#PlayMakers of Grouse Mountain
Brad - Assistant Patrol Manager
Posted by Julia Grant February 19, 2016
A huge part of what makes #GrouseMountain so great is the people behind the scenes working hard to provide exceptional guest experiences. We call them the #PlayMakers of #GrouseMountain. Over the next few weeks we’ll be taking a behind the scenes look at some of these people and sharing why they love what they do.
Meet Brad, the first in our series of #PlayMakers. He likes long walks on the beach and… just kidding. Brad is our Assistant Patrol Manager and has been working winters at the Mountain for the last 11 years. After starting out as a liftie Brad quickly moved onto the patrol team and has been skiing lines and keeping us safe ever since. “Who wouldn’t love a job where you get fresh tracks every morning?”
“My day starts out pretty early. I’m usually on the Mountain before 7am getting ready to head out. The first thing I do every morning is take the sled out for a tour of all the runs. I’m checking out the grooming conditions, looking for any hazards, identifying jobs for the day and other things that need to be set up. That’s when we determine what runs will open for the day. It’s a different perspective being out on the Mountain before anyone else, and you can’t beat starting your day watching the sunrise from the top of Peak.”
“Clearly patrol meetings are serious business… but jokes aside, we’ve got an awesome patrol team. I’m lucky I get to work with such great people. Our team is really experienced and has been with the Mountain for a while – we’re also highly trained in first aid, including some fully trained paramedics.”
“When it really comes down to it, in serious situations, you need good leadership and teamwork and we’ve got that with this team. We also manage to have a lot of fun.”
“A lot of what we do is setting up the Mountain to make sure it’s a safe experience for everyone – not just guests, but staff as well . In the mornings we set up the fencing, look for hazards and then ride each lift open, checking towers along the way for any issues. At night it’s the reverse – we pull down fencing so the groomers can get at the runs; we also sweep every run at closing to make sure everyone’s off the Mountain and then patrol rides each lift closed at the end of the day.”
“It’s pretty cool when we get to do avalanche control – I got my CAA Level 1 in 2010. We’ll go out and do active blasting if the snowpack is unstable in order to get the snowshoe park opened up. Our first priority is always safety. “
“We do our job mostly behind the scenes. When we interact with guests it’s sometimes due to an injury; something nobody wants to happen. Our job is to provide that guest with the best possible care and to make an unfortunate experience somewhat better – that’s how we deliver customer service. And it doesn’t stop when you leave the Mountain. We do follow up calls with injured guests to find out how they’re doing and if we could have done anything better to improve our services.”
“I’m lucky to have been around for a lot of fun stuff on the Mountain as well. I remember when we were open for the entire duration of the Olympics while NBC was broadcasting from the Mountain. There’s a bunch of interesting stuff that comes up when you’re open for that long continuously but it makes for some fantastic memories.” | Brad – GMR Assistant Patrol Manager
