Bill Bergman, who helped pioneer Colorado’s ski industry as a co-founder of Keystone Resort, has died at 99.

Bill Bergman’s son, Bill, told the Summit Daily News that his father died Monday morning peacefully at his home in Keystone after a brief illness.

“He was my best friend and my mentor,” his son, Bill said. “He was a man of integrity, modesty and he got things done.”

Born in Iowa in 1924, Bergman met his wife, Jane, on campus in Iowa City after returning from World War II as a lead navigator in the Air Corps. The pair had two children, Bill Bergman and Lolly Dykstra. He became a lawyer in 1949. In 1952, he and Jane began taking annual ski trips to Colorado. Jane died Sept. 27, 2015, at the age of 91.

Enamored with Summit County, the two would stay at and later purchase the Alhambra cabin on Montezuma Road not far from Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, the county’s only operating ski mountain at the time. During that period, Bergman befriended Max and Edna Dercum, who’d long dreamt of opening their own ski destination.

Huddled in a cozy Summit County cabin in the winter of 1968, the Dercums pitched Bergman a plan. In a 2020 interview with Summit Daily News, Bergman said this was the moment “when the enticement began.”

“I was pretty sure the idea was good, but I told Max not to feel badly if it failed,” Bergman said in that 2020 interview.

Keystone Resort became a reality in just two years.

After returning to Iowa, Bergman began pulling together investors from his law office in Cedar Rapids. With advice from a University of Denver economics professor, Bergman determined what it would take to open a ski area. He would need about $25,000 from each investor.

Bergman’s efforts proved successful. In November 1970, his wife christened Keystone’s first lift with a bottle of champagne. Bergman served as Keystone’s first chair of the board, or president, in the resort’s early years while his wife was the chief marketer, delivering brochures in her car and visiting ski shops, college campuses and speaking to whoever she could to promote the new ski destination.

His son Bill moved to Keystone in 1970 and helped with construction on what would become the Summit and Mountain House lodges, then known as Key Top and Key Base.

In 1973, Bergman hired Bob Maynard, the then-vice president for Yosemite Park and Curry Co., to take over the resort’s operations. Maynard would go on to run Aspen Skiing Co. between 1988 and 1996. In 1997, Keystone was acquired by Vail Resorts, the largest company of its kind in the United States.

The Bergmans “took the risk of building a resort with an incredible ski area,” said longtime Keystone Resort employee Steve Corneillier, who worked for the resort from 1975 to 2019.

“Both Bill and Jane were very opinionated, and I say that with a chuckle and good meaning,” Corneillier said. “They were very disciplined individuals, they were very focused and they provided some incredible leadership and direction that a little area like Keystone needed in order to compete with the bigger resorts.”

Across his 45-year career with the resort, Corneillier said he’ll always cherish his wide-ranging conversations with Bergman usually held over a Sunday breakfast of coffee and oatmeal.

After stepping back from Keystone, Bergman remained heavily invested in the Summit County community, including serving on the Keytone’s Citizens League and the Snake River Water District. Last year, Bergman became the first signee for a petition that eventually led to the incorporation of Keystone in March, making the area Colorado’s newest town.

More so than skiing, one of Bergman’s greatest passions, golf, led him to be regarded by friends and peers as a godfather of Summit golfing in addition to his title as a forefather of the county’s modern ski community.

Bergman played in the British Amateurs and with Arnold Palmer and other notable names in the U.S. Senior Opens. He founded a Summit County golf group, the Bergman Boys, and remained an avid golfer up until the end of his life. At age 96, Bergman sunk a hole-in-one on the 15th hole at the Keystone River Course, which at the time he estimated to be the fourth hole-in-one of his golfing career.

As someone who “always gave his advice freely,” Bergman “was always available, whether you wanted it or not, for a golf tip,” his son, Bill, said.

Bergman’s legacy is forever enshrined on the mountain he helped found, with Bergy’s Glade and the Bergman Bowl named in his honor. Bergman’s son, Bill, who still lives in Keystone and owns his own realty group, said his father would comment often about Summit County’s wonders.

Driving on the county’s roads “my dad would say it every time: ‘I’ve traveled most of the world, particularly mountainous regions in Europe, and Summit County is still the most beautiful spot I know.'”

Published on SummitDaily.com.