During the Mammoth Lakes Tourism (MLT) Board meeting on Wednesday, Executive Director John Urdi’s wallet got even fatter. 

During Urdi’s Annual Performance Review for the 2021-2022 fiscal year, the board decided to give him a total of $27,462.23 in end-of-year bonuses, as well as an additional 3% salary increase ($6,386.57), effective October 1st. This placed his end-of-year salary, after the bonus and raise, at $246,734.35.

The year-end bonus was based on feedback from staff evaluations as well as a self-evaluation from Urdi. It included $9,579.85 in TBID (Tourism Business Improvement District) metrics, $9,579.85 in TOT (Transient Occupancy Tax) metrics, $5,109.25 from an MLT Board evaluation, and $3,193.28 from an MLT staff evaluation. 

Beyond salary and bonus, Urdi also enjoys perks including family health care, 401k, company vehicle, family Ikon passes and family golf passes. 

Treasurer John Morris kicked off the Executive Director review by pointing out comparisons in TOT from years prior. “This year’s TOT, compared to the previous 3 years, was a whopper, up 51%,” exclaimed Morris, pointing to how Urdi’s leadership helped contribute to this year’s impressive numbers. 

The board’s evaluation of Urdi was positive overall, notably in the areas of financial management, business relations, and marketing. However, the board felt that there could be improvements in “overall air service, community relations, and staff relations in the coming year.”

Due to this, Urdi earned an overall score of 7.7/10 for the year, and was granted 80% of his potential bonus amount from the MLT Board ($5,109.25) and 50% of his potential amount from MLT staff ($3,193.28). 

Chairman Jeremy Goico then brought up the fact that MLT plans to outsource for Human Resources (HR) in the future, which will allow Urdi to devote more time to improving his performance as MLT Executive Director. This will also give more time for internal communication and relations to improve. 

“We can source out HR tasks to a professional, so that John Urdi does not have to be the HR head for this organization and instead can focus on making the organization the best it can be, outside of that,” said Goico. 

The board hopes for October 1st to be when an HR representative is officially in place for the staff. 

Goico then proceeded to talk for another 5 minutes, hammering home the point that, although the performance review wasn’t perfect, Urdi is “doing an amazing job”.  

“Thank you, I appreciate it. As a leader, I’m a little disappointed and surprised from the internal results. That being said, I think that the comments were more directed to the board itself instead of just me as the leader. But keep plugging away,” concluded Urdi after his review was over. 

Also during the meeting, MLT committed to devoting an additional $225,000 to Advanced Airlines for a 2022-23 winter subsidy. 

“Fuel prices have hit record highs, ticket prices are higher, we are still coming out of Covid. These are all reasons that we need to incentivize Advanced Air,” explained John Morris.  

Goico motioned to approve the item, it was seconded by Boardmember Eric Clark and unanimously approved by the rest of the board. 

Director of Sales and International Marketing Michael Vanderhurst presented during department updates, where he discussed Alterra’s recent trip to Brazil, which included 19 training sessions over two cities and 5 days. “Training was 100% focused on snow … it was a very productive week,” said Vanderhurst. Alterra has another sales mission, this time in Europe, coming up within the next month. The topic of this mission will be summer visitation, but “we will be talking about this winter, too,” said Vanderhurst.