Putting politics on ice in favour of an alpine career

Putting politics on ice in favour of an alpine career

Liz Nelson is a ski instructor and coordinator for the ski kindy at Cardrona Alpine Resort. As a young student, she thought she was destined for a career in politics, but fate had other plans.

Skills Active Aotearoa, the industry training organisation for snowsport, caught up with Liz recently to find out why she put her politics career on ice.

In a brand new video, Liz describes how she got to where she is now, and why her alpine ambitions won out over the prospect of a more academic and office-based life back in the UK, where she’s from.

Liz completed her Advanced Snowschool Instruction qualification with Skills Active in 2017. She is now an evidence verifier – a workplace-based observer who can sign off industry trainees’ learning – for both the Advanced and the Introductory Snowschool certificates.

Liz is also on her way to becoming a Skills Active assessor. She says Cardrona’s People and Performance team is great at supporting staff through their training, and encouraging them to keep moving up through the qualification pathways that are available.

“When you first arrive, and you do your onboarding, you’re immediately told about the next qualification you could do, and it’s been really good to see so many people take that up.”

Liz says the variety of working on the mountain makes every day exciting.

The alpine weather, she adds, “opens up a whole new world of challenges that it’s just really fun to get your teeth into”.

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