the first annual SKI FOR ROBBE MEMORIAL SKI RUN.
About eight years ago at Alta, Robbe Mayall and another veteran instructor were eating lunch in the ski school locker room. A fledgling new full-time instructor wandered in, lamenting he couldn’t scrape together enough money to pay for a PSIA clinic on the wages he earned working the beginner group lessons at Alta—what he called “the bread line.”
Mayall looked at the other vet, and they had the same thought. Both reached into their pockets and scooted $50 across the table to the rookie. Problem solved.
It wasn’t the lone example of Robbe’s passion for helping newcomers in the profession develop. As he reached middle age, never married, without kids and an only child, Robbe began to think about what he might leave behind. And he came up with the basis for what is now his legacy, the Robbe Mayall Ski Education Foundation.
Diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in December 2020, Robbe passed away the following August at the age of 61. Entering the 2022-23 season, the first beneficiaries of his foundation were announced.
Out of Alta’s legendary Alf Engen Ski School, the foundation is awarding $3,000 apiece to Nate Livingston, Lauren Shaw, Luke Burnett and Zhanna Rice to cover costs of attending PSIA’s national academy in the spring. Also, $500 grants were given to Sarah Kaye and Lucas Winson to fund their professional development and PSIA certification training.
The foundation plans to award annual grants to developing members of Alta’s ski school, affording them the financial support to learn both by experience and training. Notably, the foundation is its own entity, unaffiliated with Alta other than its ski education mission, which ultimately will improve the quality of the resort’s ski teaching
“The professional development opportunities afforded through the generosity of the Robbe Mayall Ski Education Foundation have the potential to create career-changing experiences for the instructors of the Alf Engen Ski School,” said Scott Mathers, director of Alta’s ski school. “We are forever grateful for Robbe’s forethought to create this foundation.”
When he was about 10 years old, Robbe moved to Wala Wala, Washington, where he befriended Mike Wells, whose parents were ski instructors at a now-closed resort in northeastern Oregon called Spout Springs. A bit of a mountain rat, Wells invited his friend to join him one weekend. Mike’s parents taught Robbe, and Robbe tried to keep up with Mike. That dangerous recipe led to Robbe breaking his leg on his third day on the mountain.
But a seed was planted.
“He saw what my parents were doing and thought that was pretty cool and a way to be up on the mountain a lot,” Wells said. “He was naturally one to mentor people along, so the teaching/coaching part of it, that was a natural fit.”
The boys became part-time ski instructors at Spout Springs during their early college years. Robbe earned his full certification with PSIA while finishing his degree at Washington State, where he majored in recreation and park administration. After college, he became a PSIA examiner and a whitewater rafting guide in the summer, and he learned to windsurf and kiteboard with another high school friend, Brad Treganowan.
“It didn’t surprise any of us that Rob made a career out of being outdoors and having fun,” said Treganowan. “He was a professional outdoorsman.”
Mayall continued his ski teaching career at the Summit at Snoqualmie in Washington, and Arapahoe Basin and Keystone in Colorado before arriving at Alta in 2005. There, Phil Shaw and his wife, Brenda, became regular clients of Robbe. Shaw soon saw something special in Mayall’s style of teaching.
“Every single time we took a lesson with Robbe, there was something he said that my wife and I would talk about for the rest of the year that elevated skiing beyond just a lesson,” Shaw said. “One time, he said, ‘Brenda, Phil, when you’re doing this drill, don’t be of the earth. Rise above it.’
“We then took that line and said, this situation at work and all this tension and all the frustration we’re feeling around dealing with a family matter, whatever else it might be, we can’t do anything about it. This is one of those times where the best way down the earth is to not be of the earth, disconnect a little bit, and go through it smoothly. Still to this day we talk about that: Don’t be of the earth.”
During another session, Robbe began sharing the blueprints of his legacy—how he wanted to help fund new ski instructors’ professional education at a time in their careers when their earnings were as low as their experience.
Shaw happens to be the executive director of a diabetes nonprofit organization and knew how to get Robbe’s foundation off the ground.
“I knew that I had relevant experience to get it from his mind, get it from his concepts, onto paper and then to map out the steps to make it a real thing,” Shaw said.
“The general idea of providing professional support, encouragement, and motivation to ski instructors, to help them become professionals, if that could be fulfilled then that would be a worthy enterprise to undertake, in and of its own right. The other part that made me feel like it was a good idea was it clearly fit Robbe and what Robbe stood for,” Shaw continued. “The combination left me feeling inspired and like if I could in any way help him bring this thing to life, then he had my full commitment.”
It required registration in Utah as a nonprofit, application for a federal Employee Identification Number (EIN) and the application for full 501(c)(3) designation by the IRS as a non-profit, making all donations tax deductible. In the year since Robbe’s death, Shaw and a couple of Robbe’s other longtime clients and friends worked through these steps.
“Everybody involved in this deeply and passionately at an emotional level wants to fulfill Robbe’s legacy and has taken on that mission with the highest level of pure intent. And it warms my heart and has made it fun for me to work on,” Shaw said. “Another big theme of his was making people feel part of the community of ski instructors, so people understood how to be part of a community.”
By the way, that fledgling instructor to whom Robbe slid $50 to pay for a clinic is now a fully certified member of PSIA’s Intermountain Division Demonstration Team, leading clinics and helping new instructors further their own learning. Talk about paying it forward!
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