OUR
STORY

It was only natural for Nichole to follow in the footsteps of her family. Her Uncle is  a world renowned free-style skier and has been inducted in the hall of fame. Both of her parents grew up in ski communities and showed passion for the sport early on. Nichole and her brother Ethan began skiing at the young age of 3 at a resort in Colorado called Steamboat. After a few short years of skiing, they transitioned over to snowboarding when their family moved to Summit County, Colorado. It became an addiction after the first day of strapping her board onto her feet.

Nichole and her brother joined a snowboard program, Team Summit, out of Copper Mountain, Colorado in 6th grade. This is where the true passion and love of sport was ignited. Snowboarding became her truest form of creative expression. Anytime she was on snow, nothing else in the world mattered, all worries went out the window. There is no feeling like the clean crisp air on your cheeks and the fresh snow squeaking under your board while surrounded by a beautiful, mountainous backdrop.

She spent from 6th grade through her senior year in high school competing in three disciplines, half pipe, boardercross and slopestyle. After her senior year, she decided to take a step back and focus on going to College at Metro State College in Denver. She studied and obtained a degree in Leadership in Outdoor Education and was working towards a degree in Sports Psych. During this period of time, she missed snowboarding and began working at a small ski resort called Loveland as a snowboard instructor. It was during her time here she fell back in love with the sport and knew what her new career path would be. Coaching.

The industry welcomed her back with open arms when she was re-connected with a female coach who coached her during her early years at Team Summit, Laura Munch. She was then introduced to Sasha Nations, who at the time was the Program Director for Team Summit. This brought Nichole full circle as she started coaching for the team she grew up riding for. This was the ultimate form of giveback and was the beginning of a beautiful journey.

During the time of working for Team Summit, Laura also introduced Nichole to a program called Adaptive Action Sports.. At this period in time, the first US Paralympic Snowboard team was being created as Paralympic Snowboarding would make its debut in Sochi, Russia. Through AAS, Nichole was introduced to a gentleman named Miah Wheeler who was the head coach of the Paralympic National Team. Together they provided her with her first opportunities at traveling the world and coaching at the World Cup level. During this time, Miah also ran the Park and Pipe program out of Aspen,CO. He soon offered her a position with the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Program as the ProAm coach. 

She ran this program for 5 years, building it from the ground up. She had the pleasure of working with several high level athletes in both halfpipe and slopestyle. One of those riders, Chris Corning, was nominated straight to the US Pro team, skipping the development team all together. He was the first athlete to qualify for the PyeongChang Olympic team at the age of 17. This caught the attention of US Ski & Snowboard and they started to give Nichole opportunities at several Junior World Championships and development camps. After several years of developing a working relationship, they asked her to apply for the Rookie halfpipe position. She did so and received the job offer. However, at this point in time, she had a program full of committed athletes she wanted to see through and didn’t feel like it was an appropriate time to make the switch. She respectfully declined the position and put another season of learning from her mentor under her belt. At the end of that season, the US team asked her to apply for the Rookie Slopestyle job becoming the first female in the role as a National Team Coach.

In 2017, Nichole was nominated by her peers for both Development and Domestic Coach of the year from US Ski & Snowboard. Only a handful of people have been nominated and chosen for both. In 2020 Nichole was the first ever female to receive international Coach of the Year and the second female to be awarded with Overall Coach of the Year.

During her time with the US team, Nichole has graduated five riders and counting to the pro team, attended a Women in Leadership conference in Norway, graduated from the Coach Accelerator Program through the United States Olympic Committee, and started up all female athlete camps as well as all female coach clinics. She is very involved with the coach education system as the lead coach developer for certifications across the country. Nichole is always looking to further her professional development and give back to the community in any way she can.