Welcome to the home of the Professional Ski Patrol Association. The Professional Ski Patrol Association is dedicated to promoting the highest standards of ski patrolling. PSPA tests and certifies patrollers in ski safety, first aid skills, toboggan handling and ski techniques.

News

• 2022 Season Update from the PSPA President
  With the weather being colder (snowmaking) and Mother Nature helping out (in some locations) we’ve seen a tremendous uptick in skier visits. Hopefully you are all getting out to ski and ride.

  Unfortunately at this point the COVID bubble has not yet broken for most ski areas. While it may be a non-issue for the skiing public it isn’t for the ski area’s themselves. Many of our departments (including Patrol) are being hit with sick days, quarantine times, and general short staffing.

  With that and the general lack of good Certified level terrain currently available we have decided to cancel our three scheduled Pre-Tests (Killington, Sunday River , and Loon). National Certified has also been forced to cancel its scheduled Patroller Schools (Killington, and Sugarloaf)

  What about the Exam in March? We are currently reviewing the situation along with Sugarloaf management (our exam location) and will continue to review it until we make a decision during the first week in February. We are hoping we can pull off the exam, but that will require terrain and COVID to cooperate.

  I will update all at that time with the Boards decision.

  Thanks for your understanding in this –
  Carl  

• 2021 Annual Meeing
  As the foliage changes and the weather starts cooling off its time for our PSPA Annual meeting. This year as we did last season we have chosen to go with a Zoom meeting rather than a face to face meeting. There are two main reasons for this. First and foremost is the current situation with covid. Secondly with a geographically dispersed member base we saw a larger attendance with the zoom platform. Please email Carl Chaplin for a link to the call.
  
  The meeting is set for Wednesday evening October 20th @ 7:00 pm. We anticipate the meeting will be approximately 1.5 to 2 hours. We will have our normal agenda, chair reports and review of last season (should be relatively short since last season was extremely thin) , review the upcoming season schedule of events, review and vote on the slate of officers for the upcoming season, as well as a few other topics.
   
• COVID Update
  Unfortunately, due to the ongoing challenges with the COVID 19 Pandemic, the PSPA Board of Directors has decided to forgo any Pre-Tests or Exams for the 2021 season. Candidates currently in the process will receive a bye for this year as it pertains to the 3-year completion cycle. Members who are up for rectification will also receive a bye for this year. The Board of Directors will continue to monitor the situation going into next year. Members should expect to have an annual meeting in the fall as usual (though it may be virtual).
     
• 2019 Annual Exam
  There was a great turnout at this year’s exam. Thank you to all that put in the effort to ensure a successful event. It was really nice to see those who haven't been able to attend an exam in several years. Four new examiner candidates attended the exam and one member successfully recerted. A very special thank you goes out to Killington and all their staff for being supportive and gracious hosts. Thank you Tait! The conditions were fantastic. Some candidates passed S&T and others passed First Aid. However, one candidate passed everything in her first year! A huge congratulations goes out to Christine Rholl of Sugarloaf for earning her full certification. Well done!

• Ongoing Call to Members
  Remember that day you achieved your PSPA certification? Most likely it came as a result of lots of hard work and training. The process is not simple and requires candidates to push themselves to vastly increase their patrolling skills and knowledge.
   
  As a member of PSPA you bring these increased skills back to the patrolling world every day. The strength of the organization is the diversity of its membership. As a member the organization is calling on you to promote PSPA within your respective patrols. Often this may simply mean answering questions about the certification process or pointing the person in the right direction to get information. Motivating and helping others to also strive for certification is the best gift you can give to a fellow patroller.

Congratulations to:

	Tom Sutton shows off a good snowplow technique.

New Certified Members:
   Christine Rholl (Sugarloaf)