Jeff Hastings - Jeff grew up in Norwich, skiing with his brothers and Holland brothers. Coached by Bud Fisher at Williams College, Jeff made the national ski jumping team and began traveling the world. At the World Cup in Lake Placid in December 1983, he tied for third on the Normal Hill and came back the next day to finish first on the Large Hill. He headed to the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia in February 1984. At 24 years old, Jeff’s fourth place – a mere 1.7 points from bronze – has remained the best American Olympic ski jumping finish since Anders Haugen at the inaugural games, sixty years earlier. Jeff finished the 1984 World Cup season fourth overall and retired from competitive jumping. In 1985, he started coaching. In 1988, he led the U.S. Nordic Combined Team at the Olympics in Calgary, Canada.

Jeff’s experience and knowledge have also made him a sought after commentator for almost three decades. He has served as a ski jumping TV analyst for eight Olympics. His 26 year tenure includes every Winter Games since 1988.

In an effort to ensure other athletes would have the same opportunities as he did, in 2009 he worked with Alan Johnson and Rex Bell, Jim Holland and other jumpers to found USA Ski Jumping, now USA Nordic Sports.Jeff also started the “Story Project” which solicits stories from jumpers past, present and future.

John Brodhead skied four events at Vermont Academy (class of 1962) - slalom, downhill, cross country and jumping - under the tutelage of legendary Vermont coaches Warren Chivers and Angus Black and raced at Middlebury College. John was teaching at the Center for Northern Studies in Wolcott VT in 1979 when he was asked by the then owner of the Craftsbury Outdoor Center (COC) Russell Spring to direct the COC’s ski program. He developed an incredible trail system in the Northeast Kingdom, started numerous ski programs for youth and adults, and in his remaining time, organized and ran the very successful Craftsbury Marathon. Through tireless hours of improving the trail, working with landowners, marketing the event, he made the Marathon one of the most popular ski marathons in the country. The John Brodhead award is now given to the male and female winners of the Craftsbury Marathon. John founded the Craftsbury Nordic Ski Club in 1997, modeled on the Scandinavian multi-generational ski training design. He recruited five families from the area, whose children were racing in the Bill Koch program, and instituted a summer training program under Coach Pepa Miloucheva, former Bulgarian World Ski Orienteering Champion. For 38 years as Director of the COC, John touched the lives of countless skiers.

Doug Lewis - Doug, encouraged by his mother who was a ski instructor at Middlebury Snowbowl in Vermont, was on skis by the age of three. By age ten he was hooked on ski racing and had already set his sights on the Olympics. He went on to become a two-time U.S. National Champion, a two-time member the U.S. World Championship team, and a two-time Olympian. After moving from the Middlebury Ski Club to the Green Mountain Valley School ski academy, he won the Junior Olympics as a 16 year-old in 1980. He raced his first World Cup event in 1981 in Aspen, Colorado. Unfortunately, he crashed in that debut and broke his back, but worked his way back into form and returned to the World Cup circuit the following year. Just twenty years old, he raced in his first Olympics in Sarajevo in 1984. In 1985, he became the first American male ever to win a medal in the downhill at the World Championships with his Bronze Medal finish in Bormio, Italy. In the first World Cup race of 1986 he grabbed a World Cup Downhill Podium in Las Lenas, Argentina. He won his first of two U.S. National titles in 1986 as well. He competed in Calgary at the Olympic Games in 1988 and retired from ski racing at the end of that season. He has continued as a tireless advocate for skiing and ski racing and is actively involved in every level of the ski industry as a broadcaster, TV host, ski celebrity, motivational speaker, product consultant, spokesperson, journalist, coach and fitness trainer. For over 25 years, he has run ELITEAM camps and clinics, designed to inspire and educate young ski racers. With its unique focus on teaching the concepts of sports physiology, sports psychology and sports nutrition, ELITEAM builds “complete athletes” and gives them the tools to maximize their performance on the slopes.

John Gerndt’s roots run as deep as any in the New England snowboard scene, but his branches reach farther than most. After thirty-plus years in Vermont, serving a key role on Burton’s hardgoods development team, JG’s experience, impact, and influence have earned him an affectionate nickname among his peers: “Yoda.” His passion and hard work have planted seeds of innovation that have changed the way people enjoy snowboards around the globe.

His earliest claim to fame (which he’ll be the first to point out as arguable) is that he was the first Burton dealer in the state of New Hampshire, selling boards out of his living room while attending Plymouth State College. He was among the first generations of riders in the region, helping to define the culture and customs of this new approach to sliding on snow.

In 1983 he landed a spot on the Burton team, competing and testing the latest tech. In 1987 he moved to Vermont and started working at Burton full time. Jake Burton Carpenter quickly took advantage of the value that JG brought to product development, sending him across the pond to help guide the first Burton factories in Europe, and then all over the world with the Burton Team as a tester and designer.

He played a preeminent role in designing revolutionary surf-inspired boards like the Fish, Malolo, Nug, and Resonator. He’s built boards for legendary riders like Terje Haakonsen, Kelly Clark, Danny Davis, Red Gerard, Chloe Kim, along with fellow hall-of-famers Jake and Donna Carpenter, Jeff Brushie, and Ross Powers (to name a few).

Today, JG lives in Stowe, Vermont with his wife Maddy and their son Zaine. He still plays a leading role in Burton’s product development, rides an average of 100 boards a year, and does all he can to keep the fire burning for the younger generations. Look for him weaving through the trees on Mt. Mansfield or skating the bowl behind Burton HQ every day around lunchtime.

Ann “Nosedive Annie” Bonfoey Taylor - (1910-2007) Ever the sportswoman, Ann competed at Wimbledon before starting her ski racing career. While racing in Stowe, she acquired the nickname, “Nosedive Annie” and became an alternate to the 1940 Olympic Ski Team. During World War II, she became one of 25 women flight instructors for Army and Navy Pilots about which she wrote a book. She was married to ski pioneer J. Negley Cooke before marrying Vernon “Moose” Taylor in 1947. As one of the founders of Vail, the couple built one of the first ski chalets in the new town. She had a colorful and illustrious life in skiing and fashion. She was featured in SlopeStyle for the ski clothing she designed for Lord & Taylor, and sold in her shop in Stowe, and was featured in Life, Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Her clothing collection was donated to the Phoenix Museum of Art when she passed away. Suzy Chaffee described her as a “pioneer of women’s US Olympic skiing” and “Olympic role models of a magnificent life.”

Biathlete Olympian Dennis Donahue grew up in Essex Junction, went to Middlebury College, and currently resides in Thetford. He raced internationally from 1968 to 1976, representing the Putney Ski Club. He competed in the 1972 and 1976 Olympics. He participated in five World Biathlon Championships. After seven years teaching and coaching at the Holderness School, he has spent 30-plus years dedicated to the development of competitive junior skiing in New England at the Ford Sayre program at both national and regional levels, and was actively involved with Junior Olympics. He continues to coach at Ford Sayre today!

As an avid promoter of the values inherent in alpine skiing, Foster Chandler was an integral figure in bringing the sport of skiing to the public at large. From 1964 to 1996 he was Vice President and Director of Marketing of Killington Ski Area where he helped grow Killington into one of the largest ski areas in the country. He spearheaded the mass marketing of the Graduated Length Method that revolutionized the way people learned to ski, resulting in the major growth of the sport in the 70s and 80s. He was founder and President of Ski New England for 20 years, Director of New England Ski Areas Council for 46 years, and for 8 years was Chairman of the Vermont Travel Council, and member of the Vermont and National Ski Area Associations marketing committees. Foster has skied 196 ski areas.

Freestyle mogul skier, Olympic and World Championship medals winner, Hannah Kearney grew up in Norwich, attended Hanover High, and graduated from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. With 117 World Cup starts, she was on the podium seventy-one times, winning forty-six events. During the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons, she won a record-setting sixteen World Cups in a row. Over her career, Hannah competed in three Olympic Games (2006, 2010, 2014) winning a gold medal in Vancouver and a bronze in Sochi. She also won eight World Championship medals, three gold; and ten F.I.S. World Cup crystal globes.

Pico Peak founders Janet and Brad Mead opened their ski area in Rutland on Thanksgiving Day 1937 with a rope tow on Little Pico. In 1938, Sunset Schuss opened on a hike-up basis, and Karl Acker came from Switzerland as the Ski School Director. The Meads installed the first T-bar in the US in 1940. Janet ran the ski area until 1954 after Brad’s tragic death in 1942 focusing on youth programs as their daughter Andrea Mead Lawrence succeeded internationally in ski racing, winning two Olympic gold medals in 1952.

Industry pioneer Paul Johnston accumulated many “firsts” in his thirty years of ski resort management to his credit, most notably as Vice President of Stratton Mountain where he opened the slopes to snowboarders and staged the U.S. Open of Snowboarding at Stratton starting in 1985. Keeping in step with the growth of snowboarding he brought in specialized Bombardier grooming equipment, including a pipe grinder, Stratton was able to introduce halfpipe events at the 1998 U.S. Open. As the number of riders at areas quickly grew, he was instrumental in helping other resorts navigate best practices for instructors, equipment, and liability. He also worked at Bromley Mountain, installing snowmaking and the first alpine slide in the 1970’s.