A local man known for his distinctive glasses (inspired by the Oceans 11 movie character Reuben Tishkoff) is also a man who wears many hats. That man, Mat Woods, is the head of sales at Cardrona Alpine Resort, chair of Lake Wanaka Tourism, a Snowsports NZ board member, Racers Edge board director, husband to Deb and father of Daisy (10).

The “mad keen skier” scored his dream job at Cardrona in 2016, but he has a long history with Wanaka’s skifields and a business career which started in the ski workshop of one of New Zealand’s first outdoor sports retailers.

Mat was raised in small-town Bunnythorpe (near Palmerston North) and went to Otago University to complete his BComm and Economics degrees - an obvious choice for someone who “really likes numbers”.

At Otago he not only got a degree but also a wife (Deb), then spent a year as a “ski bum” in Colorado while waiting for Deb to finish her law degree. 

“When I graduated I didn’t want to wear a suit,” Mat said, so on his return to Dunedin he gravitated to outdoor adventure brand R&R Sport’s ski workshop. This was the early 1990s, before Kathmandu and Rebel Sport: outdoor retail was in its infancy. Mountain biking was just getting started and snowboarding was a new phenomena, Mat said. 

Paul Highton founded R&R Sport in 1981 and Mat joined the business in 1993. The business was successful, and when Mat proposed R&R open a new store in Auckland Paul agreed - but only if Mat invested as well.

“Opportunities present themselves and you take them or let them go by,” Mat said. It was 1993, he managed to find the funds, and spent the next two decades helping grow the business to ten stores nationwide. Paul, Mat’s mentor as well as business partner, sold his share in the business in 2012. He died of leukemia in 2014.

That same year The Warehouse Group offered to buy the business and R&R accepted their offer. Mat joined the team of The Warehouse Group (a business with more than 12,000 staff) for a couple of years. 

Mat Woods has an array of season passes from throughout the years. PHOTO: Supplied

“It was a really interesting time”, Mat said, with significant opportunities for professional development. But the weekly commute from Wanaka to Auckland was demanding, and Mat felt he was missing out on Daisy’s childhood.

He finally decided, “It’s their train set, let them play with it”, and jumped at another opportunity - his dream job, right here in Wanaka.

Cardrona Alpine Resort advertised its head of sales role, Mat went for it, and four years later he says his friends still tell him to stop raving about his job.

Mat had been skiing Treble Cone since his university days (he grew up skiing at Ruapehu) but made the move to Cardrona when Daisy was learning to ski. 

“I went to Cardrona as a guest with my family and thought, ‘there’s something different’,” he said. He got a feel for the culture, was impressed by the skifield’s values, and inspired by the general manager Bridget Legnavsky. 

“And it came back to ‘I really don’t want to be a suit-wearing business guy’,” he said. “‘This is my real job’ is my favourite t-shirt to wear to work.”

“I’m happy going to work every day. It’s like running eight different businesses,” he said, citing the snow sports programme, apartments, cafes, retail and rental.

He’s seen a lot of changes in four years. In 2016 there were some “very tired, worn out buildings”, a lot of choke points, and a veteran chairlift as the main artery of the field. 

Replacing that chairlift with the Chondola was a key step, he said, and the resort has moved from being just a winter business to a summer business as well with the development of the Cardrona Bike Park.

Access to Soho Basin is underway, and Mat was part of the senior management team which last year developed the business case to purchase Treble Cone Ski Area. 

“These opportunities don’t come to you every day,” Mat said. 

You get the impression this passionate skier couldn’t be happier to have played a part in a deal which Wanaka skiers have speculated about for decades.

And while Mat is proud of Cardrona’s record on sustainability (the resort uses 100 per cent renewable electricity, it ditched plastic bottles last December and single-use cups three years ago), he knows the skifield’s access road is the “number one environmental impact”. 

The ‘what if’ scenario of an electric gondola from the valley floor may be one of those dreams - like access to Soho or a dual pass with Treble Cone - which comes true eventually.

Mat joined the LWT board last year. He thought his 24 years of governance, business and tourism experience was a useful skill set to offer, and Cardrona encourages senior staff to “give back” to boards.

He’s particularly interested in offering his experience in “sustainable environmental impact” and “taking businesses on the journey” to do things better.

Mat enjoying Treble Cone PHOTO: Supplied

This raises one of Wanaka’s hot topics: the future of Wanaka Airport. Mat points out he wears a range of different hats in his various roles, and won’t be drawn on his personal view. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, he said.

“I think we should have support groups so you can talk about the airport. It would be nice for people in Wanaka to actually have the conversation,” he said.

In the meantime, Wanaka is weathering an “incredibly challenging time”. December’s floods and access challenges were followed by the local impact of Australia’s bushfires. Milford Sound’s closure is also having a significant impact on tourism, and now the COVID-19 pandemic is here.

Mat says it’s too early to say what the impact of these challenges will be, and how resilient Wanaka operators can be.

“This is going to be an interesting winter,” he says.

And while we may be facing travel bans, and Australia’s ‘holiday at home’ campaign, Tourism New Zealand is also running a ‘This is how we winter’ campaign. 

Cardrona’s market is 60 per cent domestic, 30 per cent Australian. Mat points out that Japan has had a poor season, so maybe we will see some of those skiers in Wanaka this winter. 

But if all else fails, Wanaka’s slopes may be populated by Kiwis this year, he says with a grin. A chance for Mat to wear one of his favourite hats: his ski helmet.