The snow business is a challenging, unpredictable one, but an innovative instructor training company established at Treble Cone more than 20 years ago is still going strong.

Garett Shore and Dean Hunter are the founders of the Rookie Academy, a ski and snowboard instructor training company. Garett was one of the participants in the first rookie instructors’ course run by Dean at Treble Cone in 1992, and the pair now run the business - considerably evolved from what it was back then.

Garett is a Dunedin boy with strong family ties to Wanaka (his parents holidayed in Wanaka from before he was born, and he skied with his family from the age of 11). He was finishing his first year at university in 1992, unsure whether he wanted to continue, when the first rookie course offered him the opportunity to get an internationally recognised qualification in ski instructing and start working back-to-back winters.

Garett got through his second year at university and “fell into the trap” of the skiing circuit, he said.

“It’s a way of subsidising travel,” he said. From 1992-97, Garett did back-to-back winters in New Zealand, Canada and the US, teaching, hanging out with like-minded people “always in an amazing place like Wanaka or Whistler or Aspen - resorts you probably couldn’t afford to survive in if you were just a tourist”.

Garett - hooked on coaching

A “sporty, competitive guy”, Garett said he always needs something he can sink his teeth into. So when instructing at Treble Cone, he took note of what was happening on the rookie course.

“I saw what Dean was doing - the coaching side of it. That got me hooked.” Not motivated by teaching privates and groups, Garett was more interested in “higher end” instructor training.

“It’s not just telling you what to do, it’s telling you how to do it, and why to do it. There’s more depth to the message, more of the psychology of teaching; and you’re working with people over a longer time frame.”

He took every opportunity he could to hang out with Dean and get involved in the training, and in 1997, they set up the Rookie Academy - still operating at Treble Cone, but independent of it.

“We wanted to see if there was potential there to run full-time training. We saw an opportunity to put together a package. No one had done it before in New Zealand.” Fortunately, it all fell into place. “The stars aligned a little bit.”

“In our first couple of years our expectations weren’t high - we were ski bums! - and we were surprised at how well it was doing.”

When Garett did the rookie course in 1992 the commitment was one day a week for 10 weeks, at a cost of about $500. Now there are options from three to 11-week courses, and prices ranging from $6K to $16K, covering full-time training, accommodation, lift passes, transport, and even exams.

From the 1990s through to about 2006/7, the course participants were “all Brits”, Garett said, “but after the global financial crisis we had a real slow down in the British market.”

After 2008 there were some “tight seasons,” he said. One year the clients got down to about 70 people. Since then the market has changed a lot. “In the past four years there’s been a big growth in Asian clients. China’s probably the biggest market.”

This season there were 22 trainers and 140 students, from “all four corners of the world". Garett estimates the academy contributed to 7,200 bed nights in the town this winter.

The Rookie Academy has fared well in an unpredictable industry. “We’ve become a lot smarter and more scientific about how to approach the learning. The product is a lot more guest-driven.”

Garett and Dean are still involved in training and certifying instructors, and Garett is a member of the New Zealand ski committee, which sets the direction for the curriculum.

In the summer Garett stays in Wanaka and does the company’s admin and marketing while Dean heads to the northern hemisphere. The academy is also established in Aspen, Colorado, and Mont Sainte Anne and Canada. Dean and Garett are also pushing into China, which they visit a couple of times a year.

Of the 22 instructors, seven are Kiwis, and the others are from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. Some have been with the academy for more than 10 years.

Being one of the very few ski resorts in the southern hemisphere is a real advantage, enabling the academy to attract instructors from the northern hemisphere.

“Our team of trainers - you’d never get a group like that together anywhere else in the world. They are the elite.” The trainers can also hang out and learn from each other. “It creates an amazing culture and working environment.”

That’s just one of the factors which keeps Garett motivated and rewarded in this industry.

“We’re most proud of the fact that we said, ‘this is where we want to live, how are we going to make it work?’ There have been plenty of times when we could have gone, ‘this is too hard’. It’s not the easiest industry to survive in: It’s a short season; it’s unpredictable; you’re at the mercy of a lot of different global markets. It’s a sport - so it’s cyclical. It’s a roller-coaster ride,” he said.

“But it’s an amazingly enjoyable way of working. It’s hard to walk away from.”

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