SKIING THE EAST HERMAN KRESS DUPRÉ

Dupré was a master tinkerer who elevated the Seven Springs experience and revolutionized manmade snow. When he took over Seven Springs in 1955, he transformed it from a small, private hunting and fishing club into a 5,000-acre, fourseason resort, which today includes a 10-story hotel. He was dedicated to the resort, snowmaking, nature and to his wife and their nine daughters.

Dupré was born in 1932 to Bavarian immigrants just 30 minutes away from Seven Springs in Ligonier, Penn. He returned home at 22, leaving a Coast Guard career to take over the family business when his father died.

The operation was tiny at the time. Within a year, Herman managed to secure a liquor license in a dry county, installed a Poma lift, and opened Seven Springs to the public.

COURTESY OF U.S. SKI & SNOWBOARD HALL OF FAME

If you’re a Mid-Atlantic skier you’ve probably heard of Herman Kress Dupré and Seven Springs Resort, the ski area his family founded some 75 years ago in wooded hills an hour’s drive from Pittsburgh.

Wherever you’re from, it’s almost certain that you’ve enjoyed making turns on the smooth surface provided by Dupré’s HKD Snowmaking systems, which are used by an estimated 750 resorts around the world.

Dupré’s father had bought the original 2.5 acres at Seven Springs for $13 in a tax sale, and the son followed his father’s thriftiness and creativity.

One Dupré family rule was that everyone would work. The nine daughters waited tables, checked tickets, and taught skiing and tennis.

Looking to bolster the resort’s 135 inches of natural snowfall, Dupré began tinkering with snowmaking in the late 1960s. With a chemistry degree from Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, his first humble efforts involved garden hoses, golf course sprinklers, and a compressor he’d found in a salvage yard.

weeks of hard skiing. Plastic was clearly the future, but most models were painful and cut too low to provide the leverage needed to power fiberglass skis. With Coomer’s detailed analysis and resulting design scheme, Nordica was able to reinforce its boots and stabilize the ankle.

Nordica soon achieved an astounding 30% market share. Coomer continued to innovate and developed the still beloved two-piece Grand Prix race boot. A few years later, he debuted the cabriolet Comp-3, which made the basis of the Raichle Flexon, which is still sold today under K2’s Full Tilt banner.

In 1976, Coomer partnered with Dr. Chris Smith and Dennis Brown to create Superfeet custommolded insoles. He moved to California and opened the Footloose Sports retail store. More advances followed, including the Skithotic, the first molded footbed that could be created in a ski shop.

In the 1980s, Coomer continued to work with various brands, including San Marco (now Head), and Koflach (now Atomic). He introduced the Silicone Personalization System, the first custom liners that didn’t require hazardous materials or bulky injection equipment.

In 1999, he began development of the flexible sole I-Flex system with partner Hans Martin Heierling, which was the basis for the Atomic Redster race boot, worn today by World Cup champions Mikaela Shiffrin and Marcel Hirscher.

Dupré eventually secured 34 patents to further advance the science of forcing water and pressurized air through a snow gun.

In 1991, he launched the game-changing tower snow gun, and the company that eventually became HKD was born. The 30-foot HKD tower was the first gun to mix air and water externally, producing dramatic savings on the power bill.

The modern ski resort business would not exist today without snowmaking, and HKD is in play at many of the country’s premier resorts from coast to coast, including Boyne and Crystal in Michigan and Jackson Hole Mountain Resort.

In 2001, Dupré was honored with the Sherman Adams Award from the National Ski Areas Association for lifetime achievement. In 2013, SKI named the Duprés one of the country’s “Five First Families of American Skiing.”

The Duprés sold Seven Springs in 2006 to the Nuttings of West Virginia. The Nuttings acquired nearby ski areas Hidden Valley and Laurel Mountain, then sold all three to Vail Resorts for $118 million in 2021.

Herman Dupré passed away on April 25, 2020, leaving his wife, Mary, nine daughters (Denise, Laura, Rosi, Anni, Jan, Heidi, Gretl, Michele, and Renee) and 29 grandchildren.