Colter Lingelbach-Pierce ’25

Field Technician for HKD Snowmakers

Natick, Massachusetts 

Colter Lingelbach-Pierce ’25 grew up on ski slopes, and now he gets to help create snow for almost every ski resort in the U.S.

Colter is a field technician for HKD Snowmakers, a company that manufactures and supplies energy-efficient snowmaking technology and is based in Natick, Massachusetts, with additional offices in Lyme, New Hampshire, and Boischatel, Quebec, Canada, and affiliates all over the world. He had a pretty interesting on-campus job at Conn as well: Colter drove the Zamboni at Dayton Arena during afternoon and evening ice hockey practices. Off the ice, he majored in history with a minor in environmental studies and was a midfielder on the Men’s Lacrosse team.

Colter’s connection to winter sports is in his DNA. Both of his parents skied in college and met as ski academy coaches in Vermont. His father is a former coach for the Dartmouth Ski Team and the U.S. Ski Team, which counted Colter’s paternal uncle as a member. The family runs a bed-and-breakfast, Pierce’s Inn, in Etna, New Hampshire, which was passed down by Colter’s grandparents. “There’s a ski hill behind the house that my grandparents ran, and there are still ski trails out there that we ski on a fair amount.”

Colter interned for HKD Snowmakers in the summer of 2024 and began working for the company full-time in June. He spent a week in July training at the company’s factory in Boischatel, Quebec, Canada, where he met more of the team that ensures mountains all over the world are covered in prime powder. “All the work that I do is basically at the ski mountains, whether its installing new snowmaking equipment or fixing existing infrastructure. I've been running machinery almost my whole life. I've been making snow and running Snowcats for five years, so that’s where I've familiarized myself with the industry.”

At Conn, Colter learned a lot in the classroom and on the lacrosse field that he uses in the office and on the slopes, he says.

“You have to be a problem solver, and you have to get things done on time in college and at work, and you have to be very good at communicating. Sports taught me a lot about teamwork, obviously, and hard times, good times, and staying levelheaded. There's so much that goes into what makes you good at your career.”

Colter says several faculty and staff members made an impact on his academic career. “There were a lot of great folks in the athletic department who I also took classes with and worked for,” he says, including Head Women’s Soccer Coach Norm Riker, Head Men’s Ice Hockey Coach Jim Ward, and especially Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach Jim Nagle. “Coach Nagle played a tremendous role during my time at Conn, and was a great mentor. I also really enjoyed taking his class, because we got to discuss sports in a very different environment.”

He also credits his adviser, Professor of History Eileen Kane, with helping to guide him through his major. And in Associate Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies Julia Flagg’s course, “ES493P: Disasters,” Colter was able to research the impact of climate change on the ski industry. “She allowed me to steer my projects toward something I was really passionate about,” he says.

In many ways, Colter says he is still a student. “Working with professors is similar to where I'm at right now in my career. I'm pretty new to the technical automation side of snowmaking, and everyone in the company has been in this business for a while, and they're excellent teachers. It’s like being in the classroom.”

Ironically, summer is the busiest time in the winter sports industry, so Colter has had to hit the ground running. He traveled not only to Quebec but also to Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont in a two-week period. He’s looking forward to an upcoming project at Deer Valley Resort in Utah that will require all hands on deck, he says. “Our busy season is from May to Christmas and then, surprisingly, the downtime is in winter, because everyone is up and running. That gives me time to ski and check out all the work we've done.”