Sean Nalette's Page

Sean completed his undergraduate studies at Bishop’s University in 1999, where he earned an Honors Degree in Philosophy. His academic career was moderately successful, graduating with Distinction, and being awarded the University Prize in Philosophy. He discovered, however, that there were few career openings for philosophers with training in linguistic analysis in Vermont, and came to question judgment of is well-meaning, highly supportive parents who allowed a seventeen year old to study whatever he wanted…

When the argument for gainful employment became compelling, Sean ran a jackhammer; held a stop/slow sign for a road crew (not nearly as romantic an occupation as one might think); sold spectacular cheddar cheese; and finally found himself in a retail shop that, to his surprise, consisted of discount, oversized woman’s clothing. Fate intervened, however, during December of ’99 while Sean was on a short trip. A left turn that should have been a right found Sean in the base parking lot of Jay Peak Ski and Summer Resort scratching his head and looking for a map. Unable to correct his error in direction he went inside the base lodge, and was mistaken for a candidate at the hiring clinics for the snowboard school.

A... well, it would be a mistake to call it a 'career'... but something was born.

Sean has been a full time snowboard coach/instructor/trainer since that day. He attained his Level Three certification within his first three seasons on snow. He eventually served as a member of the Education Staff of the Eastern Division of the American Association of Snowboard Instructors, before relocating to Steamboat Springs in the 2008-2009 season, where he promptly earned his Rocky Mountain Division Trainer’s Accreditation.

Sean’s yoga instructor was overheard saying, “Really though, the world should be grateful for Sean’s gross lack of personal ambition. Anyone with such an overdeveloped sense of irony and peculiar intellectual disposition could only destabilize any society or culture that he touched. Let him ride. Let him jib. Let him kick logs and giggle. That this man chooses to sit quietly aside, like a Hindu cow, is the greatest gift he has to offer to this plane of existence.”

In the off season, Sean is a stonemason, specializing in flatwork for the high-end custom homes being constructed in the greater Steamboat area. By all accounts, he sustains himself through a diet consisting of only cheese and Papst Blue Ribbon, and finds it amusing to refer to himself in the third person…