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Executive retreats Business leaders find recreational getaways foster new ideas and renew team spirit in ways traditional meetings can't By HEIDI RUSSELL The Associated Press AP photos Skytop Lodge Sales Director Robert Baldassari, above, sits by a fireplace in a conference room at Skytop Lodge, PA. The lodge, top, nestled in the Pocono Mountains, has doubled its business clientele since the mid-1990s by tailoring service to top executives. Below is the resort's lobby. SKYTOP, Pa. -- Perched in front of a crackling fire with a tall red ski cap covering his ears, Steven Rauschkolb sips wine and chats merrily with co-workers after a golf outing in frigid weather. Rauschkolb, director of training for Schering-Plough Corp., a pharmaceutical company in Kenilworth, N.J., needed a place to inspire new ideas, foster teamwork and rejuvenate his 19-member sales team after an intense, record-breaking year. Skytop Lodge, a 1920s-era Pocono mountain resort with a golf course and spa on its 5,500 acres, provided the atmosphere Rauschkolb wanted. The Dutch Colonial-style manor, overlooking the golf course, offers a breathtaking mountain view. The resort has doubled its clientele since the mid-1990s by tapping into a recent national trend: tailoring services to top executives who want to be coddled in comfortable surroundings and use the experience to spark creativity and cooperation. It has attracted guests from a variety of Fortune 500 companies, including Exxon, AT&T and First Union Bank. For Rauschkolb, the resort offered the right mix of services to spark the creative brainstorming he desired among his staff. "The results from this meeting are some of the best we've ever gotten," he says. "The great thing about Skytop is that it gives you a lot of flexibility. The response I've gotten from the team is that this place is terrific." The resort is one of hundreds nationwide catering to businesses interested in "experiential learning," in which recreational activities are used as metaphors for the business environment. Participants learn to solve a problem or hone a managerial skill through golfing, hiking and similar activities. "It grew out of things not related to the workplace -- Outward Bound and training in the military. It seems to have made a comeback in the last 10 years," says Pat Galagan, editor of the trade magazine Training and Development, published by the American Society for Training and Development, an association of 50,000 professional trainers. Today, about 30 percent of conference centers and hotels nationally have on-site adventure courses that did not exist 10 years ago, says Ann Smolowe of Project Adventure Inc. of Portland, Ore., an international training and consulting firm. "You can view golfing as recreation or as an educational tool," says Smolowe, who works with businesses at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort & Spa in Farmington, Pa. "If the group consists of company leadership, you may use it as a coaching tool." Nemacolin Woodlands offers services that include a 50-foot climbing wall and a ropes course with 21 obstacles that force co-workers to rely on each other. The idea is that they will then apply the cooperative skills in the workplace. At Skytop, flyfishing on a tranquil lake or putting on the expansive golf course are used to help executives apply coaching and managerial skills. The services account for about $3 million of Skytop's $12 million annual business. During the past four years, the resort has doubled the number of companies served to 250 a year. In July, Skytop opened an intimate 20-room, $5.7 million inn wedged between the front and back nine holes of its golf course with a panoramic mountain vista. The facility offers meeting space separated by soundproof doors so that business people can submerge themselves in a project without distractions from other guests. Rooms include fireplaces, private balconies and an in-room safe for valuables. Walking sticks for hiking and golfing umbrellas are in each closet. Books on topics ranging from bear hunting to relationships are available for bedside reading. The nightly package at the inn includes three meals with gourmet entrees such as slow-roasted, cinnamon-cured pork loin, as well as meeting rooms and greens fees. Prices range from about $250 to $400 a night, depending on whether guests stay at the secluded inn, in cabins or in the 127-room stone manor. Today's Business Index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA