Ski Patrol’s Matriarch

Addy Mccord and Her Unstoppable Legacy of Leadership

Addy McCord won’t admit it, but she is legendary. She’s a badass pioneer of women’s ski patrolling who is so humble in her status that on our Zoom call, she sat off to the side, requiring her to slightly lean in to the camera’s view, ensuring she was giving space to her colleague, friend and mentee, Alex Oberg. That’s how she operates. Aside from being known as one of the first women and longest-tenured ski patrollers in the nation, she is regarded as a leader who consistently cultivates opportunities to inspire others to shine.

women patrollers

A legacy of strength and sisterhood: Addy McCord and her team of trailblazing women ski patrollers lead with grit, resilience and a commitment to lifting each other up on and off the mountain.

Ski patrol director at Beaver Creek Resort, McCord has been there for 42 years and has no intention of retiring anytime soon. Not even after back surgery forced her onto a SNO-GO, a ski bike which she says allows her to “shred just the same.” A Colorado native and lifelong skier, early in life McCord saw a woman ski patroller for the first time at Vail and instantly knew that’s what she wanted to do, stating “I was in awe.” She described
having a “laser focus” to achieve her newly discovered goal.

After completing nursing school in 1981, she tried out for the Beaver Creek team, just a year after the resort opened. She was hired and never looked back. She’s spent most of her life on the mountain since then, training and mentoring patrollers where women make up between a quarter and a third of her team, surpassing the national average of 28% for female ski patrollers, according to Zippia, an online recruitment resource. “Women are natural-born leaders,” McCord says. “They are strong-willed and passionate and they have made my job easier. They’ve helped me create pathways.”

Overachieving may be inherent in the makeup of a ski patroller but McCord has gone beyond in facilitating a culture which promotes an energy of limitless possibilities. Oberg attests the women ski patrollers are “there because of her,” where they “never feel inhibited,” but rather they are encouraged to seek growth and leadership positions in the industry and beyond. Many of McCord’s former patrollers have gone on to pursue careers in medicine as nurses and doctors.

For Oberg, McCord has been an inspirational figure in her life for as long as she can remember. Although a kinship never came to fruition after Oberg’s first kiss was shared with McCord’s son, their bond and relationship did strengthen significantly when Oberg joined McCord’s team as a full-time patroller. An EMT for Eagle County, Oberg cites one of the differentiators that attracts women patrollers to work with McCord is the opportunity to seek out specializations. “We get to try everything and never feel excluded,” Oberg says.

alex oberg

In Alex Oberg’s rookie year, she gained avalanche specialization training and is now seeking Colorado Rapid Avalanche Deployment (C-RAD) validation alongside one of the newest and arguably cutest members of the team, Bridger, an 8-month-old fluffy American Lab.

In Oberg’s rookie year, she gained avalanche specialization training and is now seeking Colorado Rapid Avalanche Deployment (C-RAD) validation along side one of the newest and arguably cutest members of the team, Bridger, an eight-month-old fluffy American Lab. Aside from working with an incredibly collaborative and supportive team, Oberg admits one of the greatest perks of the job are the puppy snuggles.

McCord is well-known and well-respected in the ski patrol and ski industry as a whole, however there were challenges to overcome when she started. The era and the historically male-dominated industry led to times she recalls as difficult. “We were not accepted as competent and had to work harder to earn our spots,” she shares. Her laser focus, combined with determination and grit, helped her develop a ski patrol consistently considered among the best in the country. She describes today’s atmosphere as “a level playing field,” where everyone is regarded with equal competency and the emphasis is on the team’s continual development.

Oberg concurs, stating the “team is accepting and strong, with no internal biases.” She did point out that through the years, as more women held leadership roles, training has adjusted to accommodate the different physical and mental aspects of smaller body types and learning styles. Oberg emphasizes there is a bit more “finesse” involved with female instructors.

Jennifer Pirog, their mountain neighbor and ski patrol supervisor at Vail Mountain, agrees with the sentiment that today, the culture is “generally more inclusive,” with “more respect based on positive intent.” Approaching her 17th season at Vail, Pirog insists that although challenges may still be present, as they are in any organization, there has been definitive growth where today women are “in historically male-dominated positions, such as leading avalanche mitigation plans, driving snowcats loaded with toboggans up the mountain and [are] on the gondola evacuation rescue team.” Motivated by her passions of skiing and helping others, Pirog, who practices emergency medicine and is also a volunteer on the Vail Mountain Rescue team, says she joined ski patrol because she felt welcomed, iterating it was “a family that I wanted to be a part of.”

The matriarchs of the family of ski patrol recognize their opportunity to continually advance the industry as a more inclusive environment and actively work together, across resorts, to promote collaboration. Last winter, both Pirog and Oberg were participants in a certification course with the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians (SPRAT). Focused on advanced lift evacuation techniques, the week-long course brought female ski patrollers from different resorts together and was led by female instructors and evaluators. Pirog described the experience as “beyond-awesome on so many levels.” Citing that aside from the mental and physical challenge, the all-women learning environment was uniquely motivating where positive support and open communication formed immediate friendships. “We had good conversations about working as women in a male-dominated industry, and shared stories around where each resort was on the spectrum,” she says. Oberg adds that the hope and plan is to make future safety practices, group trainings and cross-resort collaboration a regular occurrence.

addy mccord teaching

Photos courtesy of Vail Resorts

A recent Forbes article which listed the “5 Reasons More Women Leaders Are Needed At The Top” stated women as having a “heightened capacity for empathy, connection-building and inclusiveness.” It’s a researched fact that is echoed by Pirog’s assessment of her own team, which she describes as “genuinely caring, supportive, badass rockstars who see each other’s success as the team’s success.” The article points out
that women leaders carry traits such as “initiative-taking, resilience and self-development, alongside strengths in driving results, integrity, developing others and inspiring teams.” The article may as well as have been written directly about McCord and the women ski patrollers of Beaver Creek and Vail.

Oberg recalled an event the Beaver Creek patrollers had with the Girl Scouts, where they had the privilege of being ambassadors of the industry,
highlighting opportunities and providing their perspectives, but, more so, serving as aspirational figures. McCord emphasizes that they jump at every chance to expose young girls to what they do, stating it’s “fulfilling and fun to see the surprise and delight in their eyes when they see another girl doing a badass job.”

With the honor of having a black diamond run named after her at Beaver Creek (Addy’s) and approaching her 43rd season on patrol, when asked if she’s any closer to retiring, McCord leaned into the camera view and answered simply, “I’ll keep going for as long as I can possibly go.” Oberg directed a smile filled with admiration at McCord and gently interjected to attest, “I’ll be here for as long as she is.”

addy mccord

In a rare moment of clarity and acceptance in what she’s meant to Oberg and all women ski patrollers, McCord teared up. Oberg passionately followed her sentiment to emphasize the legendary and ground-breaking impact McCord has had, telling her, “You created the space for women to have a voice in ski patrol.”

McCord humbly responded, “It’s been my everything.”