Tom Corcoran, 85, skier, founded Waterville Valley

CONCORD, N.H. — Tom Corcoran, an Olympic skier who founded the Waterville Valley ski resort in New Hampshire that became popular with racers and celebrities, has died. He was 85.

Former assistant Jan Stearns said Mr. Corcoran died Tuesday at his home in Seabrook Island, S.C., after a brief illness.

Gov. Chris Sununu, whose family bought the resort in 2010, offered his condolences yesterday and said he grew up skiing with Mr. Corcoran’s family.

“Tom wasn’t just the founder of Waterville Valley, he was the spirit that grew it into one of the most storied destinations in New England,” he said.

Mr. Corcoran was born Nov. 16, 1931, and grew up in Canada, where he attended a school in St. Jovite, Quebec, set up for the family that ran a nearby resort.

“We skied to school or rode the runners of the garbage sleigh, and skied every afternoon on the ropetow hill behind the Gray Rocks Inn,” Mr. Corcoran told a ski industry group for a biography in 2003. “At some point in those early St. Jovite years, my parents realized that I could ski, but couldn’t read, write, add or subtract very well despite our tutor’s best efforts.”

Mr. Corcoran was sent to New Hampshire for high school and graduated from Dartmouth College in 1954. He competed in the 1956 Olympics and again in 1960, when he placed fourth in the Giant Slalom — the best finish for an American man in the event until 2002, when Bode Miller won a silver medal. He also earned a master’s degree from Harvard Business School in 1959.

After time spent learning the ski industry in Colorado, he returned to New Hampshire and opened Waterville Valley Resort in the winter of 1966-67.