Park City, UT – The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) has appointed longtime Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) Alpine Team leader Michael Rogan as fundamental skills development coach, USSA Alpine Director Patrick Riml announced this morning.

“What a great opportunity for both PSIA and the U.S. Ski Team to create a stronger connection between coaching and the broader ski instruction community,” Rogan said. “It is an honor to be a part of the national development program and I hope that this is a continuation of a great relationship between our organizations.”

The addition of Rogan is a key element in the USSA’s move to provide higher quality training and education to the nation’s best young athletes from coast-to-coast, with a focus on fundamental skill development. He will work closely with alpine coach Thomas Erhard in providing support to top U16 (under 16) and U18 (under 18) in each region across the country. He will also work to enhance the USSA’s new SkillsQuest program, which was rolled out this spring to provide local clubs with a template to enhancing fundamentals training for their USSA athletes.

Rogan is a five-time member of the PSIA Alpine Team. In addition to his longtime role with PSIA, Rogan is director of instruction for SKI Magazine and is operations manager for Hotel Portillo in Chile. He has played a key role with the U.S. Women’s Alpine Speed Team in providing them specific programs for pre-race on-snow warm-up.

“One of the key factors we identified for future success was greater emphasis on younger skiers learning the very basic fundamentals of skiing – not just ski racing,” Riml explained. “As a PSIA leader, Michael has had a profound impact on our women’s national team athletes from project work he has done at camps in Mammoth Mountain. We’ll now be able to extend that support to our top development athletes in regions across our entire country.”

USSA has revamped its alpine development program to provide higher quality support to the best development athletes. Over 60 top U16 athletes were invited to a first-ever national camp at the USSA Center of Excellence last March. The camp provided an opportunity for training, education and talent identification. This spring veteran development leader Lester Keller was appointed regional development director, overseeing programs across the country. Erhard was named this summer to specifically work with U16 and U18 athletes nationally.

Rogan will base out of the USSA Center of Excellence in Park City where he will provide support to development athletes nationwide as well as those attending the new USSA Team Academy.