Mark Dushanek, Jiminy Peak, Inc.

Jiminy Peak, Inc. is a spectacular four-season resort nestled in the New England Berkshires.  For winter activities, it is the most popular ski and snowboard destination in Southern New England.  For summer activities, such as biking, golfing, theatre, trout fishing and just about anything else a vacationer could want, Jiminy Peak holds the distinction of being named one of the “Top Ten Great Places to Spend Summer on the Slopes” by USA Today magazine.  Since 1947, when it was founded by John Clark, John Drummand and John Fisher, Jiminy Peak has grown to be the region’s largest ski resort.  Its leaders have been visionary, and while the resort has experienced burgeoning growth, it has been planned growth, the result of two ten-year strategic plans. Over the last six years, Jiminy Peak has invested over $40 MM in its infrastructure and has added new locations by acquisition of other resorts and by new building or expansion of existing facilities.   Purchasing responsibilities Mark E. Dushanek is the Purchasing Manager for Jiminy Peak, Inc.  He has been with the resort for twenty-five years.  “I have actually been with the resort longer than twenty-five years if I count my early part-time experience as a member of the summer crew.  My full-time career began when I was hired as a Lift Operator, then promoted to Company Courier then to Purchasing Manager.  In my twenty-five year tenure, I have witnessed the company grow from 37 full-time employees to 125 full-time employees and our staff grows to 900-1,000 employees during the winter season.  Supporting the infrastructure for goods and services for this resort is a challenge. My department is responsible for ordering supplies and services for twenty different departments, which represents all existing locations.  This constitutes 95% of all purchasing needs.  I don’t know how we get it all done, but I can tell you that Bellwether Purchasing Software plays a big part in the process.”   Mark develops, implements and supports “Best Practices” policies to help ensure that consistent, measurable performance is carried on throughout the organization’s purchasing cycle.  Mark says, “We have over 2,000 vendors who supply us with thousands of different items and services.  We have to maintain consistency throughout the system or quality suffers.  For instance, even a small item like bath soap must conform in color, size, brand and shape.  Maintaining our image of quality throughout all of our facilities, we believe, is critical, and “Best Practices” policies make certain our quality image is maintained.”   Bellwether Purchasing Software Jiminy Peak’s annual spend for goods and services is over $12 MM per year.  In the winter season, they produce over 400 purchase orders per month and over 1,000 purchase orders in the summer season.   Mark’s department has been “paperless” in its purchasing cycle since 1999.  A company that ultimately went out of business had provided the software they were using.  Mark says, “We were left without product support and without future upgrades, and we knew we could not maintain our infrastructure for very long under those circumstances.  Our IT Department wanted supportive software, so we looked at several software packages and chose Bellwether’s Purchasing Software version after participating in a WebEx.  We use the Purchasing, Receiving and Requisitions modules, and we have been very pleased.  Our users tell me that Bellwether Purchasing Software is better than anything we have ever had in place.  Bellwether is easy to use and meets our functionality requirements.   The implementation of Bellwether Purchasing Software was simple and quick.  The Technical Department at Bellwether helped us transfer data files to a suitable format for their software.  We imported all the vendors to Bellwether Purchasing Softwar and 90% of the vendor items.  The technical department has always been easily accessible, and they are very knowledgeable about the product.  This means a lot to a large, diverse resort like us.  We have been a Bellwether customer since November 2005, and we look forward to a long and satisfying business relationship.”