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PARK CITY — Jon and Carla Good pick up and move — twice a year, every year. And they're not alone. Their industry depends on it.
Their story begins in Utah, every year, when there is snow on the ground.
"OK, we are ready for another beautiful day at Deer Valley," Carla Good said on a winter day in April as she and her husband prepared to serve diners at one of Utah's ritziest ski resorts. "And it's a pretty view. You can tell people love it, to sit here."
Carla is from Chile; Jon is from Montana. They work together as servers in the Royal Street Cafe at Deer Valley Resort. It's not a bad wintertime job for someone who loves to ski in the off hours.
"I ski almost every day," Jon Good said. "I get out about six days a week."
As the wintertime snow disappears, though, the Goods' thoughts turn elsewhere — to spring and summer in a very different place. They spend the warmer parts of the year working in the San Juan Islands at Roche Harbor, Washington, a place as dedicated to expensive boating as Deer Valley is to expensive skiing.
Carla serves customers on the deck of the Madrona Bar & Grill, just a few feet from the waters of Puget Sound. Jon works behind the bar, warming up after their usual winter at Deer Valley.
"I think that's one of the greatest things about this," Jon Good said, "is to be able to do the mountains in the winter and the ocean in the summer. And that's a real special thing for us."
While serving a table, Carla Good explained her lifestyle to four diners.
"It's a really special place," she told them. "We met here and we got married here, and we love it."
"When this is the view from your office every day, you can't complain," she said, looking across hundreds of expensive yachts and powerboats.
The Goods have been doing the semiannual resort swap for 10 years.
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"Both places are so enjoyable," Jon Good said. "We kind of feel like we have two homes."
Sometimes working in one place, one season, they dream about the other place, in the other season.
"The summers in the San Juan Islands are just magical," Carla Good said, sitting at her wintertime workplace in Utah. "To be able to enjoy the sunsets every day from the place where you work is priceless."
Many Deer Valley employees have built their lives around similar seasonal swaps, including Alex Marica and his wife.
"Yeah, it's been going on for 13 years already," Marica said. "We even have a 5-year-old son that we're trying to work into this lifestyle."
Both places are so enjoyable. We kind of feel like we have two homes.
–Jon Good
Keeping good employees is a big challenge in the seasonal resort industry. So Deer Valley and Roche Harbor informally work together.
"When they're looking for staff, they give us a call," said Deer Valley chef Chris Gibson. "They come here on recruiting trips. Our recruiters go and visit there."
As much as the Goods love their lifestyle, Jon Good admits it may have to change someday.
"Once you get the kids and the dog and everything else, it's going to be a lot harder to do this," he said. "But at this point in our lives, I think it's a great opportunity. And we're focused on that."
They've found one other advantage: They get a few weeks off every spring to visit Jon's family in Montana, and every fall to visit Carla's in Chile.
One employee at Deer Valley has even found a way to get two winters every year. She works at Deer Valley during Utah's wintertime and at a ski resort in Australia during wintertime down under.
