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Kristen Robinson - home for the show

'Play your part. Therein lies your greatness.' - William Shakespeare She knew it right away. Realized immediately that she couldn't stand on the sidelines and watch it happen. She had to come back.

'Play your part. Therein lies your greatness.'

- William Shakespeare

She knew it right away. Realized immediately that she couldn't stand on the sidelines and watch it happen. She had to come back.

"There I was in The Agency Group's Toronto office," recounts über multi-tasker event-promoter/facilitator/cheerleader Kristen Robinson. "It was July 2003 and we were all following the action on our TV monitors. I was so excited. My old Mountain FM colleague Scott Roberts was on the screen, my former boss Mo Douglas was there too, Steve Podborski, Stuart Rempel - you know, the whole crew. So many people I'd known and worked with..." She pauses. Takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly. "When the announcement finally came that Whistler had won the bid, I cheered like crazy. And suddenly I was profoundly homesick. My heart was in my throat. I had to get back!"

It's tough being a Whistler local when you have ambition. Particularly if you're a female. Opportunities are limited here. The range of jobs is fairly narrow. Sure, the skiing is great and the mountain biking is marvellous. As for professional development? Not so much.

But if you love the place - if you really, really love the place - then you do what you can to make it happen. You scrimp and save and find whatever work you can. Build up your career to a point where you think you might want to expand and grow. And then what?

"That's exactly what happened to me," admits Robinson. "I spent nearly 12 years here working my tail off. And I don't regret it one bit. It was so much fun to be part of this community. And at a time when things were really happening around here - the WSSF, Summer Concerts in the Alpine - I can say I'm a graduate of the University of Whistler." She smiles. "But by 2002, I'd hit the wall. I needed a change."

So she moved back to Ontario. Took a job with one of the biggest talent-booking agencies in the world ("the biggest!" she tells me) and watched her professional stock rise. "It's an incredible business but you have to be really passionate to succeed," she explains. "There's no romance there. It's all about long hours, successful transactions and selling bands. Still, it was an amazing education. And I knew there was a lot of room there for me to grow."

But when the Olympic siren call came, she couldn't fight it. Whistler had touched her soul. It was part of her. No way would she be satisfied watching the Games from afar. "So I came back," she says simply. And then giggles. "Just like the first time - with a little money in the bank but no job." Another fit of the funnies. "In fact, I didn't have much more than a coffee mug and a pair of skis..."

She's being modest. For Robinson had more big-event experience in her professional bag of tricks than just about anybody in Sea to Sky. More importantly, her network of friends and colleagues was strong here. This is not a gal known for slamming the door behind her when she leaves. Indeed, she seems to be on good terms with everyone she's ever worked with. "Well," she admits. "There are one or two people I don't talk to anymore."

But I digress.

Like so many other Whistlerites, Kristen was born and raised in Eastern Canada. "I was conceived in Happy Valley, Labrador," she tells me with an impish grin. "My dad was a broadcaster for the CBC and my mom taught school there." Exotic conception aside, she says she spent most of her youth bouncing back and forth between Toronto and Montreal. "I learned to ski at Mont St Sauveur when I was in Grade 3," she tells me. And then succumbs to another giggle fit. "Because my dad was in the media, we got to go on all these ski trips with 'contest winners.' It was a lot of fun. And as it turns out, it gave me a pretty good skiing background."

She says she grew up with a passion for the arts. "I studied creative writing at Concordia University. I wanted to be a writer." Or maybe a comedian? "Yep - went to Second City Stand-Up School too. That was a real trip..."

She was working part time as a waitress in Toronto's cosy Beaches area when her dad made her an offer she couldn't refuse. "He had won an all-inclusive trip for two to Banff. Did I want to go?" A short pause. "I decided right away - I'm gonna quit partying, work my butt off, get in shape and go skiing in Banff."

Alas, when the time came to leave, her father was too busy to go. "So he gave me a one-way ticket to Calgary instead," she says. "It wasn't quite the same as getting an all-inclusive trip to Banff. But I decided to go anyways."

That was December of 1990. And though Banff appealed, she kept hearing about this place further west that would appeal to her even more. "So I took the bus to Vancouver, arranged for an interview with the manager of the Delta Hotel at Whistler, Hank Stackhouse (an amazing guy by the way), and finally made my way here."

Her timing was excellent. Whistler was desperate for young people like Kristen back then. "I worked for a while at Settabello's." she recounts. "And you know, regulars at the restaurant - people like Arthur De Jong and Ted Nebbeling - would tell me how much opportunity there was for me in this community."

She took them at their word. "This was a pretty cool place in 1991," she says. "I remember looking at the snowflakes coming down one day. Feeling that special Whistler buzz. That's when I knew I'd found my home." A long pause. Another smile. "It reminded me a lot of the small communities that I'd grown up in - Ile des Soeurs, near Montreal and Picton on the shores of Lake Ontario. Everything just clicked."

Robinson eventually found a job with Blackcomb Mountain's guest services crew. "You know, filling sniffle stations, handing out maps, being the snow phone voice: 'Good morning skiers and snowboarders. Kristen Robinson here with your morning update.'" She takes a breath. "Wow - that was 17 years ago! But I learned a lot from watching how Blackcomb was run back then. There was so much passion. So much drive. Nobody did it for the money. Everybody was there because they really cared about the product."

She laughs. "You should have seen me. There I was, driving my old 1973 Dodge Swinger to the hill at 5 in the morning for work. I can tell you - that was a way different lifestyle than being a waitress."

But the word was getting around. Robinson was the kind of gal you could count on. "The winter of '95 was a great one for me," she recounts. "I'd built a pretty good relationship with Geoff Poulten who was the general manager at Mountain FM. When he offered me a job as the station's Mountain Patrol girl that winter I jumped on it..."

Her first day on the job was almost her last, however. "I crashed my truck the very first time I drove it up to Whistler," she admits. And laughs and laughs and laughs. "It was beautiful new Toyota Forerunner truck. I was mortified. Matthew Coté came and rescued me." She sighs. "Good ol' Geoff was awesome about it though. 'Okay,' he said. 'Let's try that again.' And so that's what we did."

Still, she says it was a lesson she carries to this day. "There were a lot of fatalities on the road that winter. My own crash made me realize just how dangerous that highway was."

It was a two-year stint with Pique Newsmagazine as the weekly's social columnist that really opened Kristen's eyes. "I started helping out at events," she says. "And realized that I loved this kind of work." She collaborated on a few projects with Maureen Douglas at the WRA and started doing the same with Doug Perry. "I first met Doug while I was still working for Blackcomb," she says. "I met him again when he launched the World Ski and Snowboard Festival. I think it was called the World Technical Skiing Championships then - 1996? Whatever. It didn't matter. I said to myself: 'Whatever he's doing, I want to be involved!'"

And involved is what she got. "I've always had a passion for music," she admits. "I was raised in a musical family. So when I started working on booking music groups for Whistler, it just felt right."

It was Mo Douglas, she says, who taught her how to book her first band. But it was with Perry and the WSSF that her career really took off. "I think it was year-three of the festival - the first year music was introduced anyway." More laughter. "That was my big break. The stage looked like this big circus tent. There was Econoline Crush and the Matthew Good Band and this little band from Alberta called Nickelback. And I'd booked them." She pauses. "I knew this was the beginning of something very exciting for me..."

 

Next Week: Robinson returns from Toronto just in time to get involved in the Games .