Black Tie North Lake Tahoe Featured in “Meet Your Merchant” Profile

The Sierra Sun in Truckee, Calif. recently featured the North Lake Tahoe branch of Black Tie Ski Rentals in its weekly “Meet Your Merchant” profile. It was a timely story as Black Tie co-founder Joe Sternberg was in town from Steamboat Springs, Colo. to do a pre-season visit with the team. The reporter, Jason Shueh, sat down with Sternberg and North Lake Tahoe owners Scott and Adam Kmitta to discuss how the company came to be and how things are shaping up for the upcoming season.

Sternberg started out by sharing some insight into the inspiration for creating Black Tie, “I saw the anguish of people waiting in line and just the lack of personal attention, the herding of the cattle through the rental shop, and I did that for five years and it was just not the way to take care of people.” The lack of service Sternberg noticed at traditional rental shops led him to partner with Black Tie co-founder Ian Prichard to make the ski rental delivery company a reality.

Shueh continues to explain that, “Black Tie’s North Tahoe locale, based in Truckee, is a testament to wild success of delivery-based ski services, brothers Adam and Scott Kmitta know. The two have operated Black Tie’s North Tahoe location as co-owners since 2005 when the two brought the delivery service to the Tahoe Truckee region.”

The article continues that Sternberg and the Kmitta brothers attribute the wild growth nationally and locally to visitors demanding to maximize their vacation times and avoid hassles at airports lugging gear, waiting in long lines at resorts or spending travel time heading to a nearby rental store.

The Kmitta brothers also attribute growth at the North Lake Tahoe branch to the millions of dollars in capital improvements, marketing outreach and investments recently made at resorts such as Northstar-at-Tahoe and Squaw Valley USA.

To read the complete “Meet Your Merchant” profile, please click here.