News

Anna Yoshie Yamada Promoted to Snowboard Program Director

With great pleasure and excitement, we announce the promotion of Anna Yoshie Yamada to become Gould's first female Snowboard Program Director! Anna's hard work, extensive snowboard resume, ability to develop athletes and all-in attitude, when it comes to the holistic development of our boarders, will continue to drive our program to new heights. 
Anna is the right person for the job as KC Gandee transitions over to become Gould's Head SBX Coach. This move allows KC to focus even more on the day-to-day development of our athletes while allowing Anna to further develop our snowboard pipeline. As KC says, "After mentoring Anna for the last few years, I'm so stoked for Anna to take the lead on the program – this will allow me to focus a lot more of my time on athlete training, which is the part I really love about this sport." 
KC's steadfast commitment to excellence and devotion to Gould has helped us create a world-class snowboard program. Now, all of KC's focus will be on long term athlete development, comp season planning for FIS BX athletes, and daily coaching. Anna will continue to focus on coaching, but spend more time on whole-program planning and administration, long term strategic planning, weekend program management, and staff development.
Anna and KC have worked together on a comprehensive transition plan that will be implemented over the Spring and early Summer. This power-house duo, along with Coach Dustin Holzweiss, will take our snowboarding to the next level.
Get to Know Anna Even Better
Anna Yoshie Yamada started her coaching career here at Gould in 2020 as the prep snowboarding coach. Traveling with the competition snowboard team that following summer, Yamada started coaching under the guidance of KC Gandee and took on a new role as the Development coach for the 2021/2022 season. Coaching on the North American Cup Series Tour, Yamada took her previous racing knowledge and applied it to her own athletes.  A familiar face to those who have been at USASA nationals competing and working, Yamada is a six-time national champion in Boardercross, Giant Slalom, and Slalom. She was the starter at PSL from 2016 to 2019. Yamada competed as part of Team USA at the University World Games in 2015 on the Snowboardcross Team. Yamada then stepped into the role of the Traveling FIS Snowboardcross Coach in the 2022/2023 season that had her coaching primarily on the North American Cup Tour throughout the US and Canada, plus Europa Cups in Austria and France, and regional and national events hosted by USASA. Yamada capped her 3rd season of coaching with an invite from the US Snowboard Team to coach Team USA at the 2023 Junior World Championships in Passo San Pellegrino, Italy. 
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Private High School for Boys and Girls | Grades 9-12, Postgraduate and Winter Term for Grade 8 | Boarding School in the Mountains of Maine

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