In memory of Susumu Sugiyama
The ISIA community is sadly mourning one of its members again.
Susumu Sugiyama was one of those people who gave a lot to the ski world and contributed to shape ISIA to become what it is today.
The Board and the entire ISIA stand together around the Sugiyama family during their grief.
We thank Dr. Hugo Reider for having written the following lines of remembrance.
Susumu Sugiyama
*10.04.1932 Nozawaonsen (Nagano) -† 10.04.2025
In 1956 he took part in the Winter Olympics in Cortina in all 3 alpine skiing disciplines, downhill, giant slalom and slalom.
He graduated as a ski instructor with a state diploma (Staatlich Diplom) in Austria and then became part of the famous ski school of St. Christoph/Arlberg and of the national ski instructors training body of the Bundessportheim St. Christoph under the direction of Prof. Stephan Kruckenhauser, technical director of the Austrian ski school.
In 1965 he opened his own ski school “Sugiyama Ski & Snow Sports School” in Shiga Kogen and built the Sports Heim Okushiga hotel with the St. Christoph restaurant.
In Tokyo he opened the travel agency Sugiyama travel, and he took Japanese skiers to the most famous ski resorts in the world, from Europe to America.
In 1968 he was among the initiators and founding members of the Professional Ski Instructor’s Association of Japan (SIA), of which he was also president for a long time.
He was elected ISIA vice president of the area Asia-Pacific in 1975 and he remained in charge in such a role for 24 years, until 1999.
Until the age of 91, he was seen on skis almost every day in winter and he continued to give ski lessons.”
Dr. Hugo Reider
ISIA Technical events 2025
A first Technical Event took place in Sexten, Pustertal, (1st – 3rd of April). The event has been dedicated to develop the ISIA Quality Standard and to discuss the future plans and activities within the Technical Commission. The event was very successful, with 16nations attending and 38 people directly involved in the activities. The event has been the preparation for a further on snow meeting, to be held in October the 27th and the 28th of October, on a glacier. Further news on the venue and attendance detail will be sent soon from the Technical Commission to all the Member Nations.
A more detailed report on the event of Sexten will be soon available from the TC.
ISIA Assembly of the Delegates 2025 –7th of April, Vail, USA
The ISIA Assembly of the Delegates 2025 took place in Vail the last 7th of April, within the context of the Interski meeting dedicated to get acquainted with the venue of the Interski Congress 2027. ISIA confirmed the commitment to a better cooperation within the international scenario, coordinating international events and assemblies. A big thank you goes to the Team PSIA and Vail for the good organisation and the warm welcome to all the participants.
The full minutes of the Assembly will be ready soon, here some highlights on the most relevant issues that were discussed during the meeting:
- ISIA brand protection: the ISIA logotype is now recorded in the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) Registry, with the No. 019107527. This, with the already existing registration in the Swiss registry of trademarks (No. 422486), extends the protection of the ISIA brand rights.
- ISIA Technical Test rules: following the outcome of the Technical Even in Sexten, the ISIA Board presented the TC suggestion to amend the forerunners requirement. As suggested by the TC and approved by the Assembly in Vail, the forerunners for the ISIA Test must be now qualified with maximum 60 FIS points or lower.
- ISIA Second Language: the ISIA requirement for a second language in the Snowsports instructors education pathway, has now been removed from the ISIA Stamp level, and it has been made mandatory for the ISIA Card level.
- ISIA Ski School Standard: the new standard, approved by the Assembly, is following a pilot project implemented by the Slovenian Member HZUTS during the season 2023-24 and 2024-25. The ski schools meeting the requirements will be able to hold the ISIA Ski School label, presenting themselves as professional schools delivering lessons with ISIA qualified instructors.
- New Members: the Assembly warmly welcomed the new Member of Lithuania, LSIA (Lithuanian Snowsports Instructors Association), that is the 40th National Member, confirming ISIA as the biggest Snowsports Instructors organisation worldwide.
- Parallel educating bodies: CSIA addressed the issue of bodies such as PSIC and PSIE, that are selling ski instructors education, delivering the misleading message that they are professional bodies worldwide recognised. CSIA requested the Colleague Members from ISIA to stand together against this situation, and to refuse any sort of recognition to the leaders of the two organisations and to the licenses that they are delivering. The short discussion from the Assembly highlighted a positive note on the request from CSIA. As already stressed during the AD 2024, and as per ISIA Code of conduct, the Snowsports instructors “are required… to behave loyally towards the profession and the professional associations” (Par. 1.6). The foundation of such associations claiming to deliver professional qualifications and competing directly against the ISIA Members, is infringing the ISIA Code of conduct, allowing therefore ISIA and their Members to undertake suspension actions against those trainers and instructors that are actively cooperating with such parallel bodies.
The ISIA Assembly was followed by a social event, organised by the Interski Committee of Vail 2027. The Delegates, split in small groups, were invited to have dinner by families of the local community, all involved with skiing and winter sports. The event was a very successful and pleasant one, and offered the chance to familiarise with the local hosts and have a taste of the local hospitality. That gave positive vibes to the days in Vail, preannouncing what could be expected for the incoming event of 2027.
ISIA America Regional Forum 2025
After the Asian Pacific Forum organised in Japan by our Member SIA in 2024, the second ISIA Regional Forum took place in Aspen, Colorado, from the 9th till the 13th of April. The event was organised by our Members ADIDESS and PSIA and saw the attendance of all the American Members plus some European Associations. The ISIA American Forum was dedicated to the comparison of the education and assessment format of the four American Members. The experts of the four Member nations gave high level demonstration and explanation of the national methods and criteria, giving a clear overview helping to improve the understanding of similarities and differences of the four education systems. The format has shown once again the feasibility of high value content events, while keeping a low budget for the attending ISIA Members, that is a crucial issue to make international events sustainable. We want to thank all the people who contributed to the success of the event, especially the Argentinian Team, with the ISIA Vicepresident America M. Bacer, and the Team of Aspen, led by J. Ballou, that made everything possible. M. Bacer commented the event as following:
“I want to thank everybody for supporting an American Regional Forum at Aspen. It was a brilliant opportunity to share knowledge and experiences in order to learn from each other, at a relative low cost for the participants, as we were already close to the area and in sequence with Vail´s Congresses. We hope to continue with this type of events of the regions, held by the regional area countries, and open for participants, as observers of the other ISIA member countries. As for the contents, the four American Members presented and shared their educational systems first indoors and then the next morning on snow. Looking forward to having more of this meetings.” A detailed report on the ISIA American Forum from the ISIA Vicepresident America M. Bacer will be soon available.
UN Nations project
ISIA is continuing its commitment within the joined working group established with Interski, IAESS and BRSUN on environmental issues and plastic waste management in the mountains. After the spring activities, a new number of meetings is coming up in order to plan the next steps. We will keep you posted on the subject.
Qualification Framework survey follow-up
Our Advisor W. Woznica is still working on the Qualification Framework project. The survey is still available on line and we invite you to complete it if you have not done yet, at this link:
Please get in touch directly with W. Woznica if you need more information on the project.
Data maintenance of the ISIA DB
It is now possible to get access directly to the ISIA DB using the APIs that have been delivered by the developer. This way, all the Members interested, will be able to interface directly their national DBs with the ISIA DB. For more info on how to proceed, you can contact the ISIA Office.
Other developments are on the way and will be communicated as soon as they are available.
ISIA Digital Card tools
The ISIA Digital Card has been implemented in collaboration with our partner Cardu. The first cards have been issued to instructors whose data in the database meet all delivery requirements. We remind you that the instructors’ contact details in the ISIA DB are necessary to allow the Digital Card provider to validate the card requests from the instructors. If you need more details, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Seminar on the ISIA DB
The Office and the Board understand that there is need for a direct support to Members in order to use at best the potential offered by the ISIA DB. An online seminar to address all the questions and doubts that the National Administrators might still have on the use of the DB will be held at the beginning of September 2025.
The exact dates will be communicated later.
ISIA Pins and Badges order
We remind you that the ISIA metal pins and the soft badges are in stock. The Office is ready to receive the orders from the Members.
Please note, the prices for the items (post costs not included) are the following:
- Metal pin big size ≈37x29mm – 6.- Eur each
- Metal pin small size ≈25x20mm 5.- Eur each
- Soft badge unique size ≈80×63 4.- Chf each
Orders can be placed only through the National Associations, individual instructors cannot order directly from ISIA.
Please do not hesitate to contact us in case you need any further information, on the topics above or other subjects.
We thank you and wish a great summer for the Northern Regions and a successful winter to all the Members active in the Southern Hemisphere.
Dr. Vittorio Caffi Dr. Valentin Kiedaisch
President Vicepresident Europe