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FROM THE DESK OF KELLY PAWLAK

Welcome to San Diego. What an accessible and happening city! Based on that feedback we set six goals centered around:
We have a jam-packed Convention planned for you, so I hope 1. Climate action and sustainability
you will dive in and really take advantage of all the content we 2. Participation growth
have prepared. Please take some time to visit our supplier 3. Engaging more of the NSAA membership
members at the Tradeshow and learn about their products— 4. Education
not only do our suppliers help make these events possible, 5. Government affairs
they also provide essential products and services that support 6. Financial stability
year-round mountain recreation.
We hope you will enjoy your stay at the beautiful Hilton Setting these goals has helped us focus on the areas you identified
Bayfront and all that San Diego has to offer. Amazing dining, as top priorities and keep us working to improve your member
microbrews, cool attractions, the nightlife, and a scenic recreation benefits (fig. 1).
path is all at our doorstep, and we have carved out time for you Notable achievements on the education side include the forma-
to experience it. tion of the NSAA Mountain Foundation (themountainfoundation.org),
With a year under my belt I am feeling more comfortable in a 501(c)(3) established for the purpose of making education more
the role of president, especially with the help of the NSAA staff. accessible to more of our membership. (Read the full story on page
Our ongoing strategic planning has been extremely helpful and 6 of this issue.) We also used your feedback from post-event surveys
I want to share some of that work with you. Importantly, we have to measure our net promoter scores, and have NPS goals for all of
revised our vision and mission statements. our education events. Please take the time to share comments;
we are listening.
Vision: The leading resource for mountain-inspired recreation In an effort to grow and engage more of our member-
Mission: Support members in their pursuit to operate thriving ship we have:
and sustainable businesses and deliver exceptional experiences. • Offered a free trial year to ski areas that have never been a
member of NSAA. To date, 19 ski areas have taken us up on
Last year, in our member survey we asked you what you wanted our offer.
NSAA to focus on. The top answers were: • Set goals for the number of ski areas that we want to partici-
1. Growth pate, in an effort to make our research and reports as robust
2. Sustainability as possible. So if we are bugging you to send in your survey,
3. Safety/risk, with a strong focus on lift safety that’s why!
4. Resort staffing, development, and recruitment • Hired a director of marketing and communications, Adrienne
5. Education Saia Isaac, in October 2018. Adrienne hit the ground running
6. Small ski areas and is working to share more of the work we do in a user
friendly fashion.
Figure 1 NSAA Member Benefits
David Byrd, our director of risk and regulatory affairs, and
Geraldine Link, our director of public policy, continue to lead our
Research Government government affairs work, and we were pleased to see the Farm Bill
Data Share Affairs (HR2) pass in legislation in December. The Farm Bill has a provision
of particular interest to ski areas. Section 8623 allows the US Forest
Service to lease certain “administrative sites” to third parties. For
ski areas, these parcels could be used for the development of
employee housing on federal land outside the special use permit
NSAA boundary. Great focus continues on the reintroduction of the Ski
Networking Programs Fee Retention Act and work on immigration, as one effort to relieve
some of the workforce shortages we are experiencing across
the country.
Personally, I have spent a lot of time thinking about our
important work on climate action and growth in participation.
I think we can all honestly admit that it is easy to procrastinate when
Risk/Safety Education
it comes to these issues. Whether it be a lack of time, money, or
just not knowing where to start, it always seems like there are more
barriers than solutions. Know that you are not alone. These are

C2 | NSAA JOURNAL | CONVENTION 2019