By Mark Aiken
This is an excerpt from a feature published in the Fall 2025 Issue of 32 Degrees. You can access the full digital issue here.
“Skiing in Indiana is, in some ways, survival. But for us, surviving isn’t enough. I want us to thrive.” – Dave McKinley
Dave McKinley has good reason to be optimistic. “We have a ski area in southern Indiana,” he said, “Don’t tell me there’s something that can’t be done.”
Indeed, Mckinley serves as snowsports school director at Perfect North Slopes in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where instructors teach upwards of 30,000 lessons annually. Of course, making skiing work on a hillside with a max elevation of 800 feet and 400 feet of vertical takes no small amount of fortitude and innovation.
How, then, does Perfect North Slopes employ 1,200 seasonal staff and enjoy seasons that consistently run from mid-December all the way until mid-March – in a place with practically no natural snow? For one, the slopes that used to be the family farm of Clyde and Ella Perfect face – you guessed it – perfectly north, which means the snow that does fall holds remarkably well. This Indiana resort has taken the rest into its own hands.
“We have over 250 snowmaking guns,” said McKinley, noting that the resort has 23 trails of all ability levels. “When conditions are right with temperatures and humidity, we suddenly have our own little ecosystem with snow clouds dumping everywhere.”
Starting in 1980, the Perfect family built a resort – located within an hour of Cincinnati, Ohio – that allows thousands of Midwesterners to participate in snowsports. Their guests don’t always become lifelong enthusiasts in the way that people from more mountainous areas do, but they certainly go every year and have a great hobby. Half a decade ago, McKinley took over a snowsports school that’s played a major role in transforming thousands into snow sliders.
A Nontraditional Route
McKinley followed a nontraditional route to his snowsports school directorship – one that included stops in the ice cream business and in the business side of running the Northeast Christian Church. His resume does not include vast instructing experience, because McKinley was active in the National Ski Patrol, first at nearby Paoli Peak, Indiana, and eventually at Perfect North.
When Perfect North Slopes purchased Timberline, West Virginia (yes, the little resort in Indiana owns two other resorts – Timberline and Swiss Valley, Wisconsin) and sent their snowsports school director to run that operation, Perfect North had a hole to fill. Having served on Perfect North’s ski patrol since 2013, McKinley was a known commodity even though his background wasn’t in snowsports school management. Rather, he held a PSIA Level III certification in telemark, but his area of expertise was in training patrollers across the Midwest (including at Perfect North; Paoli Peak; Mad River Mountain, Ohio; Boston Mills/Brandywine, Ohio; and Alpine Valley, Wisconsin). In addition to holding National Ski Patrol credentials, he was known for his enthusiasm and optimism. “He has both of those in buckets,” said Chip Perfect, Perfect North president and co-owner.
Even though his experience had been in training patrollers, Perfect and General Manager Jonathan Davis approached McKinley about the snowsports school opening, and he jumped at the opportunity. “You don’t say no to Chip Perfect,” said McKinley, citing the fact that Perfect, despite his origins as a farmer, built a resort that stands as a pillar not just in the Midwest but in the snowsports industry. With his parents and other family members, Perfect spent a lifetime building Perfect North Slopes, innovating ways to introduce more people to snowsports (including a lesson with the purchase of every lift ticket – a practice that continued until the COVID pandemic) and reinvesting in resort improvements every year.
Perfect served as chairman of the board of the National Ski Areas Association and was recently recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the organization. “He doesn’t rely on luck; he makes his own luck,” said McKinley. “And Jonathan constantly checks in and asks what barriers he can help to remove to allow me do my job effectively.”
“We believe in four fundamentals,” said Perfect. “Do the right thing; exceed expectations; do whatever it takes; be positive and enthusiastic. Dave had all those attributes, and he brings the energy every day.”
McKinley said that while instructors welcomed him as their new leader, he also felt he had to prove himself. In his first season, he made the conscious effort to listen and learn. “I remember the first lesson I taught for the ski school,” he said – a 5-year-old with a mom and grandmother helicoptering nearby. “I also felt like all eyes were on me,” he recalled. Starting with boot games, they eventually skied a beginner trail off a lift. “It was nerve-racking, yet freeing,” he said. To this day, McKinley works six days a week, but he teaches regularly. “With all the balls I juggle on a regular basis, I like getting out and teaching,” he said. “Because when I teach, I only have one responsibility – that student’s experience.”
To read the rest of the feature, click here.