New ORDA CEO talks about the role and her plans for state-owned Olympic facilities
By James M. Odato
In September, former Olympic luger Ashley Walden, the head of the Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games, became the Olympic Regional Development Authority’s chief executive officer.
She beat eight other finalists, including five ORDA officers and Assemblyman Billy Jones, D-Chateaugay Lake, who says he is committed to his job as a lawmaker.
Walden, 41, replaced Mike Pratt, 62. He retired after 38 years, six as CEO, at ORDA.
In an interview, Walden said her worldwide sports relationships and background as a top athlete—disciplined about planning and reaching goals—prepared her for the $195,000-per-year post, although she must strengthen facilities management skills.
A Lake Placid resident since 2005, she said she likes to downhill ski with her 10-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son, and, from growing up in Massachusetts, roots for Boston teams and looks at a Tom Brady poster on her office wall that says: “Do your job.”
How will you promote winter sports development, training and competitions at Whiteface, Gore, Mount Van Hoevenberg and Belleayre, into which the state has invested $600 million since 2017?
When I first came to Lake Placid as an athlete, there was much more robust sports training. With the modernized venues, we can bring a lot of those sports back here, such as speed skating and aerial skiing. It’s important that we not only host international competitions, but that we build up training and development programs.
What do you do if state funding falls below expectations for capital projects?
Evaluate and prioritize the projects based on what stage they are in and what the impact would be for scaling back or postponing.
What if operating income couldn’t cover costs?
This is more difficult. I am still trying to get a handle on operations. Our goal is to cut down on expenses and generate more revenue. There are things like events or projects that we are bound to, but certainly there would be a thorough look at things that cost or generate revenue, but we would have to follow our charter and run international events at our venues that are not high revenue generators but are important to our area and our community, that make us unique. World Cup and regional and national competitions are not things that make money, but they’re part of who we are.
How do you recruit and retain employees?
The more there are opportunities for growth, we’re going to retain our staff. It’s harder to find workforce; everybody is going for the same pool of people especially in rural areas where we are. We need to be smart and look at technologies available to reduce dependency on staff—more mobile ordering of food and beverages and use of kiosks to purchase tickets and products.
Are you experiencing housing obstacles?
During the university games, recruits turned down jobs because they could not find housing, and some were allowed to work remotely. I don’t have a solution. I would like to strengthen and build relationships with our communities to help solve problems we’re all facing.
How did you decide to apply for the CEO job?
I thought about it for a couple of weeks. I wanted to make sure. I referenced being involved with the USA Bobsled and Skeleton (she led sports and medical programs from 2012 to 2019) team that went to the 2014 Sochi Olympics. That was a successful team.
Were you surprised you were chosen to lead ORDA?
A bit, because this job entails a lot of different skill sets; there’s a sports side and a facilities side. It depended on the direction the board was going. If it was the sports side, then I would have been the candidate.
Management team changes?
We have two vacancies right now and there could be some restructuring after the departures of the director of sports and vice president for operations.
Did you have situations with the World University Games where things didn’t go as hoped?
I started with the project in 2019; less than a year later, there’s the pandemic. Nobody knew where the market would go; we had sponsorship goals. We had a major event that was going to bring thousands of people to the area, and we had travel restrictions, travel bans, maybe 18 months where nothing went according to plans. We delayed hiring by more than a year. It was high-profile, with a lot of stakeholders with different ideas of success; we had a lot of balancing to do, and our responsibility was to the International University Sports Federation to meet their minimum requirements. Then political unrest from Russia’s invasion – very few things over that four-year period went as planned. There were several challenges we had to overcome and certainly in the end we did, and we were able to host the event.
Photo at top of Ashley Walden provided by ORDA
“Our goal is to cut down on expenses and generate more revenue.” -Ashley Walden-
Are you kidding me?
ORDA has been running at a deficit since it was created and without the relatively large subsidies that ORDA receives from NY State there would be no ORDA. Moreover, Lake Placid by virtue of having a municipal electric utility buys electricity (“preference power”) from the NY Power Authority at lower rates than if it had to buy electricity from a privately-owned for-profit electric utility; ORDA benefits from this marketplace distortion.
The Adirondack Region has no vibrant and growing middle-class. The loss of paper mills and the near-extinction of the mining industry has only made this situation worse. Lake Placid in my opinion is pretty much a playground for the rich and the environmentalists and it will remain so indefinitely regardless of ORDA’s activities.
Nothing personal Ms. Walden but your previous statement is amateurish and insincere.
I wish you the best of luck in your new position.