Be The Beast: Patrol Hill Chief Georgia Michalovic
Originally from Lebanon, New Hampshire, Ski Patroller Georgia Michalovic began her career at The Beast as an ambassador some five years ago. Her day job was working for a low-income housing developer and her time on the mountain made her hungry to get out of the office and find a new opportunity. One day, she was riding the gondola with a female ski patroller who also happened to be a snowboarder and got the chance to learn more about working in patrol.
“I was just asking her some questions. ‘How many other women work for patrol? How many other snowboarders work for patrol? What's the skill level?’ She made it seem approachable, and I got it in my head that if I got my EMT, I would have some medical experience and then I could come in and feel like this would be a good place to grow in my emergency response.”
These days, she’s a foreman on patrol and loving it, not just because she gets to snowboard every day, but because she is using her EMT wilderness training and helping people daily. But, she says, her favorite thing is being a part of a team.
“I like the team dynamic. I think that I'm a pretty strong teammate and so even though we only send one controller per code, often times you’re coming back to a group of people and kind of debriefing about your needs or how a certain response went. I really like that aspect of this job.”
Georgia’s average day starts early in the morning.
“I arrive to work and get on a snowmobile and zip up to whatever top shack I'm based out of for the day. Unlock the building and then grab a drill and start doing set up with our supervisors for the first 45 minutes. Then the rest of the crew trickles in and I'll leave them some notes, and they begin doing their set up. For the rest of the day, we all take turns rotating out doing work projects or responding to codes or requests for transport.”
She is one of only a few women who work in patrol, something that she is hoping to change.
“I think Killington is quite male dominated on the whole, let alone ski patrol. And sometimes yes that is overwhelming, whether I'm at work or I'm on a day off. But I really like the other women in our department. I'm always looking for other women that are interested in working for our department and recruiting people, so I think that's fun, too. Trying to think about how you can grow your numbers as a female and do a better job of retaining female patrollers."
And it seems the tides may be turning a bit.
“I've been at Pico for the last five weeks and out of our team of patrollers, two of us were women and we had Erin Alexander from parks running the Pico Park side. That's three women out of five total. Seeing that kind of flipped dynamic was really cool and I think having the women run the show was a really refreshing way to experience a calmer environment.”
She continues.
“It's been fun and exciting to watch other women in other departments get cross trained and kind of move their way up through management leadership roles at Killington. Watching that happen makes it feel more accessible and exciting for women coming behind them.”
Male or female, if you’re thinking about getting into patrol, Georgia offers this advice.
“I think my advice would be to get as many days on hill as you can. Talk to current patrollers and ahead of starting the job, maybe get some basic first aid experience. If you're into the adrenaline rush, that is patrol. Everything's calm until all of a sudden everything's not so calm.”