’81 SKI-DUDE

Barrington native Mark Zito spent each summer in high school on a boat in Wisconsin. He vacationed and worked in the Badger State, with the boat doubling as his seasonal home.

His late father, Jack Zito, had bought a Door County marina in 1968.

“I’d return to Barrington, in time for the start of school each fall, and I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I thought you had moved,’ ” recalls a chuckling Zito, a 1981 Barrington High School graduate. The 60-year-old now resides way above sea level—some 8,200 feet—in Avon, Colorado, the state he has called home since 1984.

“Boating and yachting interested me until I was 19 or 20,” Zito says. “I even got my captain’s license from the U.S. Coast Guard. But the mountains called me.”

And enthralled him, especially the ones wrapped in snow. Buhbye, sailing. Hello, schussing.

“You’ve heard the saying, ‘Go West, young man,’” says Zito, a regular at Wisconsin’s Wilmot Mountain Ski Resort back in his geometry/study hall days. “Well, that’s what I did.”

Zito enrolled at—where else? —the University of Colorado Boulder, befriended members of the school’s hyper-competitive NCAA ski team, and heard from a buddy that Spyder, a manufacturer of high-end ski gear, was looking for warehouse help.

Zito landed the job.

“Got up the next day at 4:45 a.m., and went to work, packing boxes,” Zito says. “The year was 1984.”

This year?

Zito is the store manager of Vail Sports at the base of Vail’s Gondola One in Colorado. Vail Sports is owned by Vail Resorts Inc., which happens to own Wilmot Mountain Ski Resort. Zito’s shop provides custom rental solutions, a huge selection of equipment and apparel, and the Valley’s most professional staff.

“Skiing can be complex,” says Zito, who, for 25 years, served as a sales rep for a number of companies and worked for the Nike of ski products, Rossignol, for 10 years. “For example, ski boot fitting might not seem like something major in our industry, but to me it is. It’s an art, and I treat it as such. Skiers need to be in the right ski boots.”

“It’s no fun,” he adds, “if your feet hurt while you’re trying to enjoy a ski trip.”

Looking for advice on the best spots to navigate powder slopes or groomers? Ski guru Zito is your man in that realm, too.

“The entire ski industry still exhilarates me, but not just from a business standpoint,” Zito says. “I love the outdoors, the fresh air, the rush of skiing downhill, and the social aspect of it.”

Zito returned to the Barrington area during the winter of 2012- The youngest of Jack and the late Noni’s six children, he lived with brother Kevin in Island Lake to be near his elderly parents.

During that time, Zito became a fixture at Viking Ski Shop in Barrington. “I now see Viking customers at my store in Colorado; I get phone calls from them as well,” says Zito, whose wife of four years, Tina, owns Remix, a consignment store in Edwards, Colorado that features a wide array of luxury items.

Zito’s memories of Barrington range from frequenting Dunkin’ Donuts and 7-Eleven to blasting pitches at the ball field behind his family’s house in Fox Point.

“I kept a low profile when I was young,” admits Zito, a cancer survivor. “Barrington is a great little town. My parents provided a stable childhood for me. I’m proud of where I grew up.”