The upcoming Ski Patrol Spaghetti dinner with both a live and silent auction was a good opportunity to have a chat with Saddleback’s new Ski Patrol Director Leah Larobardiere.

The event will take place on March 19th starting with a silent auction at noon by the ticket office. Later that evening the ski patrol will be serving a spaghetti dinner to be followed by a live auction at 7pm.

The money raised will be put towards a variety of ski patrol related improvements. Larobardiere, “It goes to help our patrol with some equipment that we might need, a new young adult patroller program starting next year, and contribute to some ways that we can improve retention rates.”

The young adult patroller program to be started next year piqued my interest as I remember hearing how popular the “Pony Patrol” program was in the past.

The opportunity will be available to around 7 teenagers around 17 years-old. The fine details haven’t been worked out yet but basically the young patrollers will come in once a week, receive first aid training, partake in an outdoor emergency care course, and be taught various other patroller related industry knowledge, such as mountain operations and ski and toboggan skills.

This sounds like a great fit for so many of the young people I know. How exciting! Oh, to be young again… Alas, I am set in my ways with a full-time job that doesn’t involve powder days. However, maybe if I was young enough I would quit my job and switch careers.

Which leads me to staff retention, another item that is worth raising funding for.

Staff retention is a topic that many industries have been concerned with of late and not just in our next of the woods, but nationwide. However, as with other first responders, doesn’t it make sense that we need these staff members more than anyone? I mean, it’s literally critical.

Larobardiere, “We want to come up with some ways to show appreciate to our staff and make sure we keep the patrollers around for as long as we can.”

Currently the Saddleback Ski Patrol has about fifteen paid patrollers, both full and part-time and about thirty or so volunteers. While the minimum requirement is ten volunteer days per season, Larobardiere said that some people put in extra time. “There’s a handful that patrol around 20 and there’s a few that even put in a lot more time than that.”

Larobardiere herself has certainly put her slope hours in. “I’ve been patrolling for a long time. I started at Sugar Bush in Vermont and then, I patrolled here last year and then just kind of evolved into this position.”

Having grown up in central New York around Syracuse, Larobardiere has been skiing most of her life. “I learned how to ski when I was in second grade at Woods Valley, which is kind of cool, we just sent our old T-bar over to them. So, it’s a very small world.”

It turns out, she did not expect to be in the position she is in. At first it was all about the water. “I was a raft guide on the Black River in Watertown (N.Y.) and a lot of my co-workers went into the ski industry during the off season and so that’s how I got into it.”

Before Saddleback, she spent about 7 years in Vermont, but she has also worked in other parts of the country. “I was out west for a few years bouncing around.” She elaborated, “I spent a season in South Lake, Tahoe, working at Kirkwood. I raft guided in Alaska, near Denali Park, and I lived in Montana and guided there for a few years as well.”

Now that she has almost finished her first season in this new role, I asked her how it was going so far. “It’s going great. The weather has posed a bit of a challenge but overall, I think the season has been a really good one. We have an awesome patrol, and everyone brings a lot to the table and it’s cool to see everyone come together and work together as a team.”

I could not help but ask because I am really blunt sometimes… “How do you REALLY feel?”

She laughed but did not hesitate. “I feel that exact same way. That is the very genuine and honest answer.”

I explained to her that I had interviewed several Saddleback employees and I could not help but think they were being coached like, ‘Hey, if Stephanie is interviewing you, don’t forget to tell her how great we are at this and that.’ But she instantly nipped that in the bud and told me it was heartfelt. Turns out she is as straightforward as I am.

“It’s a very interesting culture here. It is community based and it is team based and I think everyone has the same, (every employee anyway), they WANT to see this mountain succeed. And working together is really the only way that’s going to happen.”

I wondered aloud how it compared to other resorts she has worked at.

“I think that’s something also unique about this mountain is that each department has the autonomy to make the decision or decisions that are best for the customers in that department and that isn’t always the case at other mountains I’ve worked at. It’s been like you said, money driven, or it’s a competition with another resort to get a certain amount of trails open, and they just don’t necessarily have the customers in mind as much as we do here. It seems like we’re very customer service oriented.”

With Spring around the corner, I was wondering if she was still rafting and so I asked if that is what she busied herself with in the off season. However, it turns out she is still helping people on the off-season. Just in a different uniform, at Franklin Memorial, where she works as a registered nurse in the emergency department.

Oh my goodness.

“Are you an adrenalin junkie?” I asked. “Yes,” she paused, and then proudly “yes, I am.” And laughed. “I do well under pressure…or at least I like to think I do.” She laughed again.

I had to wrap my head around this. I mean, I am a worrywart by nature so I cannot imagine doing this kind of critical work all the time. Also, I have heard it is extremely stressful. So, I asked what job is more stressful and she laughed again and quickly responded, “It depends on the day!”

“It’s not always easy that’s for sure.” She admitted. “Some shifts at the end of the day I’m like ‘What am I really doing?,’ But then that’s why I ski I guess, to balance it all out.”

Well, I said, I hope the patients at Saddleback are more appreciative than those at the hospital. “Oh my god,” she exclaimed, “One hundred million percent!”

I had heard this before. It is a strange little phenomenon, I mean, nurses, doctors, any type of emergency responder really, they are just trying to help, but oftentimes they are just not treated that way. With compassion she reminded me why. “The weakest hour though is sometimes in the emergency room. It’s a scary time for people.”

That’s the bottom line, isn’t it? This is why Larobardiere is a nurse and a ski patroller, but more importantly, this is why we need to retain people like her whether it is in the hospitals or on the slopes.

So, while we cannot all be expert skiers, patrollers, nurses, hopefully, you can come up to the mountain, get some spaghetti, support a noble cause, bid on some cool stuff, and do your part for the mountain!