Work Hard, Play Hard at Zion Ponderosa Resort
Amidst the breathtaking scenery of Zion National Park, corporate leaders, employee groups, and church and civic organizations are taking advantage of a unique ranch-style resort to meet, conduct business, improve teamwork and communication between employees, and to just let off some steam.
(PRWEB) February 14, 2004
Located on the East Rim of Zion National Park in Southern Utah, the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort spans 8,000 acres and shares much of the same unique geography and variety of wildlife as the park. The resort is “all inclusive”- guests are served meals throughout the day in a large, ranch-style meal hall, and only need to sign up to enjoy a laundry list of activities including ATV tours, horseback riding, hiking, mountain biking, paintball, rappelling, swimming and hot tub, tennis, sand volleyball, and much more – all for one price.
And thatÂ’s just the fun stuff. The resort is also fully equipped to handle small and large corporate groups, with everything from new state-of-the-art conference rooms with high-speed satellite Internet access, surround sound and large screen projection TVs, to a knowledgeable staff that includes three graduates with a degree in management for recreational activity that are able to set up customized team-building activities and programs to meet any specific groupÂ’s needs.
Zion, which is an ancient Hebrew word meaning a place of refuge or sanctuary, welcomes approximately 2.5 million visitors per year to its oldest National Park. The park is located at the junction of the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin and Mojave Desert provinces and is famous for its dramatic landscape of sculptured canyons and soaring cliffs.
The Zion Ponderosa Resort shares approximately 10 miles of common fence with the park. In fact, at 6,500 feet above sea level, the view from the resort property provides a spectacular panorama of the world famous Zion Narrows, a collection of slot canyons that converge to form Zion Canyon.
Nestled in this environment, the resort sits in stark contrast to the typical locations for workshops and corporate retreats: the claustrophobic meeting room or large hotel ballroom distinguished only by its four concrete walls. Instead, guests can take advantage of a pristine outdoor setting to enjoy nature, conduct a little business, engage in adventurous team-building exercises, take advantage of the range of activities, or just lounge by the pool.
The resort is owned and operated by the Neeleman Family. The ranch was originally purchased in 1962 by Ray and Ruth Lewis and has remained in the family since their passing. In 1994, the Neelemans decided to convert approximately 100 acres of the property into the resort. Several members of the family live and work at the resort year round, while others – although involved in key decision making – pursue outside interests. If the name Neeleman sounds familiar, there’s a reason: one of the owners is David Neeleman, CEO and Founder of Jet Blue Airways.
“In the corporate world, there are so many distractions with our cellular phones, pagers and e-mail,” says Neeleman. “If you can go to a place where you can remove all those distractions and clear your brain, decompress and really focus as a group on those issues that will move your company forward, that’s invaluable.”
Whether a meeting of business partners, family members, friends, or church or civic organizations the resort is ideal for corporate meetings for both small groups and large. According to Neeleman, corporate groups from the Los Angeles Times, the Discovery Channel and many other corporations have already visited the resort.
For work, play, or both, corporate retreats are designed to have staff returning to work more productive, committed, and fulfilled.
“The benefit for any corporation – big or small – is the ability to spend some time together in a different atmosphere, engage is some team building or group activities, and break down any barriers and really get everyone communicating,” says Neeleman.
According to Corey Child, General Manager of the resort, the location is conducive to a “high-adventure” team-building concept, in addition to more traditional, low impact, team unity exercises.
For example, corporate guests can build teamwork and develop leadership skills while conquering fears on a climbing wall; discover hidden strengths and weaknesses during a competitive game of volleyball; develop strategies and implement plans of attack in an exciting paintball battle; or simply relax while enjoying the breathtaking scenery.
“People who come here want us to walk them through team building exercises, games or events. Sometimes our corporate guests spend 90% of the day doing team building activities and only meet in the conference room for a couple of hours,” says Child. “Because of the unique location, corporate guests prefer to be outside, enjoying group hikes, mountain biking, horseback riding, ropes courses, rappelling, volleyball games, paint ball competitions or other outdoor activities.”
For those companies that want to conduct business, the resortÂ’s new conference rooms accommodate up to 35 people and can be set up theater style for lectures and presentations, or with tables for education conferences.
Guest accommodations range from luxurious multi-bedroom mountain homes with all the amenities, to cabin suites for families (without phone or television) and “cowboy cabins” designed to sleep six individuals “bunk-style.” Camping is also available for groups that want to really rough it.
All meals are served at the Ranch Lodge, by a professional kitchen staff. The resort employs as its head chef Stephan Clark, a specialist in healthy California cuisine that has worked for prestigious hotel and dining establishments including Embassy Suites, Ramada, Beverly Heritage Hotels, Villages Golf Country Club, Sun Microsystems, and Gordon Biersch.
Once a year, Rodney Ross of Danville Services (www. danserv. com), a Utah company that provides a variety of quality services and programs for people with disabilities, arranges a retreat for approximately 25 program managers and directors to get away from their daily routine for a couple of days. According to Ross, he chose the Zion Ponderosa Resort because of the variety of activities, the facilities, and the all-inclusive price.
“The resort offered so much variety and I wanted to give the staff a lot of variety,” says Ross. “All costs were inclusive, and that appealed to me as well. That way I didn’t have to look and decide what we were going to do and what we weren’t going to do.”
The staff at Danville Services began the corporate retreat with a short opening session in which awards for the year were presented to staff, as well as an orientation and general “welcome.” After that, the staff was free to sign up for any activities they desired. One of the group activities involving the whole staff was a spirited game of paintball in which the resort provided the needed supervision, paintball gun and pellets, and appropriate safety equipment and clothing.
“There were 26 of us, and we decided to play a group game of paintball. It was just our staff and we were nailing each other,” says Ross. “It’s great fun to get a big group like that together for an activity. We had a great time.”
Ross points out the staff went out of their way to accommodate special requests: “The staff and everyone up there were very courteous,” says Ross. “If we needed something, they were very helpful. For instance, they didn’t normally do wagon rides that time of year, but they set that up for us. We also asked them for a more adventurous ATV ride and the guide accommodated us. He took us on a much more fun ride on some rougher roads. We really appreciated it.”
According to Ross, the retreat had the desired effect. “Our team loved the resort because of the variety of activities. When we came back to work, everybody was just refreshed. They all were talking about it. They wanted us to come back again,” adds Ross.
On Line Web Marketing (www. olwm. com), a company specializing in Web site design and promotion, recently took approximately 25 employees and their families to the resort for three days.
“We mainly wanted to get everybody together in an atmosphere outside of the office,” says Shane Brinkerhoff, co-owner of OnLine Marketing Services. “With that many people there are a lot of different personalities, and finding a place where everyone can have a good time is difficult. The resort had something for every type of personality.”
Although they attended the resort more for play, than for work, they soon found themselves in a situation in which work was required.
“While we were there, we found out that one of our client’s Web Sites was going down,” explains Brinkerhoff. “Since the resort had high-speed access, we were able to access the system remotely and fix the problem. It took a couple of guys 20-30 minutes to finish the work. We were able to get the pages back up and go in and take care of them while still being out away from everything.”
The main benefit of the retreat, for Brinkerhoff, was that it was a positive environment in which the staff could better get to know one another and create strong bonds.
“The retreat allowed our entire staff to get to know each other on a more personal level,” says Brinkerhoff. “We also happened to have seven brand new employees and we were able to get to know them faster. It was a real positive for all our employees. They all had a great time. Being able to do things like this also helps us from a productive standpoint as well, when we return to work.”
Non-corporate groups are also visiting the resort. Aimee Barton, President of the Washington County Diabetic Youth Association has worked with other association members to take a group of diabetic children ranging in age from 12-18 to the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort each of the last two years. The Association puts on fundraisers to sponsor the stay at the resort. Last year, they were able to take 55-60 children. This year, they were able to take approximately 80.
“It’s a retreat for the kids to be around other kids that are living the same life that they are – that are taking shots or on insulin pumps,” says Barton. “The idea is to just go and have a fun weekend and get away from it all.”
“They did everything,” adds Barton. “They did wall climbing, the zip line, paintball, horseback riding, and go carts. Everything was a hit. All you had to do was put your name on a sign up sheet. The resort had something going every hour.”
During the trip, Barton took the opportunity to meet with other members of the association, as well as provide at least one hour of education every day about how each child can better control their diabetes. The Association sponsored the daily lectures and brought in an educator, a dietician, a physician and even a motivational speaker for one of the nights.
Barton was most impressed by the full service aspect of the resort. “The first year we went to the resort, we took a trip down to Zion National Park,” says Barton. “We had intended to go on a hike, but it was raining that day. Instead, they bought us all tickets to the local IMAX Theater. They paid for it. They told us that our activities were covered by them and they truly were.”
Although the resort is an unrelated endeavor, Neeleman sees parallels between the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort and Jet Blue.
“Jet Blue is a customer-focused company. We take good care of our employees and they in turn take really good care of our customers. We try to establish an environment where people that come in contact with Jet Blue feel this is a different kind of company,” says Neeleman. “That’s what we try to do at Zion Ponderosa. I think when you go there and interact with the people that you’ll feel like it’s a special place.”
Corporate groups that want to find out more about the Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort are encouraged to call for a free consultation about possible retreat programs. The resort is also offering a special discount for groups that book a retreat and plan their visit prior to April 30, 2004.
For more information about Zion Ponderosa Ranch Resort, call (800) 293-5444 or visit www. zionponderosa. com.
