The face behind Women of Patrol and Sierra Nevada Resiliency Team, Kari Brandt is a leading voice in the ski patrol industry, expanding access to the career and developing vital resources. But when she thinks back to where it all started, it takes to her to a powder day on her home mountain, Ski Green Valley, over 30 years ago.
That’s where four-year-old Kari Brandt, outfitted in her neon onesie and 101 Dalmatians fanny pack (stuffed with band-aids and wet wipes), had prepared to clean up and bandage any mess the powder day threw her way.
“I have one really core memory of this guy who fell…,” she remembers, “…and just couldn’t stand back up.”
This was the moment she had prepared for. Desperate to help, the four-year-old approached the man to render aid, aspiring after her parents who were volunteer ski patrollers at the mountain.
After multiple offers to help him into an upright position, followed by his multiple declines, she finally offered, “Well do you need a band-aid or a wet wipe?”
Again, he said, “No.”
“Well, have a good day,” she said and skied off, disappointed. Then nicknamed “Stump” for her stocky stature and the way she would turn with her whole body, the neon stump was likely the image this man saw skiing away from him.
“I hope he still remembers it and talks about it,” she said, laughing.
Looking back, this was her ski patrol origin story, but the reality of a career in the ski industry wouldn’t set in until nearly two decades later. Little did she know she would not only have a successful ski patrol career, but her influence would leave a mark on the culture.
How ski patrol found her
Brandt often jokes about polling a ski industry conference to discover the eclectic list of qualifications, degrees and education everyone has. She’d add a bachelor’s in math and a master’s in STEM Education to the mix.
Although she grew up immersed in skiing, it was always an extracurricular activity and hadn’t recognized it as a potential career path.
Yet, in another foreshadowing, her family would joke how her first job was in the ticket office of Ski Green Valley, where at two months old, she would often sleep on the job under the ticket window while her godmother sold lift tickets.
Immersed in skiing since day one, she of course had one requirement of the job down; skiing was essentially second nature.
Brandt stumbled upon her fascination for emergency medicine during graduate school when she took a wilderness first responder class for her job as a hiking guide. Brandt didn’t hesitate to enroll in an EMT course, and the following year was on patrol at Snow Valley Mountain Resort.
In her second year of patrolling, she started to realize its potential as a meaningful career.
“For me,” Brandt says, “my favorite part about ski patrolling is I get to take someone’s worst day of skiing and snowboarding they’ve ever had and just try to make it a little bit better.”
From Snow Valley, Brandt went to developing EMS and risk management programs at an adventure park in southern California. After that, a position at Diamond Peak brought her to Tahoe.
The ski patrol career had officially hooked her.
Changing the culture
Brandt is determined to leave the ski patrol industry different from how she found it, challenging ingrained status quos that met her at the start of the career.
“What would happen,” she had asked, “if we mentored our new hires instead of hazed our rookies?”
It was question she was willing to explore, especially once she was in a management position as the Patrol Director and Safety Coordinator at Diamond Peak.
There Brandt strives to establish an environment emphasizing teaching and learning, rather than measuring up.
“Everyone’s going to do a lot better,” she explains, “if you have this growth culture versus you’ve got to prove you’re tough enough to keep up with us.”
In addition to nurturing a learning environment, Brandt has also come to understand the power of balancing the different strengths and qualities of team members—embracing a diverse team dynamic—rather than having everyone be the best at everything.
“That’s an unreasonable expectation,” Brandt says, “you have a team for a reason.”
Brandt also understands that valuing people and allowing them to show up as genuinely themselves as possible will in turn encourage them to let others do the same. It trickles down and demonstrates that culture isn’t something that can be contrived or forced.
“It’d be really hard to come into a new team and just be like ‘okay here’s your culture now,’” she says. “It’s a long game, you have to essentially let them feel it in order for it to propagate.”
It’s only successful because the team sees the value and embraces it, ultimately becoming the force that drives it.
2 nonprofits, thousands reached
Since moving to Lake Tahoe, Brandt has developed Women of Patrol and the Sierra Nevada Resiliency Team to proactively meet the needs she’s identified in the ski patrol industry.
What started as an Instagram page, Women of Patrol is now a global organization that highlights and supports women patrollers by lowering barriers to the often intimidating ski patrol realm. Women of Patrol offers mentorships, scholarships, and resources, as well as an empowering and expanding community.
Entering its second year, the Sierra Nevada Resiliency Team provides vital mental health support for ski industry employees after incidents. The team also supports mental health support teams, known as resiliency teams, at resorts.
The effort has connected the different resiliency teams across Sierra Nevada resorts for a supportive and resourceful network.
Where she’s going
During the winter, Brandt can be found all over Diamond Peak with ski patrol dog Fred Wayne Sheppard at her side, who serves as the unofficial ambassador for the patrol team.
Dog mom, patrol director and innovator, Brandt’s impactful work is already earning her recognition and awards. Most recently, she earned national recognition as the “Safety Champion” from the National Ski Areas Association for the 2024-2025 ski season, but she doesn’t plan on stopping there.
In an effort to have a top-down impact on the culture, Brandt could see herself as a general manager of a ski resort one day. However, she isn’t entirely worried about what’s next or the particulars of her next role—she just has one requirement.
“I want to be able to help move the ski industry in a positive forward direction.”
Editor’s Note: Kari Brandt is now the Risk Manager at Sugar Bowl Resort. This article originally appeared in the Winter 2025/26 edition of Tahoe Magazine.