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2017-2018 Candidates for the APP Board of Directors - 

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ACCEPTING NOMINATIONS UNTIL JUNE 1

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The Board of Directors is elected by the APP Certified Members at large, with on-line voting starting around June 1st and ending July 1st.  Each Board Member serves a two-year term, with four members elected on the even years and five elected on the odd years.  After the Board is elected, the Board then selects a President, Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer. Click here to review Board Member Responsibilities.

The 2017 slate of candidates for the board are listed below.

We'll be voting to elect 5 of these folks to the board.


Name  Bio 
Mike Nolen

I welcome the opportunity to continue to serve our current membership and beyond as a Board Member for the Association of Professional Patrollers (APP). I have served on the Board since the spring of 2007. The position I have filled most during my tenure has been as the Criteria Coordinator. In addition to the Criteria Coordinator position I have served more recently in the leadership of the Board as the Vice President.

I believe our organization can evolve to be a National Ski Areas Association equivalent for Ski Patrolling in the west and beyond. The idea of the APP being known as the “best practices” organization for Ski Patrolling is a lofty goal but well within our reach and potential. I been privileged to have been part of a movement to offer training in all nine areas we offer certification in. I am an advocate for our membership through the Board to keep pursing Risk Management Forums, Continuing Education for Medical, Blasting Seminars, Skiing and Snowboarding Clinics, Women’s Forums and the most recent Tech Rescue Seminar. To help this training along we need to keep pursuing adding more sponsors which will help us with affiliations within the ski industry while giving value added opportunities to our membership.

For the first time we can announce our winter 2017-2018 schedule of clinic locations well in advance. I am very pleased to have been a part of getting our scheduled locations out early. This helps relieve some guilt for me. As a Board we were late this last season with announcement of all our clinic locations including the most recent Spring Clinic. This last winter was very usual from a weather standpoint. There were not only record setting snow storms in January and February but the amount of precipitation in the form of rain was monumental. We failed to get a Blasting Seminar because of the intense nature of avalanche mitigation at potential hosting ski resorts we looked into.

Anyway look for Mid-Winter Clinics at the following locations:

Arizona Snowbowl

Sierra At Tahoe – tentatively February 6, 7 and 8, 2018

Red River, New Mexico – tentatively February 27, 28 and March 1, 2018 OR March 6, 7, and 8, 2018

Mt. Bachelor

Blasting Seminar at Mammoth Mountain followed by a Two Day Mid-Winter Clinic at June Mountain. This seminar was initially discussed with the Patrol Leadership at Mammoth Mountain for mid-January. The January timeframe was before trying to add a two day Mid-Winter Clinic at June Mountain to the Blasting Seminar. We will be looking into a date in March.

Our Spring Clinic is slated for Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe

As a Board we haven’t looked at a Tech Rescue Clinic location yet. I will be a part of encouraging the APP to host our second Tech Rescue Seminar. The first one was a success at Schweitzer Mountain Resort last fall.

I have been honored to serve our membership as a long time Board Member. I will continue to be a promoter of teamwork for Board operations. In addition I will continue to express that our responsibilities on the Board are not self-serving but membership and ski industry serving.

 Ed Gassman

It’s an honor to be nominated to serve another term on the APP Board. My 2 passions as an adult have been serving my country/ military and ski patrolling! I ski patrolled part time sometimes paid and sometimes as a volunteer the entire time I was in the military.

With your support I would like to continue to help APP provide high quality education and testing. I would hope to be able to encourage more patrollers to get involved in APP and the Certified program. Living and patrolling in Colorado and having been the former NSP National Certified Supervisor I hope will help this effort.

I know many of you but as background I have been a patroller over 40 years, a member of APP for 26 years, certified for 25 years and a member of the APP Board for 6 years in the 90’s. I stepped down due to time constraints of family and job. I have been a paid and volunteer patroller in Utah, Washington, New Hampshire, Tennessee, California, and now Colorado. I serve on the Board of FIPS (Federation Internationale des Patrouilles de Ski) composed of the major ski associations around the world. I am proud APP is now one of 22 distinguished members of FIPS.

Four years ago I was asked to head up High Altitude Winter Environment Training of Special Forces. SEALS are trained in San Diego and Green Berets in North Carolina but we now have Bad Guys hiding in the 10-14,000 foot mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan so there was a real need. The team I put together was composed mostly of certified patrollers. I am happy to report the curriculum and penchant for excellence of the Certified program has been extremely successful and well received by our elite young heroes. Hopefully it will save lives and reduce terrorist threats, hence taking us back to our roots when the first ski patrollers created the 10th Mountain Division.

As a result of this relationship it is exciting that the SF Commander approved the attendance and participation of Green Berets in the APP Spring Clinic.

Respectfully,
Ed Gassman 

Shannon Maguire


Current Treasurer - running for re-election 

I am running for re-election for the Board of the APP to continue growing and supporting the female participation in the APP.  We have hosted successful and meaningful women's forums and clinics at recent spring clinics, but there is much room to grow!  My goal is to generate mid-winter, On-hill women's forums, to create a training and discussion opportunity for female Patrollers, as well as to increase a female patrol network.  I went from being the only pro female patroller at Sierra at Tahoe, to being one of 7 female pro's - the training, atmosphere, and strong Patrollers this group has produced demonstrated to me first hand the value of this female patroller network.

If re-elected to the board of the APP, I also want to focus on growing the scholarship opportunities the APP provides.  I was a recipient of an APP scholarship in 2014, to help cover costs of attending an International Avalanche Dog School, at Alta, Utah.  This scholarship provided me a phenomenal opportunity, and demonstrated the deep value of the APP.  I would like to work on providing an accessible, obtainable scholarship program for the APP to provide its members.  

If re-elected  to the board, I will do what I can to hear and meet the desires of the APP membership,

Thanks for your consideration, 
Shannon Maguire

 Bob Heflin

Current Board Member - running for re-election

29 seasons Pro Patrol experience. Medical Dept Lead for Taos Ski Valley Patrol, patrolled in Chile for a number of years and still do some training and consulting for ski area there. 25+(?) year member of APP, on BOD for over a decade. Committed to ensuring our goals as an educational organization by providing opportunities for scholarship to attend ISSW or NAS, and by providing APP sponsored educational opportunities in the form of RM seminars and Blasting seminars. Looking forward to working with the board to help advance the APP as a resource for patrollers  
David Galson


While working for several years to support the board of the APP as a technology facilitator, I have been working full-time as a paid Patroller at Sugar Bowl Ski resort in California. I patrolled first as a volunteer with the NSP and currently I am full-time paid staff. For one season I was the acting Patrol director at the largest Nordic ski resort in the country - Royal Gorge. I am a fully certified patroller and have attended the spring clinics for the last four years.

Sitting like a fly on the wall during our APP board meetings, I have gotten a good sense of some of the issues that the board faces and the types of effort that the board needs completed to facilitate the smooth operation of our organization.

Some of my goals if you elect me to the Board of Directors is to continue to improve our social media bandwidth with continued current updates to our web site and Facebook page along with monthly E blast letters to the full membership.

 I feel that the future of the organization depends on two things - The first- significantly growing our membership. The second thing is to create a value proposition for large resort patrol directors and insurance carriers to recognize the advantages to their organization for  patrollers to participate in the APP program.  

To grow the membership, I feel that we need to engage patrollers at many different levels and to add value to our social media and our on-the-hill events.  We need patrollers to be compelled to participate in APP by their patrol directors, their mountain managers, their general managers and possibly by their insurance carriers - ether as a job requirement, or with pay incentives. Without this leveraged participation, I believe we will have difficulty growing the numbers of our active paid patrollers.

With our newly adopted three tiered certification recognition program and significant growth in the Southern California region I feel like we are on our way to achieving our growth goals - however many of those new members are culled from the volunteer staff.  I would like to explore the best way to engage Ski Resorts in Colorado and Utah where we historically have not achieved significant traction. I also want to explore and correct issues that have driven many Tahoe area resorts away from the APP. My overarching goal is to make the APP more relevant to paid patrollers, and paid patrol directors. 

I want to assist the board in making plans for adding additional educational events and our clinics so that our on the hill events grow to include much more than simply testing and social events.

In watching the board in operation for the last three years, I think we could benefit from expanding the number of members participating in the logistics of the organization - using the board as task managers, but enlisting the membership to assist with some of our initiatives.I also have observed two basic types of personalities on the board.  There are idea people with a long history in patrolling and lots of contacts in the ski industry, and there are action people - who make lists, take names, and get stuff done.  The board needs BOTH types of personalities on it in the right mix.  Our organization needs both strong executive visionaries, and it also needs productive, organized facilitators and managers.  The nature of the organization and the limited face-to face meeting opportunities demands that we become proficient with remote access collaboration techniques and tools and become self-motivated, productive and accountable using just phone meetings and cloud-based collaborative documents.

I look forward to working for you as a member of the board and I hope that you will consider me when you vote for the Board of Directors.

Respectfully,

David Galson, Certified #600

Scott Cordner

 
Thank you for the nomination for APP Board of Directors. I have been a patroller since 1994, serving both as a volunteer and as a paid professional, from part-time weekender to full-time assistant paid director. I have been an APP certified patroller for 10 years. This is an exciting time for the APP, and I am energized to be a part of it. I want to see smart, managed growth of the organization. To have the APP develop and flourish, we need to show the value of the organization to both its members (paid and volunteer) and resort management. We can show this value by working with insurance companies and resort management to establish the APP as the ski patrol training and certification standard. This will allow the APP’s members to gain knowledge, valuable skills, and certifications for all members as well as promotions and pay increases for paid professional patrollers. I want to be a part of the APP Board of Directors and am excited to take on upcoming challenges and the continuing evolution of APP. I appreciate your support.



General Board Member Job Description

  • Full Certified or Associate Certified Patroller in good standing with dues current.
  • By election or re-election to a two (2) year term.
  • Is elected by his or her peers that are Associate Certified or Certified Members of the Association of Professional Patrollers (APP). See “Elections Procedures” in the Association of Professional Patrollers By-Laws.
  • Annual elections ensure that half of the Board of Directors are up for election each year. Staggered shifts for Board of Directors ensure that there is not a complete turnover of the Board.
  • Regularly attends Board Meetings and participates in teleconference calls.

Board Meetings:

Annual all day meeting in the fall at a location to be determined at the preceding Spring Clinic.

Typically three (2) hours in length Board Meetings at Spring Clinics.

· Pre Spring Clinic

· Middle of the Spring Clinic

· Near the end of the Spring Clinic

Teleconference Calls:

As needed throughout the year for planning.

E-mail notification

Discuss in the preceding teleconference call regarding date and time of next call.

  • Regularly attends the annual Spring Clinic and at least one Mid-Winter Clinic.
  • Works as a Mid-Winter Clinic liaison with the ski area and the Patrol Director at the location hosting the event.
  • Ensures consistency of education and training as compared with Spring Clinics.

  • Regularly reviews and provides input to:

E-mail blasts to the General Membership.

Head and Assistant Judge E-mails.

Board of Director E-mails.

Association of Professional Patrollers website.

Association of Professional Patrollers blog.

Makes serious commitment to participate actively in committee work.

Volunteers for and willingly accepts assignments and completes them thoroughly and on time.

Stays informed about committee matters, prepares themselves well for meetings, and reviews and comments on minutes and reports.

  • Gets to know other committee members and builds a good working relationship that contributes to the organization and its membership.
  • Is an active participant in the committee's annual evaluation and planning efforts.
  • Participates in fund raising for the organization.


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