WELCOME to Mt Buller Noel Landry, the new general manager of Buller Ski Lifts.
Noel took over from Laurie Blampied who ended his tenure after 25 years in charge.
Clearly Noel enjoys challenges and sees change as opportunity.
He was raised in Ottawa Canada and went to school in Montreal; his father being French Canadian and his mother English Canadian.
Skiing was in the family DNA.
Some of Noel's earliest memories involving snow were centred around his father being a member of the Canadian Medical Association and coordinating conferences in Whistler.
When he was 12 years old, his parents took him out of school and the family went skiing across the USA for six weeks.
With little planning or organisation, they would arrive at a new resort, find accommodation and embrace whatever it offered – a real spirit of adventure.
In 1992, Noel was ski patrolling in Big White and while undertaking important ski patrol duties, he met a young lady from Australia named Heidi James.
On a chair lift actually, of all places.
She was visiting her family who owned a ski shop in the Big White resort.
Aprés at Snow Shoe Sam's may have sealed the deal.
He spent the summer planting trees, a season in Les Arcs and the rest is history.
Soon, Australia was calling.
Heidi had been living in Canberra, so it was three months later they moved to Sydney.
Noel and Heidi married in 1995 in Silver Star.
Noel enrolled for his Masters and found a project management opportunity with the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Once the Games were done, he accepted a role with the Brisbane Goodwill Games, overseeing the building of all temporary facilities.
It was busy times with two kids on board by then as part of the mix.
In 2003, Noel made a jump to Beef Australia Rockhampton, a major beef expo held every three years in North East Queensland.
Essentially they were big trade shows combined as an industry conference.
Now there were four children and things were getting busier for this family.
Music, and being part of a band, has always been in Noel's blood.
He and some friends were the regular house band at the Yeppoon Convention Centre.
One of the guests at the convention centre happened to be the managing director of APP Corporation – they had just won the contract to deliver the build and construction overlay for the Melbourne Grand Prix.
The family moved on to Melbourne and the GP became Noel's life for the next five years.
It fed into the Cricket World Cup held in 2015, and then the Port Moresby Pacific Games that same year.
In 2016 Noel moved back to Canberra and accepted a role with the Summer Nats, which extended to the Red Centre Nats in Alice Springs.
The enterprise grew to Melbourne Ex (Melbourne's biggest car show), and then to the Rocky Summer Nats held in Rockhampton.
All the while, Noel's focus was to corporatise and expand the brand.
But, in the background, the mountains were always calling, so it was that Victoria's High Country is now home.
Welcome to Mt Buller Noel, we are pleased to have you in the Mt Buller community.
