2023
Women in Ski Coaching Summit
October 16-18
Our conference mission is to provide an in-person opportunity for women coaches to build connections, share knowledge, and learn together. The conference will be a combination of professional development and education in ski coaching specific skills.
Target Audience Women and underrepresented genders including women, women-identifying individuals, and non-binary and gender non-conforming people at all levels of coaching experience or interest in a future career in coaching are encouraged to apply.
Email womenskicoaches@gmail.com with any questions.
We don’t want cost to be a barrier for attendance. If you are in need of a scholarship please fill out this application.
Park City, UT
Cost $200 In-Person, Virtual $100
Conference Location
Blair Education Center
900 Round Valley Dr.
Park City, UT 84060
Distance from SLC Airport - 43 Minutes
Distance from Downtown Park City - 11 Minutes
Schedule
Accommodations
Limited rooms are available at the UOLF Residences at the reduced cost of $97/night for a double occupancy room. Please use this booking link.
Other options within reasonable distance
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Park City - The Yarrow
Shearaton Park City
Park City Peaks Hotel
Food
The in-person registration fee will cover limited meals and snacks during the conference. There is a cafe located at the conference center that offers a range of food as well.
Local Food Options
Breakfast/Lunch
Wasatch Bagel and Grill
Five5eeds
Harvest
Tarahumara
Vessel Kitchen in Kimberly Junction
Dinner
Tekila Mexican Grill and Cantina
Main Street Pizza and Noodle
501 on Main
Tupelo Park City
2023
Speaker Lineup
Keynote
Dr. Nicole Lavoi
Director, Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport
she/her/hers
Dr. Nicole M. LaVoi is the Director of the Tucker Center for Research on girls & Women in Sport and a Senior Lecturer in the School of Kinesiology at the University of Minnesota. LaVoi and the Tucker Team plan and host the Women Coaches Symposium. Prior, she was a Research & Program Associate in the Mendelson Center for Sport & Character at the University of Notre Dame (2002-05), an Assistant Professor and the Head Women’s Tennis Coach at Wellesley College (1994-98), and the Assistant Women’s Tennis Coach at Carleton College (1991-93). LaVoi played intercollegiate tennis at Gustavus Adolphus College winning the NCAA-III National Team Championships in 1990. In her primary line of research LaVoi focuses on the under-representation of women in the coaching profession and authored a new book Women in Sports Coaching (2016) and the Women in Collegiate Coaching Report Card, now in its seventh year. She co-produced with tptMN, Game On: Women Can Coach, a documentary about and for women coaches. LaVoi frequently speaks around the world on a variety of topics related to coaching, gender and sport, and recruiting and retaining women coaches. She also serves on the Board of Directors for WeCOACH (formerly the Alliance of Women Coaches) and is a faculty member for the NCAA Women Coaches Academies. Watch Dr. LaVoi’s 2016 Distinguished Lecture “Paradox, Pitfalls, & Parity: Where Have all the Women Coaches Gone?”
Twitter: @DrSportPsych
Keynote
Betsy Butterick
The Coaches Coach & Communications Specialist
As a former coach with experience in DI, DII, DIII, and the WNBA Betsy utilizes her unique background with individuals ready to improve and teams of all kinds - from the locker room to the boardroom.
As "The Coaches' Coach" she meets coaches where they are and supports the growth that they're looking to make. As a Communication Specialist, Betsy helps teams improve communication effectiveness while working collaboratively to create positive change at all levels of team.
Professional, playful, and with a talent for people-centric design, Betsy offers a personal and experiential approach towards learning and development.
A life-long athlete, Betsy grew up playing all sports and was a competitive basketball player (and awful golfer) at the collegiate level. She now spends her time in North Carolina with her wife and two daughters cycling, hiking, exploring, practicing yoga, chasing sunsets and in constant pursuit of the perfect breakfast burrito.
B.A. Psychology (Claremont McKenna College, 2006)
Certified Integral Coach (New Ventures West, 2011)
NCAA Women Coaches Academy Faculty Member (via WeCOACH since 2015)
D.I.S.C. Certified (through Athlete Assessments, 2015)
Sophie Goldschmidt
President & Chief Executive Officer, U.S. Ski & Snowboard
Sophie Goldschmidt has held numerous leadership, commercial and marketing roles with several of the world’s most well-known and prestigious organizations. She comes to U.S. Ski & Snowboard most recently as CEO of the World Surf League (WSL). She has also held executive positions at the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the Rugby Football Union (RFU), Chime Sports Marketing (CSM), the PGA European Tour, and Adidas. She brings to U.S. Ski & Snowboard a unique experience of working closely with athletes across multiple sports from grassroots to the elite level, with a track record of positively transforming organizations from a business standpoint. Sophie has been at the forefront of globalizing and innovating sports, media, and entertainment properties throughout her career. She has also been honored as one of Forbes Most Powerful Women in Sport, AdWeek’s Most Powerful Women in Sport, Sports Business Journal’s Forty under Forty, Leaders in Sport Under 40 Award, Marketing Week’s Vision Award and Sport360 Most Influential Women in Sport.
Eileen Carey
U.S Paralympics Nordic Program Director
Eileen Carey has been coaching and leading ski programs for 19 years. She has been with the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Program (USPN) since 2013 and the Director since 2018. Under her leadership, USPN achieved record performances of a combined 30 medals at the 2018 and 2022 Paralympic Winter Games, including USA’s first ever para relay medal, a gold in the mixed relay in 2022. She credits the team’s success to an athlete-centric program and building a support staff who drive this approach through communication, collaboration, transparency, innovation, and a continual process of reflection and adjustment. Her athletes have been and continue to be her best teachers in developing as a coach and a leader.
Eileen has been the Team USA Paralympic Coach of the Year, she is a International Ski Federation (FIS) TD, and is the chair of the FIS Para Nordic Sub-Committee, working with both FIS and the International Biathlon Union (IBU) on sport governance. Eileen started her coaching career with the Colorado Rocky Mountain School and Maine Winter Sports Center. She is a graduate of Dartmouth college where she earned a bachelor’s degree in geography and served as a ski team captain.
Holly Brooks
OLY, LPC, PMH-C
Holly Brooks is a former professional athlete, a 2-time Olympian in the sport of XC skiing, and a small business owner. Her athletic accolades include representing the US & Alaska at the 2010 & 2014 Olympics, winning the infamous Mount Marathon race (twice) and North America's largest ski race, the American Birkebeiner, twice. As a 5-year veteran of the US Ski Team she was part of the first-ever USA World Cup Relay medal which recently culminated in her teammates bringing home the sport’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Seven years ago Holly started her own business, Holly Brooks LLC Counseling, Consulting and Coaching. She describes working with her clients “at the intersection of mental health and performance.” Holly is a licensed psychotherapist (and former executive coach) who specializes in performance practices, stress management, authentic leadership, transition, eating disorders and perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. She loves working with individuals, teams and businesses to develop thriving, sustainable performance practices.
Holly is a member of the Alaska Sports Hall of fame, was named Top 40 under 40, and is a spokesperson for Healthy Futures, AK. She served on the Board of Directors for the US Ski & Snowboard Team and as an athlete representative to the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee from 2016-2020. Most recently she added “Executive Director” in the creation of a documentary called Winning at All Costs, Breaking the Silence on Athletes and Eating Disorders. Additionally she is the mental health consultant for Project Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (PRS) and the Co-Founder of the maternal mental health movement, Moms Matter Now.
In her spare time (!) you can find her running, skiing (yes, still), riding her bike or hiking in the Chugach mountains with her husband Rob Whitney and their six-year-old twins, Ruby Joy and Brooks.
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Maria Stuber was the head coach of Men’s and Women’s Skiing at the College of St. Scholastica for 7 years prior to joining the SMS T2 Team. In this time, she coached 17 athletes to NCAA Championship appearances and 43 athletes to NCAA All-Region performances. In the 2021 season, the Saints qualified a record number of skiers (5) for the NCAA Championship and had the second All-American in program history. Twice, under Stuber’s leadership, the Saints program set records for qualifying a full cross-country roster for the NCAA Championship (Women in 2021, Men in 2023). In Stuber’s final year with the Saints, her Men’s team won the NCAA Regional for the first time in program history and the program had 2 individual NCAA Central Regional Champions. Stuber coached Mia Zutter, who competed at the 2018 PyeongChang Paralympic Games and Emma Stertz, who was the top American finisher, in 17th place, at the 2022 Biathlon World Junior Championship. Stuber also coached Max Nelson who qualified for the Para World Cup and earned a spot on the National Team in 2023.
In 2023, Stuber was named the Central Collegiate Ski Association Women’s Team Coach of the Year, the Tucker Center Women Coaches Symposium College Coach of the Year and the US Ski and Snowboard Adaptive Domestic Coach of the Year. Stuber is a graduate of the NCAA Women Coaches Academy 1.0 and 2.0. She has been a WSF VanDerveer Mentor twice and her first mentee, Kristen Bourne, recently took on a coaching position for the US Ski Team.
Previously, Stuber spent 4 years as the program Director at the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club (AVSC). While at AVSC, 3 of Stuber’s athletes went on to be NCAA All-Americans and/or to ski professionally — including Olympian, Hailey Swirbul.
Outside of coaching, Stuber started a nonprofit organization in 2018 called the Women Ski Coaches Association (WSCA) to develop, retain, and advance women in ski coaching leadership and to provide a platform for women coaches to have a voice in skiing.
Stuber earned her Bachelor’s Degree from Northern Michigan University (NMU) in Biology/Physiology in 2007 and then went on to earn her Master’s in Exercise Science from NMU in 2010. Stuber was a two-time First Team All-CCSA (Central Collegiate Ski Association) selection and was a three-year team captain, including the 2007 season where she captained the only Nordic ski team in NCAA history to sweep the podium in both events at the NCAA Championships.
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Rosie was born and raised in Park City, UT, a place with a rich tradition in alpine skiing. So, while she found herself on the slopes from a young age, it wasn’t until she was 14 and not interested in being part of the alpine race team that her mom suggested she try cross country. With some push back and hesitation, Rosie eventually gave in, giving cross country skiing a go and found out that Mom’s do know best as she was instantly hooked, and her life proceeded down a new path. After becoming an 8x All-American at Dartmouth College, Rosie moved to Anchorage, AK to pursue her ski racing dreams with the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center. While earning a masters degree, Rosie continued to climb through the ranks making her first World Championship team in 2015 and becoming a member of the U.S. Ski Team. She continued steady improvements making 4 additional World Championship teams (2017, 2019, 2021, 2023) and 2 Olympic Team (2018, 2022). She made a mark on the World Cup in 2020 winning her first two World Cups and becoming the first American to wear the Sprint, Distance, and Overall World Cup Leader bibs at the same time. Rosie has found herself on 7 individual World Cup podiums and a 4th place at the 2022 Olympics. Rosie is an avid cook, outdoor enthusiast, education proponent, and lifelong student who loves a challenge and finding her own path.
Rosie has also been an athlete representative on the US Ski and Snowboard Board of Directors for the past 7 years.
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Liz started coaching for PCSS in 2018 after retiring as a professional ski racer and took on the Head Coach position in 2021. Liz grew up skiing in Vermont and moved to Utah in 2006 when she made the US Ski team. She raced on the World Cup cross country team for 12 years skiing in three Olympics and helping establish a strong team culture on the US Ski Team.
WSCA Staff
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Kelsey is originally from Winthrop, WA, a small town nestled on the eastern slopes of the North Cascade Mountains. Kelsey attended college in Duluth, MN at The College of St. Scholastica, where she double majored in Philosophy and Natural Science and was awarded the CSS Department Chair Award in Philosophy. She was captain of the CSS Ski Team and won the CSS Athletics Career Achievement Award as a senior in 2018. She is a three-time NCAA Qualifier and the only female CSS skier to earn CCSA All-Region on five occasions.
Kelsey currently lives in Craftsbury, Vermont where she competes for both the Craftsbury Green Racing Project Biathlon Team and US Biathlon National Team. As a member of the GRP Kelsey works on a wide variety of projects, including managing the GRP website, overseeing lay monitoring of the local lake, co-hosting a GRP Podcast, junior coaching, and much more. Kelsey also works as the Executive Director of the Women Ski Coaches Association, a non profit her former college coach Maria Stuber started in 2019. WSCA’s mission is to assist in the recruitment, retention, development, and advancement of women ski coaches in North America. She serves as a Gender Equity Athlete Ambassador for the International Biathlon Union, which has published aggressive gender equity goals over the coming years. Kelsey is passionate about gender equity and sport and hopes that she can help women achieve high goals in spaces that have been historically male-dominated.
Megan Chacosky
MS, RD, CSSD
Megan Chacosky MS, RD, CSSD has supported US Olympic sport teams for 8 years as a sport dietitian and performance chef; her roles have directly supported US Biathlon, USA Bobsled & Skeleton, USA Luge, USA Figure Skating, and US Ski & Snowboard teams with sport performance nutrition applications and travel chef provisions throughout athlete training and competition phases. She has impacted nutrition planning and execution for Team USA in the 2018 PyeongChang and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
Megan currently serves as the lead Sport Dietitian for the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, organizing nutrition provisions for the elite club programs of biathlon, rowing, running and XC skiing and supporting the Center’s seasonal dining hall menu development and delivery. Megan continues to engage as a member of the USOPC Nutrition team, collaborating with fellow Olympic dietitians and contributing to internal educational documents, dietetic protocols, and performance nutrition best practices. Megan is passionate about using sport nutrition to encourage not just peak performance, but also sustainable, positive relationships with food and body image within athlete populations.
Greta Anderson
Coach, US Ski and Snowboard
Greta Anderson is the Cross Country Development Coach for US Ski Team. She directs and coaches our National Training Camps around the country in the summer and fall and shifts gears to SuperTour, US Nationals, Junior & U23 World Championships, as well as U18 Scandinavian and OPA Cup Finals in winter. She works with athletes mostly in the age range of 17-24 years old. She jokes, "The ones relatively high in enthusiasm and relatively low in experience. We don't know what their potential is yet and it is a major part of my job to help them maximize it."
Greta's home club is Alaska Winter Stars, her first coaching role followed her time as an athlete at Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center, and she spent a quad coaching at the Steamboat Winter Sports Club where during her tenure, 19 out of 24 athletes on the roster continued on to ski at Division I universities.
She continues to study psychology and holds a Next Step Certificate of Business from the TUCK school at Dartmouth.
Cami Thompson
Dartmouth Skiing Head Coach
Thompson, entering her 35th season at the helm of the Dartmouth women’s Nordic team. Thompson has coached numerous All-Americans, including 16s kiers that have combined to win 46 All-America honors and 3 national individual titles in the past 20 years alone. 10 of her skiers have competed in the Winter Olympics in either cross country or biathlon events, with five at both Pyeongchang in 2018 and Sochi in 2014.
Cami was named the United States Collegiate Ski Coaches Association Nordic Coach of the Year in 2018 the year that Katherine Ogden won both available NCAA titles, becoming the first Dartmouth skier in 56 years to do this. Katherine was named not only the EISA Female Rookie Nordic Skier of the Year, but also the USCSCA Women’s Nordic Skier of the Year for the first of two consecutive times. Thompson’s Nordic team also won eight of the 14 races throughout the season as her skiers racked up 21 podium appearances, 38 top-five spots and 52 top-10 finishes.
Thompson made her mark on the 2007 Dartmouth team as three of her skiers — Susan Dunklee ’08, Elsa Sargent ’08 and Sara Studebaker ’07 — earned a total of four All-America honors to help the Big Green win the NCAA title for the third time in program history and first time in 31 years.
Cami began her career at Stowe High School in Vermont. She skied for St. Lawrence University. Following school competed for the U.S. Ski Team from 1985-87, including one World Championship. Outside of Dartmouth, Thompson has coached squads from Junior National Championships to international U.S. Ski Team trips and camps. She has served as Chairman of the National Cross Country Sport Committee, was on the U.S. Ski & Snowboard Board of Directors and still serves on the FIS Cross Country Committee. She has also served as Vice President of the NENSA Board of Directors and two rotations on the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Skiing Rules committee. Cami lives in Hanover with her dog, Bella.
Valentina Vuerich
Valentina is from Cavalese, Italy and living in Predazzo (Val di Fiemme). She has a graduate degree in Masso-physiotherapyand was part of the Italian Junior Natonal team as an athlete. She has been a wax tech on the World Cup since 2012 with 2 seasons for the Polish National Team, 2 seasons with the Austrian National Team, 2 seasons back with the Polish Team and Team Justyna Kowalczyk, the 4 season with Slovenia where she was head of glide (waxing, grinds, structure, and ski selection) and made skis for 3 World Championship medals in 2019 and 2021 and a sprint crystal globe in 2021. The Norwegian Ski Team hired her last year and she will start her 2nd season this year. She has been a personal tech for Justina Kowalczyk, Teresa Stadlober, Anamarija Lampic, Heidi Weng, Martin Nyenget, and Julie Myhre.
She is an expert in a lot of wax areas but specifically grinding skis. She learned how to grind skis when she was still an athlete in her father’s service shop and would do this between training sessions in the summer for her part time job.
Stein Olav Snesrud
Stein Olav Snesrud is a ski technician and farmer from Furnes, Norway. He started working as a ski service professional in 2008 and was hired as a wax tech by the Norwegian National Team in 2011. In 2018 he was promoted to chief of service for cross-country and kept this role through the 2023 World Championship season. He enters the 2024 season as the flouro free coordinator for all sports in the Norwegian Ski Federation and is leading education on how to be well-prepared for the first fluoro free FIS World Cup season.
As Chief of Service for the Norwegian Ski Federation, Stein Olav oversaw all aspects of cross-country, including hand structure for many of the greatest athletes in our sport (Marit Bjorgen, Terese Johaug, Johannes Klaebo and numerous Olympic and World Championship Medals. Stein Olav has significant experience in hand structure and was one of the first people USST coach Jason Cork thought of when asked who the best hand structure technician in the world might be.
Mentorship Panel
Moderated by Dr. Nicole LaVoi and Kelsey Dickinson
Panelists
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Sam Benzing is the Paul J. Finnegan Family head coach of women and men's nordic skiing at Harvard University. Prior to Harvard, Sam was an assistant coach at the College of St. Scholastica where she was a Women’s Sports Foundation Tara VanDerveer fellow for the 2022-2023 season. Sam holds a Bachelor of Science in exercise physiology and a Masters of Arts in clinical counseling. Through these experiences Sam has developed a passion for gender equity in sport, and working at the intersection of mental health and high performance.
Support and Retention Panel
Moderated by Sam Benzing and Kristen Bourne
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The 2024 ski season is the 21st season Jana Weinberger has been affiliated with the Colorado Buffaloes and it marks her first season as the Director of Skiing. She was named to that post on May 3, 2023, after serving as the Interim Head Coach for the 2023 season. This will be her sixth season as the Nordic Head Coach.
Weinberger was promoted to the Nordic head coaching role prior to the 2019 season after having served as the assistant Nordic coach for the previous 11 seasons. She was also a two-time NCAA individual champion skier herself at CU from 2003-06.
In her first five seasons as the Nordic coach, Weinberger has coached 10 Buffs to a total of 29 All-America honors with three individual NCAA Championships, including Erik Dengerud's win in 2019 and Magnus Boee's sweep in 2021). In the past five seasons, the Buffs have 245 top 10 performances and 24 race victories, including Boee's school record 10 in 2021.
She was named the interim head coach after the start of the 2023 season and helped guide the Buffaloes through turmoil successfully, culminating in a second place finish at the NCAA Championships, improving from a fourth-place finish in 2022.
In her 11 seasons as an assistant under Bruce Cranmer, the duo put together the top Nordic program in the country. In her tenure, Colorado finished first or second in the Nordic points standings at the NCAA Championships eight times and in five of those seasons CU won the mythical Nordic national championship (2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2015).
In all, Weinberger has helped guide a total of 21 different skiers to 108 race victories and she coached 11 different Buffs who have won a combined 17 NCAA individual national titles. Additionally, she has seen 25 different Nordic skiers garner a combined 62 first-team All-America honors.
As a skier, Weinberger raced 28 collegiate races, claiming 27 top 10 and 23 top five finishes. As a senior in 2006, she captained the national championship team and herself swept six consecutive races, including winning the individual titles in both the freestyle and classical events at the NCAA Championships. She is a member of the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame, having been inducted in the fall of 2019.
She is one of five Nordic athletes in school history that have swept the NCAA Nordic titles in the same year, and she has coached three of the other four. Petra Hyncicova swept the NCAA titles in 2017 and Mads Stroem did so in 2016 and Boee accomplished the feat in 2021.
Hyncicova, Boee and Stroem excelled under Weinberger’s tutelage. Hyncicova, the 2017 national Nordic skier of the year, went on to compete in the 2018 Winter Olympics for her home country, the Czech Republic. Stroem won three total NCAA titles under Weinberger and was an eight-time All-American (seven first-team honors), tying the program record for most All-America honors and first-team accolades in a career. Boee was the National Skier of the Year in 2021 after setting a school record with 10 wins, including a sweep of the RMISA and NCAA individual championships.
Of the 17 individual NCAA titles that have been won by Buffs during her coaching tenure, five skiers have won multiple national titles (Stroem 3, Maria Grevsgaard 2, Hyncicova 2, Boee 2 and Rune Oedegaard 2).
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Kristen Bourne has coached cross country skiing at the collegiate and professional level for the past 4 years. She was the assistant coach at The College of Saint Scholastica for 2 years where she was a 2021 WSF Tara VanDerveer Fellow. During the summer, she was an assistant coach with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project professional team in Vermont. Prior to coaching, she skied for Northern Michigan University for 5 years. After college, she moved to Oslo, Norway where she skied full-time and was an intern at the Norwegian School of Sports Science.
Currently, Kristen is in her second year as the US Ski XC D-Team coach at US Ski and Snowboard, overseeing the top junior and U23 athletes in the US as well as traveling full-time on the World Cup supporting all national team athletes. She is a recent graduate of the College of Saint Scholastica with a master’s in Exercise Physiology. When Kristen is not working, she can be found spending lots of time with her dog, Pico, and enjoying time outdoors with her friends and family.
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Pepa has headed the Craftsbury ski programs for many years since coming to Craftsbury at the beginning of 1998. In Bulgaria she competed for the national team in ski orienteering where she won gold at the World Championships in 1994. At the Outdoor Center she has also worked as a massage therapist and fleet manager. When the Center was reorganized as non-profit in 2008, she took over head coaching responsibilities of the Green Racing Project as her full-time responsibility. Ski racing aside, Pepa enjoys burnt meat, bones, Johnny Red, chocolate and caffeine.
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Bernie Nelson is the current XC Competition Team Head Coach at Auburn Ski Club (Truckee, CA), former US Cross Country D Team Coach (2019-2020), and Registered Nurse.
With a lifelong passion for the sport, Bernie began her coaching career as a college sophomore at Montana State University after a largely challenging string of injuries. Inspired by her own experiences as an athlete, she went on to coach the MSU Bobcats for three seasons (2010 - 2014) where she coached 18 athletes to NCAA Championships, 4 athletes to World Junior & Ski Championships, and the program's first NCAA podium finish. Bernie would later go on to coach the Bridger Ski Foundation's PG and Elite Teams in Bozeman, MT (2014 - 2016) and lead the Bend Endurance Academy's Nordic teams as the Program Director in Bend, OR (2016 - 2018). Bernie has invested in many US Development Projects over the last decade where she has coached 5 World Junior & U23 Championships, led the wax room for 3 Junior National Championships, and collaborated on multiple National and International Junior Training Projects including the 2016 International Juniors Camp.
Throughout her coaching career, Bernie has always emphasized sportsmanship, perseverance, and teamwork, shaping not only successful athletes but also responsible and resilient individuals. Bernie's coaching philosophy is rooted in growth and potential. It is a person-first, athlete-second approach that teaches life skills alongside sport skills, fosters creativity, and celebrates that the very best athlete you can be is yourself.
Bernie lives in Truckee, CA with her husband Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess where they continue to plan longer adventures than intended and try their level best to keep up with their vizsla pup Mogul.