Rob Katz can't be all that much of a douche. I have a buddy that works at Vail and he said that he paid back the amount of money that they cut for 401K matching for the last year for employees. He also made available the Epic Pass, which is an awesome deal. Before the Epic Pass, if you wanted to ski Vail and Beaver Creek you had to either work for the mountain, get a merchant pass by working in Eagle County, buy an $1800 dollar pass, or get the Colorado Pass, which only gave you 10 combined days at Vail or Beaver Creek. Now anyone in Colorado can ski unlimited days at 5 mountains (Vail, BC, A-Basin, Keystone, Breck, and Heavenly) with an Epic Pass that is around $600. That's a really good deal and that would have never happened with the old CEO.
But cutting pay sucks.