RED MOUNTAIN POOL TO BE FILLED?
By Sall Goodman
July 8th, 2004

Well it would seem that the hole in the parking lot may actually be filled in sometime in the near future with the recent purchase of the mountain by Red Mountain Ventures Inc.

US citizen and San Diego California resident, Howard Katkov is the owner on the front line and I understand that there are others involved but they have not been publicly disclosed.

Apparently, Katkov has been visiting Rossland for the last few years and owns a home in town. His love of the area and the mountain is what caused him to pursue the purchase of Red. According to various reports, he is an avid athlete, devoted family man and all around nice guy.

Me too! (He says with a slight grin)

Now that the deal has closed, its time to take off the rose colored glasses and do some "due diligence" on Katkov and his band of merry entrepreneurs.

Katkov is a real estate lawyer by trade and in the process became a real estate developer. According to various sources he developed in excess of 3000 homes in his career. He then went on to form Sassaby Inc. with Don Pettit a cosmetics company with the JANE brand that targeted the teen and young adult market place.

Sassaby Inc. was then subsequently sold to cosmetics giant Estee Lauder in October 1997 for approximately $50mm in stock and cash. Katkov remained with Estee Lauder for another three years after the fact running the JANE line.

Katkov them teamed up with Thomas Buettgenbach to run the corporate service company, Dock 3 in 2001. The company provides large corporations with basic services for employees to avoid them running around on company time and causing productivity to decrease. In essence, a dot COM like BtoB concept with a personal touch. Tasks such as picking up dry cleaning, having the car serviced etc. are just a couple of services that Dock 3 offers.

Katkov apparently has resigned as CEO of Dock 3 to tackle the job of running Red Mountain Ventures but still remains as Chairman of the Board.

Pretty nice CV if you ask me!

So lets cut to the chase.

Howard Katkov did not buy Red Mountain because he is a nice guy; he bought the mountain to profit from the ensuing development of the area. It is blatantly obvious that he is a very shrewd entrepreneur and his legal and real estate development background provide him with the tools to make money - big money! At the expense of whom is to be determined, but I digress.

As I wrote in 2001, the development of Red should be done from the perspective of how the local community will benefit and grow over time. (See Sall November 2001)

Of course it is far too early to develop any opinions of Mr. Katkov and his merry entrepreneurs, but some of the signs of "getting in" are already evident.

However, I remain cautiously optimistic.

Quite honestly if all he did this season was fill in the f(*&^%g hole in the parking lot I would be ecstatic as would the entire town.

We'll see…stay tuned!

Rock-On,
Sall

Next Month Sall goes to the east coast for some lobster, tunes and golf.