Welch Village co-founder and skiing advocate Leigh Nelson dies at 94

Only Leigh Nelson could ski close to 90 days as a 90-year-old, or so say his family and friends.

Nelson, who co-founded the Welch Village ski area with his brother Clem, was a lifelong skier and a passionate ski enthusiast who took every chance he got to advocate for the sport and improve the ski industry for smaller resorts throughout the U.S.

"Skiing is like religion; it's one convert at a time," Nelson told the Star Tribune in 2003.

Nelson died at home in his sleep last month at 94.

Nelson was born in 1928, the middle of three sons. As he told it, a well-meaning Lutheran minister misspelled his intended name, Lee, on birth records.

The man who eventually improved ski areas across the Midwest didn't start his career in skiing. After growing up in Welch and attending nearby Red Wing High School, Nelson graduated from the University of Minnesota with a chemical engineering degree. He traveled across the United States with his wife Mary while working for Shell Oil Corp. before settling back in Minnesota with a job at 3M.

Nelson and his brother Clem founded Welch Village in August 1965. It was one of a number of Midwest ski resorts that opened at that time, when skiing's popularity exploded throughout the U.S.

"You ask anybody in the ski industry, they're not going to find anybody more passionate," Nelson's grandson, Peter Zotalis, said. "He was convinced that literally anybody, any family, should try skiing because it would change their life forever."

Zotalis is Welch Village's current president. He joined Nelson in 2006, learning the business from his grandfather after years of skiing with him on its slopes.

In the late '90s Nelson spearheaded a push to install smaller lifts at ski areas in the Midwest, which often were ignored by chair lift manufacturers that favored large-scale resorts in Colorado and other areas out west.

He convinced manufacturers to put custom chair lifts at Welch Village then talked other ski areas into doing the same, creating a new market that has saved many businesses money in the long run, said Amy Reents, president and executive director of the Midwest Ski Areas Association.

"He was really kind of an inspiration to a lot of people in the industry," Reents said.

They stopped at a private country club where Nelson talked their way into playing with a father-son duo. Zotalis, then 15, wasn't sure about golfing at a place with a dress code.

The other golfers were practically professionals, and Zotalis was forced to wear fancy golf duds – all adding up to a potentially embarrassing experience for a teen.

"I really remember that as a moment where (Nelson) really taught me to be self-confident and believe in myself," Zotalis said. "I remember playing really well that day. It was fine, I lived through it, but it was really one of those times in your life that sticks out."

Nelson is survived by his wife, Diane Cooper Nelson, a son, a stepson, two daughters and 16 grandchildren and step-grandchildren.