WOODSTOCK — Les Otten founded Project Opportunity, a nonprofit that awards scholarship and grant money to local teens. Last Thursday he made a rare appearance at a retreat the group held at the 4H Club in Woodstock.

Otten explained his motives for starting the fund in 1988, “Nothing is ever as pure as it seems when it starts. There are always motivations that come together to make something happen. For me there was excess cash, money leftover that didn’t need to go to build the next lift. There was Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation/Maine Handicapped skiing that was churning money.” At the time, Otten owned Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry.

The Project Opportunity fund currently holds around a million dollars and students can apply for money for anything from supplies to build a boat to tuition for college or trade school. The group held the retreat to re-examine their mission.

Around the table with Otten were other board members: John Eliot, Ted Davis, Marjorie Osgood,  Jamie Hastings, Claire Carver, Marjorie Osgood and Lyndsey Smith. Michelle Cole, executive director, was there, too. She represents Les Otten at meetings. Josh Mallory and Charlie Raymond were not in attendance for this part of the retreat.

Otten explained that Gould and Telstar “the haves and have-nots,” had split apart years earlier (1968) and he felt that he and Sunday River had a great opportunity to help kids like himself. (He had struggled with school because of dyslexia). “What can I do to enrich the educational community that would be good for everybody?” When he brought the idea to the board of the Bethel Savings Bank, someone asked, “But who’s going to drive the trucks?” Otten said when he walked out of that room he thought, “I have to do this myself.”

When Project Opportunity began in 1988, 20% of Telstar students dropped out before completing four years of high school.  Forty percent of the 1987 class did not plan to pursue any further formal education. The board,  “felt the need for local initiatives to help raise student awareness is clear.”

“Great people come from small towns just as well as big ones … Because of where we are from, we are undervalued,” said Otten. He said IQ’s from school to school are not so different. “What is different, is we, as a community, don’t regard success or higher education or accomplishment. We are still sort of sucked backwards because of the roots where everyone came from and our interest in the community.

He advised the Project Opportunity board to figure out first if they had the right amount of money they need to inspire.

Next he asked, “how do you inspire the C,D,B students and maybe the A students who just happen to be naturally smart and get everything right but don’t really have a direction they want to go in life?

“It was an aspirations compact that started this and in order to have an aspiration you have to be inspired.” He suggested the board be non-conventional in their approach. Where was that aspirational inspirational moment for you? Where are those kids that are sort of leftover? He suggested they inspire staff so they have more to give back to the kids. “Don’t stop at just the kids. Look deep into the bowels at what makes up SAD-44 and see what you’re doing.”

Otten who owned Sunday River from 1980-2001, also talked to the group about his founding of Maine Handicapped Skiing with partner Omar D. “Chip” Crothers, M.D., and where the inspiration for that endeavor came from.

“There are a number of different motivations as to why you do things. you have to look back and see what was the purity of the thought when you started and even if it was an impure thought if it was great outcome, pat yourself on the back for the outcome.. don’t bother yourself about having a questionable motivation for getting started…”

He explained that an employee, Ann Friedlander, who ran the Sunday River Ski School, asked if it would be alright if they taught a handicapped two-year old to ski, while her parents skied.

Later, her orthopod (Crothers) came to Sunday River to ask what they were doing since the health of the girl had improved. “We ski,” was Otten’s response.

Otten said he felt he hadn’t done anything of value, “I basically just said ‘yes’ to an employee.”

He said, “by accident” he became the co-founder of Maine Adaptive when Crothers asked if more children could come to ski.  “It was a business decision for me, until…” Then he explains what became a seminal moment in his life.

He said, as a 38-year-old know-it-all, he was asked to be the keynote speaker at a National Realtors Convention. When he boarded the plane a severely handicapped, drooling, teenaged girl was seated beside him in first class. “The disgusting part is that I was repulsed at that moment …’wow buddy this is right in your face,'” he said recalling the moment.

The flight attendant offered to move him, but he said,  “I somehow rose to the occasion,” and stayed put. While the young woman was non-verbal, he decided to believe she was highly intelligent and could understand all he was saying.  As an aspiring pilot, he talked the typically agitated flyer through the entire trip. When they landed the crew told him it was the first time this young woman had made it through the flight without being emotional.

Otten related his opportunity on the plane to the group’s opportunity to make good use of the money they have at Project Opportunity. “You guys have that same opportunity with the million dollars you have in the bank…I was just a guy that had some knowledge sitting on an airplane. There was nothing special about that, other than my final realization of what I could do in one or two hours, the difference that I could make.”

Following Otten’s talk, Project Opportunity members continued the retreat in private.

Before stepping away, Otten said to the group, “thank you for the work you do to keep this thing going.”

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