By Luke Graham

Kelly Ladyga

Kelly Ladyga ('86), director of corporate communications for Vail Resorts Inc., lives by the 8-inch rule at work.

"If it snows 8 inches or more, we sneak out to test the product," she said.

Ladyga oversees all external strategic communications for Vail Resorts Inc., including the mountain resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado, and Heavenly in California and Nevada, and the Grand Teton Lodge Co. in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

Ladyga said she always knew she wanted to work in the Colorado ski industry. While growing up in Ohio, she said she visited Colorado to ski and planned to move here after high school. When she graduated from CU, Ladyga said she worked her way into the tourism industry with public relations jobs at several outlets. Eventually, she said she decided to go back to school and earned her graduate degree in public policy at CU-Denver.

"My graduate degree in public policy has helped me to think more strategically through a communications issue or crisis," she said.

While Ladyga has had a successful career, it started with rejection. She said she was not accepted into the School at first.

"I made an appointment with Joanne Arnold (former dean), marched down to her office with my portfolio and explained why I thought that she should take a chance on me," she said. "And she did."

In particular, she said she remembers her professors teaching her "the importance of having integrity on whatever you choose to do." She still remembers one assignment in which she had to write an article and try to get it published. She wrote a story on the CU swim team and how it could not get NCAA status because of funding issues in the athletic department.

"When it ran in the Colorado Daily, I realized the influence that one voice could have on an issue," she said. "I take that responsibility, and my credibility with the media, very seriously each and every day."

Although her job is interesting, she said she also must deal with accidents – and even deaths – that occur on the slopes.

"Any fatality I have to communicate through the news media is difficult," she said. "That's when I have a difficult time understanding the public's right to know every detail vs. the family's privacy and pain."

Ladyga said she enjoys her job when she sees a positive story about the company or resorts in a national newspaper or on one of the TV networks. She also said that she enjoys the people she works with, and while the job demands a lot of her and her co-workers, they manage to keep work entertaining.

"We have to remember that we're in business of promoting fun," she said. "Sometimes getting out on the slopes is a good reminder not to take things too seriously."

Ladyga is an honorary trustee of the Women's Foundation of Colorado and on the board of the Women's Resource Center in Vail. She has been part of the PR team at Vail Resorts that has won several Public Relations Society of America awards including the 2003 Grand Gold Pick, the highest award given by the Colorado Chapter of PRSA. She said a career highlight was being asked to work on loan at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City for three weeks.

"I helped to run press operations for all of the alpine ski events at Snowbasin with journalists from all over the world," she said.

Ladyga, who lives in Edwards, said she is in the process of adopting a baby girl from China. kladyga@vailresorts.com