Introduction to SEER

T h e S E E R R e s o r t C o m p a n y L i m i t e d

An Introduction to

The SEER Resort Company Limited

And

The SEER Team


WHY SEER?

The SEER Team is a group of highly trained and experienced professionals who have worked together for

many years in a collaborative interdisciplinary process dedicated to envisioning, creating, improving and

operating successful resorts. Each Principal and all Senior Associates have extensive formal education

from recognized institutions in fields that are directly relevant to our clients needs in the creation of

resorts. Each Principal and all Senior Associates have a broad range of relevant resort experience prior

to joining SEER and have continued to advance their education and experience with SEER. SEER Team

members are chosen based on education, experience and, most importantly, their passion to work to a

worldwide standard creating leading edge resorts.

People make the difference. People, who devote themselves to understanding their clients and believe

deeply in always improving their work on a global standard, constitute the SEER Team. It is this team

which will provide the best possible result for your resort development objectives.

Each project that SEER undertakes gets the full attention of our Principals. We believe that it is so critical

to your success that we limit our projects to only those in which SEER Principals can be involved in all

aspects. This approach ensures each client of SEER gets the benefit of the extensive experience and

training of the people who lead the company. As a boutique firm we are able to focus on quality and not

be consumed by quantity.

For it is the quality of the thinking, knowledge of the world and its cultures, understanding of the land,

the market and the judgement that only comes with decades of training and experience, that is critical

to creating the most innovative and successful resorts. This is what you receive from SEER.


THE SEER TEAM

The founding partners of SEER, Lorne Borgal and Harry Measure and SEER’s Director of Market Research,

Gary Grant, guide the organization and participate in each project. Other members of the SEER Team are

engaged on projects in response to the project requirements.

Harry Measure

Harry is the Great ‘Envisioner’. Harry is the person who travels the world and devotes his life to

understanding the essence of what makes resorts successful. He has

participated in many United Nations panels and conferences as a key

resource on sustainable tourism and resort development. He led the

revitalization of the Whistler Resort in the 1990’s. Since beginning his

professional career Harry has worked on over 120 resort and tourism

projects including planning and design in locations around the world.

For over 20 years, Harry has resided in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, the world’s ‘living laboratory’

of resort development. Harry’s lifelong career goal has been to obtain the education and experience to

effectively design mountain resorts and communities. Harry believes that resort design has to respond

to the varying needs of people and their cultures in order to be successful. He studied art, architecture

and culture in Italy and the Himalayas while working on his Master’s degree in cultural history. In

Canada Harry earned a Masters degree in Architecture and Environmental Design at the University of

Calgary. This interdisciplinary background in architecture, environmental planning and landscape

architecture creates a strong foundation for his work.

Harry’s professional development includes both ‘hands on’ experience in the

construction of resorts and buildings, and employment in several architecture and

planning offices. He was assistant site supervisor in the Sunshine Village Alpine Resort

expansion program near Banff, Canada in the early 1980’s.

He collaborated with Eldon Beck (the designer of Whistler Village) in

preparing the first master plan for the Fernie Alpine Resort which defined

the roadmap that the resort followed in moving from a regional ski hill to

a year round boutique destination resort.


As Senior Development Planner for the Resort Municipality of Whistler, Harry

again collaborated with Eldon Beck on the detailed planning and then managed

the implementation of the master plan that more than doubled the size of the

resort. Whistler has been recognized for decades as the one of the leading

resorts in the world and is a model for all season resort development.

Harry’s consulting activities over the past twenty years have involved the

planning and design of numerous mountain, golf, adventure, eco and wellness

resorts in North America, South America, Asia and Australasia. The scope of

mountain resort projects has included the master

planning of large scale projects such as Valle Las

Lenas Resort in Argentina. The resort is spread over

an area of 9 square kilometers and includes

planning for over 11,000 rental accommodation

beds and a retail village. The master plan was done

to transform this resort into the Southern

Hemisphere’s largest all season mountain resort

destination.

Harry has also planned boutique mountain resorts such as Mount

Washington Resort on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.

Here he completed a master plan for the village development of the

resort which covered an area of four square kilometers and provided

for over 6,000 units of development. Harry prepared the master plan

for Hudson Bay Mountain Resort in British Columbia. This plan

provided for development of an alpine village at an elevation of 800

meters above the valley on sloping terrain with planning for over

5,000 units of construction in a mixed use development for year round recreation.

Harry also contributed to the design of several mountain resort hotels and hospitality service facilities

such the Snow Creek Lodge at Fernie Alpine Resort, the Raven’s Day Lodge at Mount Washington Alpine

Resort and The Kicking Horse Resort General Store.


His activities in golf resort community planning

and architecture has included several projects in

North America such as the master plans for the

Virgin Creek Country Club at Alyeska Resort in

Alaska, Redstone Golf Resort in British Columbia,

Canada, and the designs for multi‐family

developments such a Deer Run town home

complex at Morgan Creek Country Club in Vancouver, Canada.

.

Recently Harry and Lorne completed the master plan for the Lotus Land Resort in Jinhu, China. This

plan provides for 1,000 rental units of development,

recreation amenities and a club house on 25 hectares of land

located in a famous lotus growing region of China. The

development site is integrated with a garden area that is twice

the size of the development parcel. The design responds to the

challenge of merging traditional Chinese design with modern

west coast of Canada design and creating a resort that appeals

to both the Chinese and international markets.

Lorne Borgal

Lorne is the practical one. Lorne has over 30 years of experience in resort development and operations.

After earning his Masters

of Business

Administration from the

Graduate School of

Business at Stanford

University, Lorne

combined his experience

in industry and resorts with his education and led

the opening of the entire operating business of

Blackcomb Resort. From there he led Whistler as President and Chief Executive Officer of Whistler

Mountain Ski Corporation and as Chairman and Director of the Whistler Resort Association during the

most exciting and formative years of the resort.


Under his leadership at Whistler, Lorne envisioned and created a service culture for Whistler that has

endured to this day. He installed the first chair lift to the Peak and opened up the largest single lift

serviced terrain expansion in the company’s history, he planned and constructed a major new

restaurant in the high alpine, renovated company restaurants, acquired and expanded retail businesses

and constructed the gondola from the valley to the mountain top which remains the major lift on the

mountain and the only direct route from the village to the high alpine in the resort.

From Whistler Lorne invested in and operated Horseshoe Valley Resort in Ontario.

This year round resort business included Four

Diamond hotel, extensive restaurant and bar

operations, championship golf and timeshare. With

direct control and management of all business in the

resort, Lorne went on to add a new golf course,

service and sell real estate, expand the winter business with a new private club and multi‐million dollar

expansion and planned a the largest single timeshare project in the province.

After Horseshoe, Lorne was asked to revitalize the Calibogie Peaks resort in eastern Ontario. This year

round resort had just completed an expansion

and was operating below expectations. Lorne

repositioned the entire business for success,

completed a master plan with Harry, added

new facilities and established the resort on the

path for success.

Lorne returned to British Columbia to become a

major shareholder and the managing partner for

Hudson Bay Mountain Resort and President of a

development company. After

completing the master plan with

Harry and taking the resort

through all approvals, Lorne is

presently servicing the first land

development on the mountain.


Design guidelines are in place to ensure that everything that is constructed in

the development will support the long term

value of the property. Future phases will

include a variety of product types including

additional single family homes, town homes,

condominium homes and rental

accommodation.

Lorne took on the leadership of the La Casa Resort in British Columbia during a

troubled development. Finished the development and

created a successful four season resort development

on the shores of Lake Okanagan featuring villa

accommodation, amenities from boating, beach and

trails to tennis, aquatic and dining.

During his career, Lorne has traveled extensively around the world studying resort developments. When

Harry shared his vision for providing the best resort development services in the world, in a unique and

powerful new group, Lorne joined with him to create The SEER Resort Company Limited.

Gary Grant

Gary combines the experience of practical resort management and planning,

extensive world travel and advanced formal education as a PhD candidate in Management at the

University of Canberra where he also teaches, to the challenges of resort development. He has first hand

experience with what is emerging as best practice and conversely with what is resulting in the decline of

many resort and tourism ventures. Gary has a passion for research and for sharing his knowledge with

others in order to further successful tourism development globally.

With over 30 years experience in the tourism hospitality and training industry and recognised in 2009 as

an Australian Tourism Legend for his services to


tourism development and training he has participated in many aspects of tourism planning and practice.

Gary resides in the Australian Snowy Mountains for half the year and in the Japanese Alps, in Hakuba for

the remainder. He has travelled extensively throughout Europe and Canada.

Gary has consulted to numerous government and private tourism organisations as well as teaching

business, tourism and event development. He has thoroughly reviewed the research on tourism

developments around the world and has completed a major study into consumer destination

satisfaction and re‐visitation strategies.

Previously Gary was a General Manager of the largest ski area in the Southern Hemisphere, responsible

for a wide range of business units

including marketing event

development and management,

PR and sales, 2000 hotel beds and

numerous restaurants. Gary

developed a keen understanding of what is needed to ensure a viable and sustainable business.

During this tenure, Gary developed a range of marketing initiatives that were a first for Australia and

assisted in the transference of many of these to his overseas peers. He developed the first multi racial

marketing programs and moved Australian snow sports into the digital age by developing the first

snowsports mobile applications including an iPhone app, and setting up the first Australian resort

Facebook pages and implementing a newsletter and customer loyalty system that has over 50,000

members. Gary was also intimately involved in the development of the Perisher Master Plan for the

resorts future redevelopment.

Gary served as a board member of the very successful Snowy Mountains Tourism Organisation and

helped transform the region to a viable year round tourism destination. He served as Chairperson and

General Manager prior to consulting with Government Tourism Organizations. Gary has a broad

knowledge of the tourism industry, its various threats and opportunities and has the ability to identify

ways around these; ability to articulate the big picture but still identify the detail required to deliver on

the vision; and an ability to engage and most importantly unite different agendas into a common

outcome.

As a small hotel co‐owner in Japan, Gary has maintained his practical experience

developed many years ago working in hotels and restaurants and utilises this

opportunity to gain a better understanding of the needs and changing desires of

guests. Maintaining the hands‐on experience helps to keep in touch and to re‐


confirm the desk‐top research being undertaken on a regular basis, and as part of his University work.

Gary collaborated with Harry on different projects for many years prior to his involvement in The SEER

Resort Company Limited.

W. Samuel Gunderson, Director: Golf Resort Development + Operations

Mr. Sam Gunderson has over 30 years of experience in golf course planning, development and facility

operations with over 100 completed projects around the world. Mr. Gunderson is also experienced in all

aspects of golf community real estate development from initial site selection through design,

construction, real estate marketing and sales. With his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

from Arizona State University, Mr. Gunderson brings an innovative business sense to the golf resort

development process.

Throughout his career, Mr. Gunderson has evolved environmentally responsible golf course design and

development through the application of ‘green’ design principles and technologies. His projects have

become acknowledged by leading industry publications as among the global pioneers in environmentally

responsible golf course design and construction.

Kristina J. Salin

As a professional planner and landscape architect, Kristina Salin has over 15 years experience in planning,

design, facilitation and project management in urban design, tourism and resort development. Kristina

has focussed her professional work in resort planning toward increasing tourism sector capacities in

mountain communities. Tourism planning projects include research, tourism assessment and feasibility

studies in ecotourism, heritage tourism, hotel development and strategic planning for tourism operators.

As a professional planner for the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), Kristina managed planning

projects advancing provincial tourism goals and sustainable development including residential and

commercial developments, a wellness spa facility, and the Whistler Olympic Village.

Jerry Vagelatos

Jerry Vagelatos has a Masters degree in landscape architecture, from the University of Michigan and

more than 30 years experience as a Landscape Architect during which time he established his reputation

as a gifted designer. All of his work has an artful, sculptural quality and he is able to express the

uniqueness of a site in the landscape design.


Jerry was the project designer for many award winning, one‐of‐a‐kind projects like the Burnaby

Jamatkhana for the Agha Khan, and the European Plaza at Expo 86 in Vancouver. More recently he has

designed the landscape for the Brew Creek Centre‐ a boutique lodge retreat near Whistler Resort,

Canada, and the detailed landscape design for Lotusland Resort retreat near Nanjing, China.

Clement Wong

Clement graduated with a Masters degree in Architecture from Dalhousie University in Canada, and is a

member of the Architecture Institute of British Columbia, the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada and

the American Institute of Architects. Clement is fluent in English and Cantonese, and has a good

command of Mandarin.

For over 25 years Clement has worked on architecture projects in Canada, the United States, Japan and

China. He has designed several resort and mountain resort buildings in these countries that include the

prestigious Ritz Carlton Hotel at Deer Valley Resort in Park City, Utah, (one of America’s most luxurious

all season mountain resorts), and the four star ranked Nita Lake Lodge in Whistler, Canada.

Working with The SEER Resort Company, Clement recently completed the architectural component for

Lotusland Resort near Nanjing, China. This resort includes a clubhouse, high‐rise apartments, town

homes, villas and retail facilities. Clement has also completed the designs of commercial office buildings

in China in association with an architecture company based in Shenzen.

Haitao Bai

Haitao Bai is a full time resident and native of Beijing, China where he graduated with a Bachelor of

Engineering from the Beijing University of Technology. He has worked as an engineer based in Beijing,

and was involved in the design of some of the city’s landmarks.

As a Partner and Manager in the Beijing City Skyline Atelier from 2001 to 2006, Haitao was involved in

the collaborative design with international firms on prestigious projects such as the World Trade Center

in Beijing. During his time in professional engineering offices, Haitao gained wide experience in the co‐

design of buildings with overseas architecture and interior design firms, and with international hotel

management companies.

In 2006, Haitao established his own engineering and architectural design company with the specific goal

of designing resorts and resort buildings with particular focus on mountain settings. To become familiar

with international mountain resort design of the highest standards, Haitao traveled to research

mountain resort design in North America, Europe and Asia, and he has visited most of the ski resorts in

China. Haitao’s professional activities in the Chinese ski resort development industry have included

consulting to Beidahu Ski Resort as Development Manager. He has also provided engineering and

architectural design services for several luxury chalets in mountain resorts in China.


Ms. Sue Yang Sue Yang is an urban planner with experience in consulting firms based in China and North America. Sue obtained a joint Master of Science degree in regional planning and management from the University of Dortmund in Germany and the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand, and a Bachelor of Science degree in urban and regional planning from Nanjing University.

Her project experience includes regional planning, conceptual planning, master planning, residential neighborhood planning, industrial and science park planning, resort planning, metro study demographic analysis, regional economic analysis, and regional environmental planning.

Her resort, recreation and tourism project experience in China includes conceptual planning for Long Lake Resort, Shenzen, Chongqing Sun Lake International Eco‐tourism Area Master Plan, Conceptual Plan for Phoenix Island Eco‐tourism Area Yangzhou, Du Jiang Yan Hua Xi International Sports & Leisure City Master Plan, Chengdu, Bi Zi Ka Sun Lake Resort Master Plan, Chongqing, Hainan Island Wu Zhi Shan Golf Eco‐resort Concept Master Plan, Nanwan Lake Tourism Area Development Plan, Hunan, Jin Hai Hu Vision Plan, Beijing, Valley of the Dragon Master Plan, Nanjing, Qing Dao Jin Kou Resort Concept Planning and Design, Sanya San River International Resort Concept Master Plan, Hainan,

Fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese and English and a registered lecturer in Mainland China, Sue Yang contributes valuable communication skills to the SEER team.

Mick Matheusik

For over 25 years Mick Matheusik, has worked extensively in many different real estate development

settings throughout the dominant trend setting resort destination market areas of the U.S., Australia

and Canada.

He was employed for 12 years by each of North America’s leading tourism/hospitality and retail

consulting firms during which time he spent three years managing a consulting office in Queensland,

Australia. His specialized expertise in the area of resort retailing has been recognized by the Urban Land

Institute (ULI) based in Washington, D.C. He was a contributing author to ULI’s Resort Development

Handbook, 1997 on Retail and Commercial Facilities.

Mick Matheusik holds a Master of Science degree in Tourism and Recreation Development and

Marketing from Texas A&M University (USA), and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies in Urban &

Regional Geography and Planning from the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada).


Scott Kennedy

Mr. Scott Kennedy is a member of the Professional Engineers of British Columbia and the Royal

Architecture Institute of Canada who has gained extensive experience in the design of commercial,

institutional residential and resort projects over the past 25 years. He is also a LEED (Leadership in

Energy and Environmental Design) certified professional who specializes in sustainable projects and

project management.

Scott has led his team through the conceptual and detailed architectural design of many mountain

resort accommodations projects located in Western Canada such as the Bear Paw Lodges at Fernie

Alpine Resort, the Coast Hotel at Big White Resort, Rossland Springs Hotel at Red Mountain Resort, and

Fernie Golf Estates. His numerous waterfront resort accommodations projects include The Villas at

Pacific Sands Resort near Tofino, Boardwalk Boulevard at Ucluelet, and the award winning Shuswap Lake

Resort and Summerland Waterfront Resort and Spa.

As both an architect and structural engineer, Scott’s attention to technical detail and construction

contributes a significant role in project design and development.

Contact Harry Measure or Lorne Borgal

The SEER Resort Company Limited

856 Homer Street, Suite 203

Vancouver, British Columbia

Canada V6B 2W5

[email protected]

[email protected]

1604 628 0327

Introduction to SEER

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