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[Kelly]

The pioneer of ski lifts Pierre Montaz died this Tuesday, August 3, at the age of 97.
Pierre Montaz began his career in 1943 as a boom operator at Alpe d'Huez before being hired the following year as a ski lift fitter for Jean Pomagalski. In 1950, he developed, with his colleague Victor Mautino, a locksmith at Poma, a light and removable station for a detachable ski lift: station B (like Baby).

The taste for business led the two men to create their own metalworking company in 1952: SARL Montaz Mautino, near Grenoble. Montaz Mautino took advantage of the snow plans of the French state and the explosion of winter sports during the 1950s and 1960s. The manufacturer delivered hundreds of examples of ski lifts to all the mountains of France, and equipped almost exclusively some stations!
In the early 1960s, Pierre Montaz entered the two-seater fixed chairlift market. In 1970, he installed a first two-seater detachable chairlift in Les Ores, in collaboration with engineer Pierre Goirand from Neyrpic. A precursor device for current "light" detachable chairlifts!
Pierre Montaz further diversified his company's range by investing in the cable car market in 1976. Montaz Mautino notably delivered the Planpraz cable car to Chamonix in 1979, reusing the imposing concrete pylons from 1928!
In order to position himself on the bicable market, Pierre Montaz entered into an agreement in 1978 with Saunier Duval and PHB (Pohlig Heckel Bleichert). At the dawn of the 1980s, the Montaz Mautino company employed 130 people.
Pierre Montaz left the company he had founded in 1984. Always invested in a passion for ski lifts, he readily responded to requests and occasionally gave conferences. He has written a few books combining cable history and personal memories, notably Les pionniers du ski-lift., a book that we can only recommend to those who wish to immerse themselves in the adventure of the precursors of the ski lift of which he was one of the main protagonists!

Article courtesy Remontees Mecaniques

MM history: https://www.remontee...az-mautino.html

Obit #2: https://www.ledauphi...niques-est-mort

[Bogong]

I always wondered about Montaz Mautino as they stand out in the list of companies that built lifts in Australia and New Zealand because they only built a single lift, the 1976 vintage Lakeside Poma-lift at Falls Creek.
Despite being surrounded by more modern chairlifts, it is still operational.