BETHEL – A top executive from American Skiing Co. told a group of about 30 full-time, year-round retail workers Thursday that they would be laid off between April and July, the Sun Journal has learned.

One ASC worker, who asked not to be identified, said the announcement was made at the building the company leases at the Bethel Airport. In all, 31 employees will be out of work, the employee said.

The Federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 requires employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of covered plant closings and covered mass layoffs.

Repeated requests for comment from officials at the company’s corporate headquarters in Park City, Utah, were not returned Thursday. A receptionist in the office of ASC’s Chief Executive Officer B.J. Fair said the company’s public relations department was preparing an announcement on the layoffs.

“They are trying to get something together on this and get it out to you,” she told a Sun Journal editor. As of 9 p.m., however, no communication had been received from the company.

Also unclear Thursday was whether Les Otten, who founded the company in 1994 as LBO Enterprises, had resigned from the corporate board of directors.

Rumors were circulating widely Thursday that Otten had quit the board to make a bid on ASC’s Sunday River resort in Newry. Otten is largely credited with turning the resort around in the 1990s, making it one of the most successful ski hills in New England.

“There’s been no announcement of a resignation, and I’m not in a position to comment,” Otten said Thursday. Most of the speculation was, “overheated rumor,” Otten said. He also said a report in the Press Herald of Portland on Thursday stating he had confirmed “recusing,” or removing, himself from ASC board activities was incorrect.

Rumors of Otten’s resignation, and news of recent divestitures, may have played a role in boosting the company’s stock price Thursday, which opened at 51 cents per share but closed at 65 cents per share, a 32 percent price increase, a 52-week stock price high for ASC.

When ASC became a publicly traded company in 1998, its stock price opened at $18 per share.

Meanwhile, Sunday River spokesman Alex Kaufman said he didn’t know whether ASC officials were in Bethel on Thursday. He also declined comment on any layoffs or on speculation that Otten was positioning to make a bid for the resort. “It’s been business as usual for us here at Sunday River,” Kaufman said.

But it hasn’t been business as usual for ASC for the past several weeks, and the company appears to be on the verge of a breakup. Since December 2006, it has announced the sales of five of its eight ski resorts: Steamboat in Steamboat, Colo., Attitash in New Hampshire, and Killington, Mount Snow and Pico in Vermont. Killington and Pico would fetch $83.5, the company reported Wednesday. The sale of Mount Snow and Attitash would bring in $73.5 million, while the sale of Steamboat Springs, announced in December, would bring in $275 million. The company has said it plans to use cash from the sales to pay down debt.

Based on documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2006, the company outlined a new compensation plan for its officers stating that if the company sold more than $300 million in assets, it would give bonuses to certain corporate officers. Otten was not one of the officers named.

The sales leave ASC with Sunday River, Sugarloaf/USA in Carrabassett Valley, and its flagship, The Canyons in Park City.