As a self-described snowboarding fanatic, Miriam Bougie spent a good portion of her 20s revelling in what she calls “the ski hill lifestyle.” Little did she realize that her recreational passion would be vital to her current role as Occupational Health & Safety Supervisor for Whistler Blackcomb.
Bougie, now 35, entered the health and safety field entirely by chance in 2005, and the resulting challenges she faces on the job are a bracing substitute for the raw excitement of careening down the slopes. “There’s never a dull moment,” she says. “If I’m not presiding over accident prevention initiatives, I’m performing accident investigations. I also have to observe how staff members operate on site, and this keeps me on the hills I love so much.” Providing claim cost statements and acting as a liaison between the resort and WorkSafeBC also keeps Bougie on her toes. WorkSafeBC is the government agency promoting workplace health and safety for workers and employers in British Columbia.
These myriad duties are understandable when you consider that Whistler Blackcomb employs upwards of 4,000 people and 800 volunteers during peak winter months. “Combine this with over two million visitors yearly, and you can see that our neck of the woods gets congested – and why our focus on safety is so important,” says Bougie.
The transition from snowboarder to safety specialist began in 1998, when Bougie met her future husband, Patrick, in Lake Louise, Alberta. “I had graduated from the University of Guelph and travelled west to hang out in the mountains when I met this wonderful man who was a ski patroller,” she recalls. “A year later he moved to Whistler to patrol Blackcomb, and I tagged along, subsequently getting work as a waitress and in the retail sector.”
In 2005, Bougie successfully applied to be an employee claims coordinator for Whistler Blackcomb in order to exploit her growing organizational skills. Three months later she found herself in her current position. “It was literally a shuffling of roles that is so common at Whistler Blackcomb, and it was a wonderful turn of events, because I realized all my years of snowboarding had given me a fundamental understanding of the risks that are taken and the accidents that can happen at resorts,” she says.
Bougie received a week of hands-on training from the person she was replacing, and then in 2007 she enrolled at BCIT in order to obtain her Occupational Health & Safety Certificate. “It takes about two years of full-time study altogether, but I’ve been too busy at my job to fulfill all the obligations,” she admits. Giving birth to a daughter, Anika, a year ago also interrupted Bougie’s studies. “However, I’ve just returned from maternity leave and am trying to find courses that are appropriate for what I do, so hopefully my certification isn’t far off,” she says.
Injuries are inevitable given the sheer number of people at Whistler Blackcomb, and even though Bougie would like nothing better than for the resort to be accident-free, she points out that the 450 or so injuries recorded every year are a relatively small number. “The majority of the injuries are minor: twisted knees, sore backs, that sort of thing,” she says. “Still, our ongoing goal is to reduce accidents as much as possible, and I’m doing all I can to make that happen. In terms of employee retention alone, it’s important that our staff remain healthy, safe and happy.”
Bougie is occasionally surprised by how far she’s come career-wise in a relatively short period of time. “It hits me whenever I talk to footloose 20-somethings, who regard me as Safety Sally,” she says with a laugh. “On one hand, I’ve come a long way from the slopes, but on the other I’m still here, only now I’m making a difference for the better.”
