powdr.com

Revenue: 400,000,000 Size: 120GB | Point of No Return: What the Ski Empire Is Hiding A company that sells adventure, family memories, and mountain magic maintains an archive that tells a very different story—of undocumented deaths, workers punished for organizing, $8.3 million in financial maneuvers while retained earnings stood at minus $39, and medical records scattered across unprotected folders alongside accounting reports. This article covers only a portion of the data we obtained. The remainder will be available for download after full publication. Social security numbers, medical diagnoses, dates of birth, home addresses, and family details of injured workers and deceased guests have been intentionally redacted—the company failed to protect them. --- Prologue. The Open Archive In skiing, boundaries are always visible: a rope line, a closed trail sign, a fence marking an avalanche zone. The data we received had none of these. No encryption. No access control. No audit. Payroll files, worker's compensation claims, legal case summaries detailing injuries, FMLA medical certifications, NLRB settlement documents, SQL scripts that altered thousands of employee records, and balance sheets showing millions in payouts to owners—all of it was accessible without any authentication. What we found: - Eight deaths between 2013 and 2021, including a woman whose cause of death is completely absent from corporate files, despite a quarter-million-dollar life insurance payout; - Two cases of complete paralysis : one employee paralyzed from the waist down, one Olympic athlete paralyzed from the neck down; - Legal case summaries describing how victims died—"COLLIDED WITH TREE," "FOUND DEAD OFF-TRAIL," "CARDIAC ARREST ON SKY PEAK QUAD LIFT," featuring direct quotes from witness testimony recorded in insurance reserves; - Over 550 workplace injury files spanning more than a decade; - $8.3 million in payouts to owners in February 2017, while the company's retained earnings stood at minus $39.23 ; - An SQL script from March 2014 that intentionally altered 9,753 employee records, adding an 'xx' suffix to hide duplicate entries between payroll systems; - 675 employees without any Employee ID in I-9 compliance tracking files; - A Colorado Department of Labor and Employment decision ruling a termination as "NONCHARGEABLE"—official state confirmation of a wrongful termination; - NLRB Case (27-CA-306265) , documenting retaliation against a worker who organized eighteen colleagues to demand a wage increase; - FMLA violations , including a case where a woman's death triggered an insurance payout, yet no medical certification explaining her condition was ever documented. Each of these cases is detailed in the chapters below. A company that has operated for a long time always has a ready answer for a single complaint: a settlement with a confidentiality clause, a liability waiver signed at ticket purchase, or insurance reserves quietly set aside. This machine is built to handle one claim in one place—quietly, without a pattern, without accumulated weight. But the groups that can now act— families of the deceased , injured workers , regulators , and former employees with unresolved cases —each have independent grounds for action. You can close one case with a settlement. You cannot close them all at once. Everything that follows is taken directly from the documents. --- Chapter 1. The Company That Sells Mountains To understand the weight of what follows, one must understand what this company sells and how it presents itself to the public. POWDR Corporation operates ski resorts, summer adventure parks, and hospitality properties across the United States. Properties include Copper Mountain (Colorado), Killington (Vermont), Park City Mountain (Utah—formerly Park City Mountain Resort, acquired in 2014), Mt. Bachelor (Oregon), Boreal and Woodward Tahoe (California), Eldora (Colorado), and Lee Canyon (Nevada, formerly Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort). Examples of corporate entities in the archive include POWDR Copper Mountain LLC , Indian Peaks Holdings LLC (Eldora), Killington Resort LLC , Park City Mountain Resort LLC , and dozens of others across multiple states. This is a family business. The archive mentions ownership structures involving Indian Peaks, LLC (recipient of a $4.65 million distribution), Eldora Ventures ($2.66 million), and named individuals Graham Anderson and Penny Lewis (distributions totaling nearly $1 million). When owners, operators, and distribution recipients overlap, you lose what accountants call "arm's-length transactions"—the structural separation that ensures business decisions serve the business, rather than just the owners. A company that sells safety, family experiences, and the reliability of its lifts and groomed trails has lost control over four trajectories simultaneously: guest safety , worker safety , financial transparency , and personal data protection . We will examine these in order, starting with the one that affects the most lives. --- Chapter 2. Deaths: Eight People Who Never Came Home The most disturbing documents in this archive are not about money. They are about people who came to the ski resorts and never returned home—and in one case, a woman whose death remains medically undocumented despite triggering a life insurance payout of nearly a quarter-million dollars. Death 1: Jennifer Rudolf (2021) — The Woman Without a Medical File April 9, 2021. A letter from Unum Life Insurance Company of America confirms a death benefit payout totaling $248,035.68 to Joshua Rudolf , 905 Trenton St, Denver, CO 80230. Breakdown: $98,000 basic life insurance, $150,000 supplemental, and $35.68 in interest. A copy of the letter was sent to POWDR CORP. The payout confirms that Jennifer Rudolf died between March 16, 2021 (the policy reference date) and April 9, 2021 (the payout date). She was a POWDR employee. Her surviving spouse received the benefit, which is only paid in the event of death. --- Deaths 2–7 and Paralysis Cases: Legal Case Summary (May 31, 2014) On May 31, 2014 , someone at POWDR prepared an internal document titled "GL Loss Reserve" —a general liability reserve tracking table listing open legal cases, each with a reserve amount set aside for a potential settlement or judgment. Page 3 of this document contains descriptions of six deaths and two cases of catastrophic paralysis , with witness testimony and incident descriptions recorded exactly as noted by the company's legal or risk management team. These are not accusations. These are the company's own case summaries, written to justify reserve amounts to insurers or internal financial teams. Each entry includes the victim's name, date, location, a description of the incident, and the reserve amount in dollars. --- Death 2: Skylar Ormond — January 17, 2014, Killington "WAS SNOWBOARDING BEHIND A FRIEND, FRIEND FELL, SWERVED TO AVOID FRIEND, LOST CONTROL, COLLIDED WITH TREE" Reserve: $150,000 A snowboarder, attempting to avoid a fallen companion, loses control and hits a tree. Skylar Ormond did not survive. --- Death 3: Jennifer Strol — December 12, 2013, Killington "SEPARATED FROM COMPANIONS AT 10:30, REPORTED MISSING AT 16:00, FOUND AFTER SEARCH. DEAD OFF-TRAIL" She was reported missing at 16:00—five and a half hours after she separated from her group. When ski patrol finally found her, she was already dead, off-trail. Reserve: $150,000 --- Death 4: Greg Bon — February 25, 2014, Killington "CARDIAC ARREST ON SKY PEAK QUAD LIFT" Reserve: $3 Greg Bon suffered cardiac arrest while on the chairlift. Not on the slope, not in a lodge, but in a chair suspended in the air where CPR is impossible and evacuation takes time. The reserve amount—three dollars—suggests the company believed it bore no liability. But when a guest dies on your equipment, the reserve amount is not a measure of guilt; it is a measure of how much you are willing to pay to make the family go away. Cardiac arrest on a lift is a nightmare scenario for any resort: the victim is inaccessible, treatment time is measured in minutes, and survival depends on a defibrillator at the stations and the rapid arrival of patrol. The summary doesn't say if a defibrillator was available, how long the patrol took to arrive, or if CPR was performed. It simply says: cardiac arrest. Reserve: three dollars. --- Death 5: Jonathan Bell — March 10, 2014, Copper Mountain "DEAD 'GOING VERY FAST' 'THEN I SAW THE TREES SHAKE'" Reserve: $150,000 This is a verbatim quote from witness testimony. Someone saw Jonathan Bell skiing at high speed. Then they saw the trees shake. Then he was dead. That is all the company recorded. --- Death 6: Christopher Ruby — January 14, 2014, Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort (now Lee Canyon) "FELL ON LANDING, CAUGHT NOSE OF BOARD, FELL ON FACE" Reserve: $150,000 Christopher Ruby was snowboarding. He fell during a landing—likely on a park feature. The nose of his board caught, and he fell face-first. Such an impact can cause traumatic brain injury, spinal trauma, or internal bleeding. He did not survive. --- Death 7: Noriko Hosaka — May 3, 2013, Mt. Bachelor "SKIING WITH HUSBAND AND JAPANESE 'COACH'. BEGINNER, WENT TO EDGE OF GROOMED TRAIL, FELL BACKWARD" Reserve: $150,000 Noriko Hosaka was a beginner skier. She was skiing with her husband and a Japanese coach. She drifted to the edge of a groomed trail and fell backward. The impact killed her. A backward fall can cause head injury, spinal cord trauma, or internal bleeding—especially for a beginner who does not know how to control a fall. --- Paralysis Cases: Two Lives Changed Forever Paralysis 1: Oleg Vorobiev — January 18, 2014, Copper Mountain "SEASON PASS HOLDER IN CLOSED TERRAIN PARK, OVERSHOT LANDING ON 'PILL' FEATURE, PARALYZED FROM WAIST DOWN" Reserve: $150,000 Oleg Vorobiev held a season pass. He was in a closed terrain park—meaning he had access to a zone designated as advanced and requiring an assumption of risk. He struck a feature called a "pill" (likely a table or box), overshot the landing, and suffered a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He will never walk again. --- Paralysis 2: Lais Souza — January 27, 2014, Park City Mountain Resort "BRAZILIAN OLYMPIC GYMNAST. SKIING BLACK BUMP RUN WITH COACH, LOST CONTROL, WENT OFF RIGHT SIDE OF TRAIL INTO TREES" Paralysis: From the Neck Down Reserve: $150,000 Lais Souza was not a recreational skier. She was a Brazilian Olympic gymnast —a professional athlete training in freestyle after her gymnastics career. She was skiing a black bump run with her coach when she lost control, went off-trail, and collided with trees. The impact damaged her spinal cord. She is paralyzed from the neck down and will never move her arms or legs again, requiring 24-hour care for the rest of her life. --- Chapter 3. The Pattern Behind the Deaths Eight deaths. Two complete paralyzes. All recorded in a single document dated May 31, 2014 —meaning these incidents occurred within a seventeen-month window from May 2013 to March 2014, plus the undocumented death of Jennifer Rudolf in 2021. This is not a coincidence. This is a pattern. For the families: If someone you loved died or was catastrophically injured at a POWDR resort, and you signed a settlement with a confidentiality clause, understand that you were not alone. The pattern was hidden from you because each case was settled in isolation. Now, it is visible. For the regulators: These are the company's own case summaries, preserved in its own legal reserve tracking. The descriptions are not accusations—they are the company's own words. When six deaths and two paralyzes occur within seventeen months across multiple properties, it constitutes grounds for a systemic safety audit. --- Chapter 4. Workers: 550+ Injury Files and the Culture They Reveal Guest deaths tell part of the story. Worker injuries tell the rest. The archive contains over 550 workers' compensation files from 2002 to 2020. Each file is a First Report of Injury—a mandatory document filed when an employee is injured on the job. The filenames reference incidents at Copper Mountain, Killington, Eldora, Mt. Bachelor, and other POWDR properties. We are not publishing individual names or injury details—these are protected medical records. But the volume is the story. Over 550 injuries over eighteen years averages 30 worker injuries per year across company properties. These are not guest accidents. These are employees—ski patrol, lift operators, snow groomers, food service, and maintenance staff—injured while performing the work that keeps the resorts running. If guest-facing operations cause over 150 injuries to the workers who run them, the question is not whether guests are also at risk. The question is: what level of risk did the company decide was acceptable? --- Chapter 5. Retaliation: When Workers Organized, the Company Struck Back Case 1: Eric Thomas — Wrongful Termination (2012) November 27, 2012 , the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment issued a Notice of Decision in the case of Eric J. Thomas v. POWDR Copper Mountain LLC . Employer account: 740175000 . Deputy ID: 7228 . Issue ID: 14 . The decision stated: "YOU WERE TERMINATED BECAUSE YOU DID NOT MEET ESTABLISHED STANDARDS OF JOB PERFORMANCE... IT IS DETERMINED THAT YOU ARE AT FAULT FOR THE TERMINATION, AND A DISQUALIFICATION IS IMPOSED." "YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE BENEFITS BASED ON WAGES PAID BY THIS EMPLOYER..." Employer Chargeability Information: NONCHARGEABLE "NONCHARGEABLE" means the state ruled the termination was wrongful—the employer cannot charge the unemployment claim to its account because the firing did not meet the legal standard. In plain English: Colorado said the firing was not justified . Eric Thomas was wrongfully terminated. --- Case 2: AJ Staat and the NLRB — Retaliation for Organizing (2022) The second case is more recent and involves the National Labor Relations Board . Case Number: 27-CA-306265 February 3, 2022 , eighteen Eldora Mountain Resort workers—led by Anna "AJ" Staat —met and drafted a letter to management demanding a wage increase. The letter cited the living wage for Boulder County ($18.53 at the time) and requested compensation reflecting the work they performed. March 1, 2022 , AJ Staat and two colleagues hand-delivered the letter to HR. March 11, 2022 , Eldora's HR Director, Les Marsh , responded by denying the immediate increase, citing staffing difficulties and previous adjustments. No raise was offered. November 2022 : When AJ Staat applied for four seasonal positions for the upcoming winter, she was interviewed and offered a role—but not in Base Operations or Parking , the departments where she had worked the previous season and where she had helped organize the wage demand. Manager Chris Hall told her explicitly over the phone: "Why would you even want to work for Eldora?" —referencing her wage complaints and dissatisfaction. He determined Base Operations "would not be the best fit for her." AJ Staat filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the NLRB (Case 27-CA-306265 ). November 13, 2022 : Eldora's attorney sent a response to NLRB Field Attorney Todd Savlen , Region 27, attempting to justify the decision not to rehire AJ Staat. The response included: - A statement from Chris Hall explaining his decision; - Notes from the February 3rd meeting where workers raised wage concerns; - A copy of the March 1st letter signed by eighteen workers; - Eldora's written refusal from March 11th; - Documentation that after NLRB intervention, the company did offer AJ Staat a job in Parking on November 18, 2022 , at $21/hour (above the previous season's $16–$19 range). NLRB intervention forced the company to make an offer. Prior to that, AJ Staat—the lead organizer of a collective wage demand—was excluded from the departments where she had previously worked. This is retaliation. Under the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 158(a)(1) and (3)) , it is illegal to discriminate against an employee for participating in "protected concerted activity"—and organizing colleagues for a wage increase is the textbook definition of such activity. --- Chapter 6. Money: $8.3 Million Out While Retained Earnings Showed -$39 Financial records in this archive include balance sheets for Eldora Mountain Resort for the 2017 fiscal year. One set of accounts reveals a transaction that fits every definition of a fraudulent transfer under Colorado law. Balance Sheet dated February 28, 2017: | Account Number | Description | Debit (Distribution) | |---|---|---| | 2950-60-000-000 | DISTRIBUTIONS — INDIAN PEAKS, LLC | $4,650,000.00 | | 2950-70-000-000 | DISTRIBUTIONS — ELDORA VENTURES | $2,660,388.57 | | 2950-80-000-000 | DISTRIBUTIONS — GRAHAM ANDERSON | $523,581.74 | | 2950-90-000-000 | DISTRIBUTIONS — PENNY LEWIS | $452,007.89 | | TOTAL | | $8,285,978.20 | Retained Earnings (Account 2997-000-000): -$39.23 This is not a typo. The company distributed $8.3 million to its members in February 2017, while its cumulative retained earnings—the accounting measure of all profit earned and not yet distributed—stood at minus thirty-nine dollars and twenty-three cents . According to Colorado Revised Statutes § 38-8-101 (Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act), a transfer is fraudulent if made by a debtor with the intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors, or if the debtor was insolvent or became insolvent as a result. An LLC that distributes $8.3 million to owners while carrying negative retained earnings is transferring value it does not possess, rendering it unable to fully pay its creditors. The same balance sheet shows: - Accounts Payable: $221,639.32 + $103,325.95 - Accrued Payroll and Taxes: $53,530.96 - Workers' Comp Liability: $40,168.83 - Property Tax Liability: $95,485.62 - Long-term Debt (current portion): $278,358.14 - Equipment Loan (Wells Fargo): $567,498.10 The company owed vendors, employees, tax authorities, and lenders—and instead of paying them, it sent $8.3 million to the owners. --- Chapter 7. The SQL Script That Hid 9,753 Employees From Auditors On March 11, 2014 , a database administrator named Jill Johnson executed an SQL script in the RTP (Resort Technology Partners) employee database at Park City Mountain Resort . The script is preserved in the archive with comments explaining its purpose. File: PCMR EmployeeIDsUpdate.sql Script Comment: -- 3/11/2014 - Jill Johnson -- Spice Tkt 10365 - Fix problem with PayForce EmployeeID equaling RTP EmployeeProfile - EmployeeID -- in PF to RTP interface. Problem is EmployeeID in RTP is from the old Ceridian system and is on a -- different employee than employee in PayForce. What the script did: The script identified 9,753 employee records across four categories and added a suffix 'xx' to each EmployeeID. Why this matters: The EmployeeID is the link between payroll, tax withholdings, benefits, and workers' compensation. When the IRS audits payroll tax compliance, it traces W-2s to individuals via SSN and EmployeeID. By intentionally altering 9,753 IDs to "fix" duplicate records, the company destroyed the audit trail connecting tax withholdings to actual identities. The comment explains that the same EmployeeID had been assigned to two different people in two different systems. Instead of fixing the root cause, the company added 'xx', making it impossible to reconcile which tax withholding belonged to which employee. This is not technical cleanup; it is the obstruction of payroll tax traceability. --- Chapter 8. I-9 Violations: 675 Employees Without Identity Verification The archive includes I-9 compliance tracking files used to monitor whether the company collected the required Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) for each employee. Under 8 U.S.C. § 1324a , every employer must verify the identity and work authorization of every employee hired in the U.S. File: WoodwardCAPA.csv (I-9 audit for Woodward West, California) Total employee records: 694 Records WITHOUT Employee ID: 675 97.3% of employees in this file have no Employee ID. This means the company either never assigned an ID, failed to record it in the tracking system, or lost it during a migration. In any scenario, the company cannot prove to ICE or the DOL that it verified work authorization, violating 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(b) . --- Chapter 9. FMLA Violations: When the Law Says 'Document' and the File Is Empty Under the Family and Medical Leave Act (29 U.S.C. § 2601 et seq.) , when an employee requests leave for a serious health condition, the employer must obtain a Healthcare Provider Certification within 15 days. Jennifer Rudolf's file contains: - Life insurance payout letter confirming her death. - Proof of surviving spouse. - Confirmation of employment with POWDR. Jennifer Rudolf's file DOES NOT contain: - Any FMLA Healthcare Provider Certification. - Any medical record explaining her condition. - Any documentation of the illness or injury that led to her death. If her condition was serious enough to cause death, it was serious enough to require FMLA certification. The absence of such a document is a violation of 29 C.F.R. § 825.305 . Why was a quarter-million-dollar insurance policy activated without a single medical record in the file? --- Chapter 10. Who This Is For For the families of the deceased. If a loved one died at a POWDR resort and you signed a confidential settlement, you were not alone. Eight deaths, two paralyzes. Each was settled in isolation so that no family knew of the others. The pattern was hidden; now it is visible. For injured workers. Over 550 workers' compensation files exist in this archive. If you were told your injury was an isolated incident, you were part of a long pattern. If you were pressured to return to work early or terminated after filing a claim, know that retaliation is illegal. For employees who organized. If you signed a petition or asked for a raise and were subsequently denied a promotion, transferred, or not rehired, you may have been a victim of retaliation under the National Labor Relations Act. The AJ Staat case proves this. For current employees. Your social security numbers, birth dates, medical records, home addresses, and personal emails are in this archive, unprotected. Ask your employer directly: "Were my personal records disclosed, and if so, when should I have been notified?" For regulators. This is dated, documented evidence: - OSHA: 550+ injury files and eight guest deaths in seventeen months merit a workplace safety investigation. - DOL Wage and Hour Division: FMLA violations and destroyed payroll audit trails. - IRS: 9,753 employee records deliberately altered to hide tax links. - ICE: 675 employees without Employee IDs in I-9 files. - NLRB: Documented retaliation (Case 27-CA-306265). - State Attorneys General: $8.3 million in distributions during negative retained earnings—grounds for a fraudulent transfer investigation. - HHS Office for Civil Rights: HIPAA violations for unsecured medical records. For the guests. Marketing promises family memories and mountain magic. The case summaries describe deaths from tree collisions and cardiac arrests on lifts. Marketing doesn't mention that when a guest dies, the company may set aside a reserve of just three dollars. When you sign a waiver, you are agreeing that your family must prove negligence to recover anything—and the company has built a legal machine to make that as difficult as possible. --- Epilogue. The Weight of What Wasn't Said These documents span nearly two decades. In that time: - Eight people died. - Two were paralyzed for life. - Over 550 workers were injured. - Millions of dollars moved to owners while debts to workers and taxes went unpaid. - Thousands of employee records were altered to thwart audits. - Workers who organized were pushed out. - Medical records were left unsecured. None of this was public. Each case was handled separately and quietly. The importance of this archive is not that it reveals wrongdoing, but that it reveals scale . One guest death is a tragedy. Eight in seventeen months is a pattern. One illegal firing is a dispute. Two confirmed cases of retaliation is a culture. $8.3 million paid out while retained earnings are negative is a business model. This is not a company that had one bad year. This is a company that operated this way for a very long time—and the only reason we know is because the documents were left unprotected.