Water, Snow, and Fire: The Elements of Kathy’s Journey-Part 1

Kathy's professional path exemplifies how ski patrol skills translate across emergency services. After transitioning from volunteer to paid patrol, she became Mount Bachelor's Safety Administrator (Risk Manager), then joined Bend Fire as a paramedic in 1994. Her first aid journey began much earlier—as a Girl Scout lifeguard in the 60's—creating a foundation that supported five decades of water safety instruction alongside her snow-based rescue work. Even after retiring from Bend Fire after 29 years of service, she continues volunteering there and also patrolling at Santiam Pass Ski Patrol.

The PNWD History Project:  Shirley Cummings, the official history project coordinator, (& all around fabulous lady), has been on a mission: Collect and assemble an archive of stories and pictures from the different ski patrols within the Pacific Northwest Division. Hence, Patroller Chats was born! 

Chapters

• 1:58 Introducing Kathy Alexander
• 4:16 From Volunteer to Paid Patroller
• 6:21 The Great NSP Number Purge
• 8:31 Working in Risk Management
• 12:18 From Water to Snow: Lifelong First Aid
• 19:51 Volunteer Work Beyond Ski Patrol
• 22:31 Evolution of Instructor Development Programs
• 25:26 The New Mentoring Program

Transcript

Jodie: 0:59

Welcome back to another session of Patroller Chats, and today we have the great honor in talking and meeting with Kathy Alexander. So, kathy, let's get started with the basics.

Kathy: 1:10

I have an NSP number. I had an original one when I started on Ski Patrol and then when the system was purged, we all got new numbers again so I had to learn my new number. So my new number's been with me for a long time now.

Jodie: 1:24

It got purged. When did it get?

Kathy: 1:26

purged? I can't really remember because I started my ski patrol at Mount Batchelor and got my number in September of 1986 when I took the first aid course, which at that time it was transition. The American Red Cross had said no more advanced first aid which I had taken years ago as a lifeguard swim instructor. So I had my advanced first aid but we took a American Association of Orthopedic Physicians and Surgeons textbook and had pages out of it to do our first aid class in the fall of 1986. Next year, in the fall of 87, that the WEC Winter Emergency Care textbook came out. So we just did these sheets of paper every week when we took our course.

Jodie: 2:21

So you got a little bit of the old and a little bit of the new Right Talk about being right there on the cusp, holy Toledo. That is interesting. So you said you joined in 1986, correct, correct. And that was with Mount Bachelor as a paid or the professional side, or the volunteer side. It was the volunteer side.

Kathy: 2:48

So there were, oh my goodness, maybe about 12 of us in the class and we finished our class and then in January we got our jackets and I finished out that year, like in April or May, and then the following year I was hired as a paid staff person. So I continued the rest of my career at Mount Batchelor from September of 87. And I left Mount Batchelor in January of 2010. So I finished my paid patrol career and then I went to San Iampaski Patrol in January of 2010. And I've been a volunteer there ever since.

Jodie: 3:29

So you had mentioned that you had started, and then with the merging of the two into the WEC, but you also mentioned about purging of numbers. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Kathy: 3:52

Yeah, the first number I got. I can't remember exactly what year this happened, but we were notified by National Ski Patrol and the patrols were given an entire new list of numbers, because something happened with the system and all of a sudden our numbers just disappeared and they had to reassign. Yeah, I started using that new number and I can't remember what year that was because at that time when you filled out an incident report on an accident you had to put your patrol number on the bottom. And I remember because I was also risk manager at Mount Batchelor for the mountain, but I worked as a patroller as well and I had to put up everybody's new numbers on the wall so that when they did their charts they would memorize their new numbers, because nobody could remember them.

Jodie: 4:43

Oh, no kidding. Had you started a while back ago. I mean, had that been shortly after you got started, or was it maybe mid-range in the 90s?

Kathy: 4:53

I want to think it was pretty early. It might've been the early 90s, I can't really remember, but I do remember. All of a sudden I have all my membership cards back from day one, so I can go through them and look to see exactly what year. All of a sudden, oh, I have a new number. Yeah.

Jodie: 5:13

Wow, that is, that is awesome, that is awesome.

Kathy: 5:17

Sorry, I can't find them. When I do, I'll just let Shirley know, you know, because it seemed to me it was a national thing. So everybody got new numbers because something happened. Well, you know, those days it was early computers, you know, and I used a computer at work when I entered all the incident reports for the insurance company. So at Mount Batchelor I had a computer but it was the great, big, huge consoles and all kinds of stuff and we had the lined paper with holes in it on the side that you had to printer.

Kathy: 5:51

It was really old, but I just remember for some reason somebody must have pushed a button at National and it went oh okay, we just erased. We just erased because I remember too they also asked us. So it had to be the I want to say it's the early nineties. They also some of our records were depleted and we had to let national know our addresses again and what awards we got and what instructors we had, because things kind of got not there. So it really got purged, yeah, yeah. So I don't know if it was just certain patrols or the whole system, but I remember having to go back and our profiles weren't set up like they are today where you can go. So I looked and I went oh my god, I got like 25 pages in there.

Jodie: 6:43

Oh, my goodness, it's been so many years. Wow, yeah, I think that was back in the 90s. If I recall back that, I remember something about hearing of the purging or something to that extent. But that is amazing. So again, you joined National Ski Patrol in what year? 1986,.

Kathy: 7:07

September.

Jodie: 7:07

Okay, and then you went to Mount Bachelor. But not only were you a volunteer, you worked for Mount Bachelor as a risk manager.

Kathy: 7:16

Yes, that was in 1992. I had worked with the risk manager at the time who could not. He had a very bad hip, needed a surgery, new hip and he couldn't ride snowmobiles. He didn't ski. So when you have an accident that needed to be investigated, he couldn't get out on the hill and take measurements and ski to different areas. And that's why I worked with him and skied to different areas and that's why I worked with him.

Kathy: 7:46

And when he retired the mountain asked me. Of course at that time I changed over from volunteer to paid. They asked me if I wanted to take on the role of my title was actually safety administrator, but I was manager. So I ran safety programs and worked with the insurance company and the corporate lawyer attorney and did all the investigations and trained teams to work with me. So there were days off that I was called at four in the morning and said we just had a horrible accident with an employee. Please come up and you know what are you doing today. And I said well, I'm supposed to work with the fire department all day, but I'll be there.

Kathy: 8:23

Oh my goodness, investigating accidents that occurred early in the morning.

Jodie: 8:56

So you also, besides the volunteer, you worked full time as a firefighter, correct?

Kathy: 9:04

I was a paramedic. I had my firefighter license but I chose because I like first aid. I chose to do the first aid and Ben Fire did have a unit that was a paramedic responding unit and medical transport unit. So on my days off at least one day, maybe two days, depending on when shifts were not covered I would work, sometimes on call and other times I'd sit at a station and, yeah, do my work.

Jodie: 9:37

That is awesome. That is just awesome. That is exciting to hear. Now, when did you start with Ben Fire?

Kathy: 9:48

I started in September of 1994.

Jodie: 9:51

Wow so, would you say, ski patrol gave you the leap into benfire it really did, and mainly because of the first aid right started.

Kathy: 10:03

My first aid. First first aid class was at a girl scout camp in new jersey in 1963 when I became a junior lifeguard across a camp and you had to have a first aid card to be a lifeguard. And then in 1965, I took my senior life saving and then in 67, I became a water safety instructor. So I taught swim lessons for American Red Cross for 50 years before I retired a few years ago. Oh, wow.

Kathy: 10:35

So I always had first aid training. So it just kind of, you know, I lived. I went cross country in September of 73 and was alone in my car with all my camping gear, my scuba gear, my skis, and went all the way cross country until March of 74. So it took me a lot of months and I wound up in San Diego and and I was hired by YMCA because now I had no money and I had given up. Not given up, I took a leave of absence from my school. I was a PE teacher at a middle school and I took a year off and I got to San Diego and I love the warm weather and I was hired as program director at a YMCA in San Diego, la Jolla, and worked there many years. But I always wanted I skied.

Kathy: 11:23

I started skiing in high school as a high school trip and my first ski area was Brody Mountain in Massachusetts and going cross country. I did a lot of skiing in Colorado. I had friends who were going to grad school in Greeley so I stayed there for six weeks and skied all over Colorado and then I came to Oregon. I actually applied at University. I guess it was Oregon, no, it was University of Oregon, in Eugene, I applied for a master's program in outdoor education. I was going to get my master's, so I went to an interview and then I came down the Redwoods and I went all the way to San Diego in March and then I intended to drive back cross country and resume my job as a PE teacher in September. But I loved San Diego so I stayed in San Diego and I stayed on the West coast ever since.

Jodie: 12:14

Oh, my goodness, so when? No, wait a minute. So you, you, you could actually say you have gone from water to snow. You're staying in the liquid form here, whether it's frozen or whether it's liquid, and and then being a firefighter, you know, I mean, granted, a paramedic, but now you're still around water. But so you were a PE teacher as well, yeah, that was my first degree.

Kathy: 12:40

And then I did go to Springfield College in Massachusetts for my master's education in Human Resources Administration and I finished that in 1985. So I would go back to the East Coast every Labor Day till the 4th of July and go to school five days a week at Springfield College, sleep in my car that I drove cross country, see my family on weekends and then go back and resume my job after the 4th of July. So I did that and then I also got another degree when I moved up here to Oregon. I moved up here because my boyfriend at the time and I decided we wanted to live in the cold weather. He was born and raised in Hollywood so he didn't know cold.

Kathy: 13:27

Yes, big Bear Lake several times to start skiing. So we decided we put out a map on the West Coast and we chose Mount Batchelor and moved up here in September of 84 and skied for a year at Ski Bums and then started our first aid class later. But yeah, it was in fact. Yeah. So we started skiing here and then got on ski patrol. That was our goal. And then when Ben Fire was asking for help with people like on call and that, I thought this is perfect. I live right here, I could do it on my days off, I don't have to sit at the station all the time we were on call we had the old pagers that got beeped 20 minutes to respond with your uniform on, and that's what I did for several years.

Kathy: 14:15

So when I left, oh, somewhere, I got my paramedic. Then I was an EMT since 1985. But with all my first day training I took an EMT course up at the college here in Bend and then I took my paramedic class and graduated in 2002. So then that was more money for Ben Fire, not for skiing, you know, for ski patrol and I only worked as an EMT or paramedic if and when the supervising physician would say if it needs to save somebody's life. I have above OEC skills that I can do this while a helicopter is coming in or an ambulance, and I did that for many years, right, and I retired from Ben Fire five years ago, but I still work every Wednesday. I am a volunteer and I do a lot of programs with them.

Jodie: 15:09

You know, I think I saw something on Instagram that they had said thank you, Meet Kathy Alexander. This is about two, almost two years ago. I don't know if there they had said that you had worked. Maybe it was when you retired. How long ago did you retire?

Kathy: 15:34

I retired five years ago, September.

Jodie: 15:37

Okay, yeah, yeah, no, there was from Ben Fire. It was September of 2023. They just said you had been a member of the department for 29 years and, yeah, they were just saying thank you to all your work with Ben Fire and everything.

Kathy: 15:57

I was honored in 23 and 24 for the volunteer of the year. I had the most hours in out of our whole volunteer unit and I think that might have come from that. Yeah, that is awesome.

Jodie: 16:11

Okay, so not only do you volunteer with the Scheme Patrol, you volunteer with Bend Fire. I mean, you've got two full-time volunteer jobs fire.

Kathy: 16:24

I mean you've got two full-time volunteer jobs. Yes, and then I volunteered with Deschutes County Search and Rescue for almost 30 years. So when I retired I did decide I'm. My twin sister was living with me at the time.

Jodie: 16:34

Right.

Kathy: 16:36

Mom had died and Katie needed to live with one of us six kids and I went to South Carolina and brought her back here and I just decided I had too many volunteer jobs and I wanted to focus on taking care of my sister and still ski patrol, because I love skiing after all these years and I'm right here in town and I can still do service with Benkfire. I did give up search and rescue, still do service with Benkfire. Did give up search and rescue.

Jodie: 17:01

Oh, that is fantastic, that is just awesome. Oh, my goodness, I see you know this is what we've always talked about. There's so much more that we don't know about someone, et cetera. And interestingly enough, we're not even close to paralleling you but in all the time. But I also became an EMT in 1980 and a paramedic in 82, but back east, so before I went into nursing. Now can you help us to understand and learn a little bit about, since you were at that cusp, that dividing part, right when they talk about the legacy global to then into OEC. You see on people's profiles, when you look at National Ski Patrol and you're like, just what does that?

Kathy: 17:48

mean Legacy appeared I don't know some time ago. When I was going through my profile today I saw it again. Instructive development started somewhere I want to in the late 80s and 90s and the Oregon region instructor development advisor lived on the west side of the mountains and we had all these people on the east side. There was Warner Canyon, way down southern Oregon and Mount Batchelor, warner Canyon and then Willamette Pass is kind of in the middle, you know you could go either way and then Mount Bachelor and this one guy would teach all the classes and I kept saying to him I'd love to teach, you know, and every time I asked him for a class he'd go well, I'm busy, I'll do it in six months. And we needed instructors now.

Kathy: 18:42

So I did become an instructor for instructor development and at that time you went to an all day class and it was called global, so that it was the how to be a look, you know how to be an instructor, the adult learner and characteristics, etc. And then you went and you mentored. So global was the overall term that they used. So you had to take the global. Nowadays it merged into you.

Kathy: 19:07

Take the online hybrid course and you can take it, and then you can do your face to face, with either a virtual meeting or meeting with an instructor. So there's two parts to becoming an instructor now, just like. But then you still have the mentoring program, which is being revamped right now, and I'll be introducing the new mentoring program and application system for instructors at the convention. So I hope all instructors will be there in all division, all disciplines, because it's going to affect them. Like, you want to be a mentor for MTR? Well, here's the new program and then I'll be meeting with the ITs and the instructors for instructor development to show them how they incorporate this into their teaching classes.

Jodie: 19:57

It just goes to show you that the changes from time to time of you talk about over the years you know where you talked about the slips of is always the same, but we're morphing it into technology but also encouraging. Would you not say more of the mentorship on making sure that people are, or learning styles? How would you say that in looking back in time, the changes, you know how it's? Granted, we've got technology that we're able to deliver it differently, but as far as the content, a little bit different, or do you feel it's just sort of? What are your thoughts on that?

Kathy: 20:51

Well, the concept of teaching adults changes verbiage over time, so we've kind of encouraged that. So the instructor development advisors for all the divisions, including international and professional, meet once a month. So we've been doing this for many, many years and going through some changes. Instructor development all the material, the DVDs we used to have, the books we used to have, and now the online programs were all designed by instructor development instructors and ITs. This was not national, going outside and having somebody paid to run our programs to do things. So things have been changing.

Kathy: 21:35

The new mentoring program is so that we don't lose people in the mentoring program. So after they take their ID course, which is two parts, online or in person, and then they go face-to-face, virtual or in person, then when they go to be mentored, if the mentee we call them, the candidate does not meet with a instructor in their discipline and ask them to be their mentor and go through a mentoring process, they get lost in, you know, and then they have this training so far, but they never become an instructor. It takes them years because they fall through the cracks in the sidewalk. So this is an easier way. On the sidewalk, so this is an easier way. And then the instructors for the course, the ID instructors can go back and see what progress the mentee, that candidate, is making and if it looks like they're not meeting with their mentor or the mentor usually doesn't really know how to mentor. They've been an instructor for many years but they've never had anybody underneath them that they mentor. So they are kind of at a loss, which means the candidate doesn't get the education that they really need to be a good instructor.

Kathy: 22:52

So this is a way of catching all and doing it. So I think this new program is going to work out well because we're eliminating the paperwork. The mentee doesn't have to hang on to the paperwork to have everybody sign and then the IT, who does their final evaluation when they teach, signs again. Then it goes to the division person and then the division person sends it to national. So there's a lot of steps along the way of becoming an instructor. And if somebody slips up or forgets a piece of paper along the way of becoming an instructor, and if somebody slips up or forgets a piece of paper along the way or loses it, always tell candidates keep all your paperwork. You've got to be responsible for your own learning and you have to prove it if somebody loses things, which does happen.

Jodie: 23:35

So not only did it prove for here your NSP purged out everybody's numbers, but I mean it does. I mean accidents happen. And it brings home that whole key point of yeah, back up, back up and save, save, save for your documentation for sure.

Kathy: 23:53

Yeah, and then there's people that'll come to me years later and say I took this course back and blah, blah, blah, so-and-so was my instructor. And then I have to find out where's that instructor, and they may have left ski patrol after so many years and I really don't know. And now, as the division advisor, I've been the division advisor for IT oh my goodness, id. I think it's going on eight or nine years and I also was the Oregon region ID advisor and I did that for two years with national because with the PNWD, because I couldn't find anybody in Oregon region and I finally did so. Now we have somebody in that region as well to work with. You know, doing the mentoring program. It's just you want people to finish they are sungungho being an instructor and then if somebody doesn't do their job or they lose that piece of paper, that person is just out there and you want to help them.

Jodie: 24:52

Exactly, exactly.