It’s been trial by fire for Tim White, the new executive director of the National Ski Patrol. NSP has reorganized its board of directors and its committee system, hired new staff, and set out to strengthen its ties with both its membership and the resorts where they patrol.

Changes followed quickly after NSP ended a bruising two-year battle for control of the organization, which culminated a year ago with the seating of a vastly changed board of directors and termination of NSP’s shared management with American Snowsports Education Association (ASEA). The board selected White to head NSP, and together they set four main goals for the 26,000-member group:

• stabilize the organization and regain members’ trust

• create a sense of esprit de corps

• revise the Outdoor Emergency Care (OEC) manual

• improve relations with resorts

“We’re trying to make members feel like a part of the organization,” White says, after a period in which patrollers felt NSP was distancing itself from them. He understands their frustration: “To be a patroller you have to be a bit crazy, I’m finding out. Think of all the time you put in going to courses, and going to ski areas all season long. It’s no surprise they are so passionate about their work, and NSP.

“It was a very tense time when the two organizations decided to split. Some longtime NSP staff went with ASEA and left gaps in our organization. But we have an incredible group that has come on board, most with ski industry backgrounds. NSP didn’t always have that.”

The staff includes April Darrow, a former editor of NSAA Journal, and Denis Meade, an EMS veteran with a masters degree in education. “Denis knows education as well as the ins and outs of EMS. He’s a magnificent addition,” White says.

To stay in touch with members, the board of directors has created a forum on the NSP website to post news of its activities and to answer questions. And NSP is surveying its members, “to get feedback on the national office and things we can do to improve. It’s also a demographic study, so we can better understand our membership,” he adds. NSP also met with the Canadian ski patrol to explore ways of working together on common challenges from recruitment to education. “We’ve got a memorandum of understanding to improve the level of patrolling on the continent,” he says.

Probably the hardest decision NSP has made was to postpone publication of the 5th edition of the OEC manual for a year, to spring 2010. OEC training is roughly equivalent to EMT first responder level, and NSP plans to maintain that. But the EMS world is also revising its training manual, and NSP wants to incorporate relevant elements of that into the next edition of the OEC. So NSP waits.

“We have to maintain a high level of quality assurance,” White says. “We want to show that our members have a high level of skill and expertise. And we have to retain good relations with the EMS world. We’re continuing to build bridges.”


Working with Resorts
The same applies to resort relations. NSP is working on a “statement of understanding” with NSAA that outlines the relationship between area management and patrol. “It puts areas in the driver’s seat,” he says, but adds, “It’s a two-way street. We have to ask, how we can create value for the areas? But we also need to remind the areas how much value we bring to them.”

To that end, NSP aims to become more proactive about safety. “We provide excellent care and transportation, but it would be better if guests never got hurt at all,” he says. “Every injury is an opportunity for someone to leave the sport.”

One proactive move: NSP is partnering with NSAA on a ski injury study, conducted by longtime researcher Dr. Jasper Shealy, to identify trends within different age segments. The goal is to tailor safety-related messages to each group. “We can help explain to Boomers how to avoid injury as they get older, for example, so they can ski longer and smarter,” he says.

White also hopes to energize the organization’s languishing Mountain Host brand, launched five or six years ago. The goal is to create a cadre of hosts who can provide guest safety services and assist first-aid providers as well as perform the usual mountain host guest-relations functions. Conflict resolution will also be a part of the training, to help hosts defuse onslope disputes.

White is encouraging resorts to sign up their entire host staff for the program. Jackson Hole and Schweitzer are the first to do so; Jackson will enroll 55.

All this activity has White excited about NSP’s future. “This is a gem of the industry,” he says. “It’s important that we all work together. I was drawn to the organization because of its great history and great work, and I can be part of seeing that this continues.”