Gwen Allard
1999
Recreation/Development | 2001
Hometown: Mendon, Vermont
School Name: Adaptive Sports Foundation
A pioneering snow sports educator, Gwen Allard spent a half century focusing on helping others learn how to ski, with a particular focus on children and adults with disabilities. Growing up in Schenectady, NY, Gwen learned a love of outdoor recreation from her father. She learned to snow ski at the nearby Maple Ski Ridge. Gwen was one of the first to embrace adaptive education and went on to become a well-respected leader within the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) and American Association of Snowboard Instructors (AASI) for her innovative teaching methodology and the ability to effectively communicate it to students. Along the way, she was a model of perseverance in rallying the entire ski industry around adaptive sport.
In the mid-70s Gwen founded the Gore Mountain Adaptive Program, one of the earliest adaptive ski programs in the country. Gwen realized that the development of standardized, professional teaching methods was essential. After earning her PSIA Level 3 in 1974, she then went on to become executive director of PSIA-Eastern in 1975, where she also founded the PSIA-E Foundation. With her passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, Gwen was able to provide consult and counsel to the ski resort industry on how to best manage new protocols to truly provide a great experience for adaptive snow sports enthusiasts.
One of her most noted accomplishments was the development of the Adaptive Sports Foundation at New York’s Ski Windham. Starting with a fledgling program in 1983, she grew it to become an epicenter for adaptive winter sports. In 2005, the foundation opened the Gwen Allard Adaptive Sports Center which continued to grow and now features its own chairlift. Another success story was the development of the Double H Ranch in New York. Gwen was consulted on how to turn an abandoned ski area on the property into a usable resource for the disabled community. Calling on her industry network, Allard generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in donated equipment, put together a staff and volunteer team to make the ranch a great success upon opening in 1998. Double H Ranch was the proving ground for a PSIA-AASI program that ultimately reached 70 organizations nationwide impacting over 10,000 adaptive instructors.
