Dick Gardiner

#3           Richard Gardiner

Patrol - Ski Sundown

Joined - 1966

Inducted - June 6, 2008

Richard Gardiner “Living Legend, Connecticut Region Teaching Guru” Dick Gardiner joined the National Ski Patrol in 1966. In 1972 he became an Alpine Senior Patroller and in 1977 a Nordic Senior Patroller. He was awarded National Appointment number 6640 in 1986. Dick has been a part of the National Ski Patrol’s programs delivery growth every step of the way during his patrol career. He became an Advance First Aid instructor in 1968 and taught future patrollers at Satan’s Ridge, before it was known as Ski Sundown. He was one of the first WEC and then OEC instructors in the Connecticut Region; later becoming an Instructor Trainer in the discipline. A position he currently still holds. In 1972 he became a Senior First Aid Trainer Evaluator and moved into the position of Senior EMM Evaluator as the direction of the Senior program changed. He held this position until 2005, during this period many, many patrollers benefited from his teaching and became Senior Patrollers with his help. In 1972 he also started his patrols ski and toboggan training and in 1977 became a Senior Ski and Toboggan Examiner, participating in Senior S & T clinics and Evaluations up until the late 1990’s. He set up the Connecticut Region Nordic program in the 1970s while serving as the Region’s Nordic Advisor and as of 2008 is still a Nordic Instructor. He began teaching Mountain Travel and Rescue and Avalanche courses in the early 1970s and has served as the Connecticut Region’s MTR and Avalanche Advisor through the 1980s to current 2008. In the early 1990s he became a certified Avalanche Instructor and currently is on Division staff as a Level ll Avalanche Instructor. He is Connecticut Region’s MTR Instructor Trainer currently. In 1985 he became the Instructor Development Advisor for the Region and its first official instructor in 1987. He organized and taught the first Instructor Development class (phase 1) in 1986 and was its only instructor until 2000 He continues today (2008) as an Instructor Development Instructor. Dick has taught, mentored, and coached just about every patroller in the Connecticut Region since the 1970s and continues to do so. He has been instrumental in bringing this Region to where it is today. Because of his knowledge, enthusiasm, professionalism and integrity as a patroller and teacher, there exists a wealth of knowledge and expertise in each and every patrol, in the Connecticut Region. He has almost single handedly helped to sustain the Region by his endless drive to create instructors in every National Ski Patrol discipline. Dick Gardiner is a person who has a passion from within for teaching fellow patrollers and one who continues to care so deeply about his fellow patrollers and patrolling.