restaurant to a private contractor.

“I've heard it is not serving the community,” Gamble said of the valley restaurant. Regarding leasing out that facility to a private contractor, he said, “Right now I don't know enough yet to have an opinion,” he said, but he expressed concerns about outsourcing.

Gamble brought up that the Copper Mine Bistro in the Mountain Inn complex had been closed for over a year due to the pandemic. “That’s a million-dollar-a-year operation. The only reason it’s now closed is we don’t have people to staff it.” All kinds of options and innovations are being considered, he offered, pointing to how some in the restaurant industry are using “ghost kitchens.”

Asked about bringing in foreign workers, Gamble said the resort typically uses 110 to 130 foreign staffers, “and many of them are very good, but we prefer hiring locally.”

Asked about this year’s musical on the mountain (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), Gamble says that it did ok, but didn’t do as well as last year’s show. “The Sound of Music had more name recognition,” he suggested. “But, yes, I think this is something we’ll want to do again. Wintergreen needs a master calendar so we could work on programming; it would help in scheduling things such as the musicals or murder mystery theatres.”

In talking about needed improvements at the resort, Gamble said, “it’s not all going to happen overnight,” but he noted at one point during his talk that the resort’s tennis facilities should be getting a high priority.

Wintergreen golfers have a friend in the new resort chief. Gamble said he and his wife, Michelle, are avid golfers. “You’ll find us on the golf courses here,” he said, adding they also are into fly fishing and, of course, skiing.