On the Record with Andy Shepard, Outdoor Sport Institute CEO and President
Photo / Tim Greenway
Andy Shepard says the Outdoor Sport Institute will be more inclusive of year-round sports than its predecessor, the Maine Winter Sports Center.
Before Andy Shepard visited Aroostook County, he imagined it was a vast expanse of wilderness wracked by decline. But when he traveled to Fort Kent in 1998 with his son for the high school state ski championships, he found instead a highly-engaged community with a great sense of pride.
“The pride people had was really impactful,” he says. “Through volunteer effort, they had built a ski trail and the Lonesome Pine Ski Center, which was awesome.”
Shepard, who worked in product development at L.L.Bean at the time, saw the potential to leverage the area's resources to help kids and adults develop active, outdoor lifestyles and boost the local economy in the process. That vision ultimately evolved into the nonprofit Maine Winter Sports Center, which recently broadened its mission and changed its name to the Outdoor Sport Institute.
“If you help kids build skills, self-direction, and connection to others, and give them an opportunity to work through challenges in the context of sports, they'll develop the resilience to tackle bigger challenges later in life,” Shepard says. “And if you help them connect with the natural world, they'll value it and protect it.”
Since its founding in 1999, the organization has built two biathlon and cross-country skiing facilities and redeveloped three alpine ski areas. The sites have created more than $100 million in economic impact, and spurred private investment in hotels, restaurants, and shops. OSI has partnered with 40 organizations in 140 communities throughout Maine to get kids and adults active outdoors, through skiing, biathlon, hiking, climbing, paddling, running and other sports. Its work includes everything from developing trails to training coaches and providing communities with use of skis and kayaks.
Much of that work has been funded by the Libra Foundation. In 2014, Libra Foundation terminated its funding, and MWSC embarked on a capital campaign to build a $20 million endowment. This effort was bolstered by Presque Isle native Mary Barton Smith, who gave $2 million and pledged another $3 million in matching gift. Individuals and donors have given another $2 million.
Shepard spoke with Mainebiz about the OSI's recent changes.
Mainebiz: How will the mission of the Outdoor Sport Institute be different from Maine Winter Sports Center?
Andy Shepard: The mission of the Maine Winter Sports Center was originally based on using skiing to create a model of sustainability for rural communities in northern Maine. That model included an economic development component based on the building of Nordic venues and redevelopment of alpine ski areas, as well as a full range of programs intended to empower kids through a world-class curriculum of outdoor sport education. Over the years, paddle sports, mountain biking, hiking and climbing were added and our scope became statewide. The mission of the OSI takes the globally recognized programming piece and now focuses all our organizational creativity, energy and knowledge entirely on using outdoor sports to develop the confidence and skills to be able to face and overcome the challenges inevitable in life — to empower the next generation.
MB: How does the OSI's work impact Maine businesses?
AS: We're trying to create an empowered workforce of people who have the grit to face adversity and a bias for success. The challenges that the outdoors and sport present allow us to develop skills to work through challenges and not see failures as an endpoint, but as a waypoint along a journey. We're preparing our workforce to position Maine to be an economic force in the 21st century.
MB: Why the name change?
AS: We had to change the name to reflect the evolution of the organization. The name Maine Winter Sports Center was very heavily tied to the ski venues and biathlon. It was preventing people from understanding that we have year-round programming in each of Maine's 16 counties. But you won't interact with our staff without knowing that this is a Maine-based program with Maine values.
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