Editing Yan Lift (section)

==History ==

===1965–85===
Lift Engineering was founded by Janek Kunczynski, a Polish immigrant and former ski racer who initially worked at [[Poma]]. He left Poma in 1965 and founded the company Lift Engineering to build his own ski lifts. One of his first customers was [[Squaw Valley Ski Resort|Squaw Valley]].  The name "Yan" is the English spelling of his first name, and the brand under which Kunczynski sold his lifts.

The company grew through the 1970s and 1980s.  Kunczynski was known for dining with prospective clients ([[après-ski]]) instead of just simple negotiating, and would sketch plans out on paper napkins.<ref>{{cite news | first=Alex | last=Markels | title=The Rise, Fall and Return of a Ski-Lift Entrepreneur | date=January 16, 1997 | publisher=[[Dow Jones & Company]] | url =http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/chairlift/yan1.html | work =[[The Wall Street Journal]] | access-date = February 29, 2008 }}</ref> Another attractive feature to buyers was the price. Kunczynski sold his lifts at prices well below those of larger manufacturers.  Kunczynski is also credited with being the first manufacturer of ski lifts to incorporate aesthetics into the design of his equipment, creating sleek designs that were popular with ski resorts.<ref name="colorado ski">{{cite web|url=http://www.coloradoskihistory.com/chairlift/yan1.html|title=The History of Yanek Kunczynski|via=Colorado Ski History|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=January 16, 1997|access-date=July 30, 2010}}</ref>

The company is most noted for designing fixed-grip chairlifts{{Citation needed|date=January 2008}}. Kunczynski created a standard system that was intended to be simple to operate and maintain. For example, Yan operator booths contain only two switches: a switch that stops and starts the lift, and one that selects its speed. The main controls were placed in a separate machine room. Lift Engineering was the first company to design and build its own low-voltage DC motor control tailored specifically to the ski lift industry (System 4200 and later Base 10). Yan's tower designs were also overbuilt, meaning that it was possible to turn a triple chair into a fixed quad just by changing the chairs.

[[File:Yanexample.JPG|thumb|right|400px|An example of a Yan fixed-grip chairlift;<br> the removed Catskinner triple chair (Ex Lift 4) at [[Whistler Blackcomb|Blackcomb]], British Columbia]]

===1985–95===
Lift Engineering entered a new market of [[Detachable chairlift|high-speed detachable chairlifts]] in the 1980s. Whereas other ski lift firms spent as much as four years developing these lifts, Yan installed its first after only one year of research and development, at [[June Mountain ski area|June Mountain]] in California.<ref>{{cite web  |title=Yan High Speed Quad Retrofits 20 Years Later |date=March 15, 2016 |url=https://liftblog.com/2016/03/15/yan-high-speed-quads-20-years-later |access-date=April 5, 2022 }}</ref>

By the late 1980s, Lift Engineering was one of the largest suppliers of ski lifts based in North America.

Lift Engineering also was an important player in the [[funitel]] market in the late 1980s.  The quad mono cable, or QMC, was invented by Kunczynski (US Patent 4,848,241). The lift consisted of four separate loops of cable, strung between the upper and lower stations. Two cables were run in the uphill direction, and two were run in the downhill direction. The cabins would be mounted between the cables. But, because the cables were looped, once the cabins reached the upper station, the cables would loop back downhill not carrying a load. Only one of these lifts was ever built, and first opened to the public in 1988 at [[June Mountain]].<ref>{{cite web |title=QMC Debuts at June Mountain |url=https://www.seilbahnen.org/de/index.php?section=downloads&cmd=266&download=12217 |access-date=April 5, 2022 }}</ref> The owners allegedly had difficulty getting the cables to run in synchronicity. The lift also developed the same grip problems that occurred on the Yan high-speed quads, and ceased operation in 1996.