PSIA-AASI provides ski and snowboard instructors with a strong foundation through training and certification so they can succeed in any area’s operational system. The fact that PSIA-AASI training can either stand alone or serve as the basis for additional, area-specific training is the main reason ski/snowboard schools enthusiastically endorse the association. Granted, many areas have chosen to create variations around our education materials and resources, marketing their own programs to consumers to gain competitive advantage. Various resorts (Vail, Copper Mountain, Mammoth Mountain, Jiminy Peak, Boyne Mountain and Stratton Mountain, for example), and marketing programs or techniques (such as Perfect Turn and Primary Movements) serve as examples of how to build on the flexibility inherent in PSIA-AASI programs.
In addition, schools embrace PSIA-AASI educational programs because they are developed, guided and produced by the most talented supervisors, trainers and directors in the nation, representing every part of the country and a wide range of operational needs and concerns. The result is an ever-changing, dynamic teaching process that works for the director and the instructor. Furthermore, the instructors themselves—not the areas—seek out and pay for this training. For these and other reasons, schools find immeasurable value in PSIA-AASI affiliation. PSIA-AASI isn’t a club or a religion; it’s a membership association committed to professional development. Likewise, helping instructors develop broad-based, flexible proficiency so they can accommodate the needs of their employers and their guests isn’t dogma, it’s simply good business.
Beyond the role of our association, PSIA-AASI—along with every other association, company and publication affiliated with the snowsports industry—has a responsibility to help reverse the flat to negative growth curve so graphically illustrated by NSAA’s Growth Model. In that effort, PSIA-AASI asked NSAA president Michael Berry to serve as the keynote speaker at a conference held in June designed to provide a starting point for a new, real-time strategic change process, plan and direction for the association. Michael’s presentation carried so much impact that it became the focus of our entire planning process, resulting in a new vision and mission for the association, provided on our Websites at www.psia.org and www.aasi.org. PSIA-AASI also participated as an integral component of the NSAA Fall Seminars discussing NSAA’s 6 + 1 program. Perhaps the most important component of that effort is its appeal for the industry to pull together in a positive manner, using communication and coordination to successfully implement a strategy that will make our recreation lifestyle choice more appealing to guests. After all, no one entity can do this alone.
In revising its national vision, mission and strategic plan; in supporting national initiatives to attract and retain participants; and in welcoming dialogue about ways in which instructors can support the areas for whom they work, PSIA-AASI has proven its willingness and commitment to have a key role in rejuvenating snowsports. The association will continue to seek the most effective methods of providing members with that initial, critical foundation of training. It will continue to educate instructors about equipment innovations, the performance characteristics of new gear and how those variables might affect the ways in which lessons are delivered. It will continue to develop programs and resources to help members meet area management’s expectations. And, it will continue to collaborate with media and marketing partners to impart the benefits of lesson-taking. Above all, PSIA-AASI will continue to look to its members, the areas for whom they work and the industry at-large to collectively identify ways in which instructors can be of service.
More than ever, we acknowledge the instructor’s role in developing meaningful relationships and memorable experiences for guests so they’ll want to come back time and time again. But, we know that our association and its members cannot do this single-handed. We have the tools; area management runs the mountain. Let’s put them together seamlessly.
Can the national association for ski and snowboard instructors by itself rectify the drooping numbers in snowsports participation? Realistically, no. Can instructors support area management’s efforts to rejuvenate the public’s interest in snowsports? Absolutely. Let’s go to work!
