Three Time Paralympian Matt Hallat Transformed His Athletic Career Into A Full-Time Position With Alpine Canada

1Tell us about your role as the High Performance Director of Para-Alpine for Alpine Canada. What does a typical day look like for you?

The nature of a high performance director means that it’s rare two days look exactly the same. As our program changes with the seasons, so too do my daily duties. In the spring, while the team is focused on dryland and preparation for on-snow training, it allows me to focus on some long term team initiatives and goals. Attempting to improve the processes and plan how we operate.

Through the end of summer, we start skiing in the southern hemisphere, so in July and August we start to shift into on-snow training mode and much of my focus moves to operational for the upcoming season.

Into winter, when the racing begins, the focus is on maintenance and ensuring our staff have what they need to sustain their energy throughout the season and continue to prepare racing and training environments that ensure the athletes have the best opportunity to succeed.

Finally, towards the end of winter and into spring I am the busiest as we are still racing, but also debriefing, planning and preparing funding proposals for the upcoming year.

My world at home looks more traditional with a laptop and cell phone, but the 9-5 schedule doesn’t really apply when the team is around the world racing and training. While on the road, the days are long and intense, but also incredibly exciting as this is where we see the team come alive and we all love to be, even when it’s cold.

2As a three-time Paralympian, what skills and knowledge did you develop as an athlete that you have transferred to your career?

Growing up as a young amputee, becoming a ski racer, and following a 13-year journey through the Para-Alpine system gave me first-hand experience of many roles. This knowledge helped me see the different perspectives throughout our system and I believe is now my biggest strength.

Throughout my athletic career, I was also able to complete a Bachelor of Business Administration and start a small business with my wife. The combination of my education and real-world business experience gave me a relevant skill set to understand the back-end operations of Alpine Canada and the Para-Alpine program.

Understanding sport is important, but understanding the financial model, and strategic decisions on how to best utilize available resources are critical to success, and I feel I’m well equipped to support the program in this manner.

3After moving into a managerial role as High Performance Director of Para-Alpine with Alpine Canada, what were some of the big things you learned jumping into managing people and running the athletic program?

I was extremely fortunate to jump in and start working with Head Coach Jean-Sebastien Labrie, and to have the support of the organization and from my predecessor Brianne Leeman. I was an athlete under their leadership for many years, and the transition to working with them for the program could not have gone better.

I knew in getting started that Jean-Sebastien was well equipped to run the day-to-day operations of the team and that I needed to learn how to best fit in and support him in the short term. Brianne was and remains always available to support with any institutional knowledge or simply as a sounding board for me to bounce my ideas off.

Jumping into the role, I knew I didn’t need to keep anybody motivated, our jobs are amazing, and we feel privileged to work with such a great group of athletes every day. I’ve looked at my role as to how do I keep my staff fresh, healthy and as balanced as possible in what is a tireless, thankless grind through the cold winters. I felt if I could keep taking care of the people, they would take care of those athletes and we’d have a great chance of success.

4Since you have multiple aspects to focus on at once (e.g. budget constraints, high performance planning, leading domestic development, multiple requests, etc.). How do you prioritize and manage all that goes into your role? How does someone learn how to do so many things at once like this?

You cannot do everything, and you can’t do it all at once, but with a clear vision, and roles and responsibilities, as a team, we can move forward on a variety of topics over time.

The nature of our jobs is that aspects of this are seasonal and more operational. Budgeting and planning, for example, always happen in the late winter and early spring so they are largely planned out in advance.

The greatest challenges and opportunities for team growth often come in the summer months, and the greatest struggle here is fatigue you’ve built up from the winter. So I’m working on my own improvement to realize I’m only capable of so much, picking up on key elements and most critically of all just getting started.

Paralysis by analysis is a real thing, and I often feel I just need to put pen to paper, or pick up the phone and get started, the rest seems to take care of itself after that.