Patti Banks Receives the 2024 Outstanding Service Award

At the PSIA-AASI Rocky Mountain Education Staff Training in November 2024, Patti Bank was awarded with the Rocky Mountain Outstanding Service Award.  Fellow Cross Country staff member, Dale Drennan, helped honor Patti during the celebration with the following introduction.

“Raise your hand if you have ever met Patti Banks. She has touched a lot of lives. I think even just meeting her will help you understand why our XC ed staff nominated her for the Rocky Mountain Outstanding Service Award. As our leader, Patti has served us for 24+ years. You will see that her desire to teach skiing and work with others is unparalleled and goes well above and beyond what most would do.

As a member of the RM Cross Country Ed staff, I have worked with Patti for about 24 years! During that time Patti served 14 years as discipline chairman for Nordic, which included telemark and XC ed staff, and later, when these split into 2 disciplines, she served as XC chair-person/task force leader.

In these roles Patti has volunteered countless hours of her time creating, scheduling, and managing events for PSIA RM. Her leadership skills have been very apparent in organizing everything from information that members see on the RM webpage, to planning fall training, staffing events, and dealing with difficult people situations. Patti has been instrumental in making sure that PSIA Rocky Mountain XC educational materials and staff set the standard for other regions. In fact, because of her, our RM XC educational materials form a guidepost for the overall PSAI XC alignment process.

In any role that she has, Patti is a team player and a natural leader. She constantly sees what needs to be done and volunteers to do it. This servant style of leadership has motivated the XC ed staff to serve, to grow and to reach new heights. Because she seeks feedback and listens carefully, Patti acts to make changes that will improve our discipline and our organization. She even considers our physical needs along with the necessity of getting things done. For example, for long meetings Patti orders food to help us stay the course and finish what we need to do.

Patti’s strong work ethic and her dedication to PSIA RM inspires ed staff, PSIA members, and her students to reach new levels in their skiing, their teaching, and their technical understanding. And she does this in a fun and nurturing way! In addition to all this, her skiing skills, which include Alpine, telemark, and XC, are recognized and utilized nationally.

• She has taught the women’s summit in Eastern, Central, Intermountain and Western regions. as well RM
• In 2005 she was awarded Ski magazine’s Instructor of the Year award”- recognized for her ability to teach a wide range of skills.

Cross country ed staff member Deb Willits personal story shows just how Patti Banks goes above and beyond. Deb writes, “ in addition to all her organizational, communication and commitment skills, one of Patti’s strongest suits is her compassion and empathy for all of us on the Ed Staff as well as for all people that she comes into contact with. She lives and breathes (what we in PSIA refer to as) “People Skills”.

A powerful example: Deb goes on to say, “Many years ago, Patti and I were selectors for the National Nordic Team tryouts at Snowbird. I got food poisoning on my way to the event and ended up having to go to the Emergency Room. Patti got me to the hospital at about 9 PM, and then stayed up all night in the waiting room for me. She then got me up to Snowbird with the appropriate first meal and kept watch as I recovered. She stayed up all night for me in spite of her role in this very big event. She kept her friend in sight, and I will never forget this.”

In consideration of all of her contributions to PSIA RM, Patti Banks exemplifies what a recipient of the Rocky Mountain Outstanding Service Award should be, and she heartily deserves this award!! ( Let us all strive to be like Patti!)”