COACHING.
6 Head Coaches
guiding your athlete
125 + years
combined teaching experience
The best coaching staff in Northern New Mexico.
It takes guts and talent to be an athlete, but even the best will tell you that they wouldn’t have made it to the podium without their coach.
Here at TWST, the quality of the coaching that athletes receive is an absolute priority. How could it be otherwise? Coaching is a human developmental art as much as it is a professional science. We reach our highest potential with the guidance of those who know the way.
I am proud to work with the best coaching team in Northern New Mexico.
— Kristi Vine, Executive Director
Connor Kelly
Assistant Head Freeride Coach
Connor Kelly, is the new Assistant Head Coach for the Big Mountain Freeride Team. he is excited to step into this role and work with Andrea to continue the legacy she has created here with TWST.
Originally from MA, Connor has had a fun and fulfilling career as a coach, trainer, and instructor at various ski schools across the West since 2015. Starting out at Cooper Mountain as an instructor and Woodward Coach from 2015-2020, then enjoying a few years of ski industry tourism, with a season at Whitefish in MT, Crystal in WA, and finally landing in Taos in 2023, and then spending a season in the Southern Hemisphere at Thredbo in Australia. Connor has been at Taos now since 2023 and has been coaching with TWST since 2024. He is the Training Coordinator for the Ski School at TSV and is stepping into this Assistant Head Coach role this season. Connor had the privilege of training and building his professional knowledge under various trainers from those aforementioned Ski Schools as well as National Team members from the US, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Italy and Argentina. Connor brings technical knowledge and understanding of Ski Technique and the ability to explain ideal outcomes to his athletes, pulling from his background of physics, biomechanics, and education studies as well as the years of dedicated learning about various effective ski techniques throughout his career. Connor is fully certified through the PSIA, including specialist certifications in Freestyle and Children’s Education, and certification through IFSA for Big Mountain Skiing.
“The Big Mountain world has been so kind to me over the past few years. I love the energy, support, and excitement that comes with competition. I particularly enjoy helping athletes plan, inspect and execute their dream lines on competition day and getting them excited to push through fear and doubt to make their dreams come true. I am looking forward to stoking the passion with our athletes for years to come”. Connor Kelly, 2025
hed for NASC at Mt Hood, in the summer of 2022 and plan to continue this work over the next summers.
Andrea Krejci
Freeride Head Coach
Growing up in Sweden, ski racing, and university are what brought Andrea to the University of New Mexico in 1993. After graduating with her MBA from the Anderson School of Management, she moved up to Taos to ski seriously for a year.
It was during this period of intensive practice that she was introduced to Extreme skiing, now called Freeride, and competed in her first event that very season. She quickly got involved with the Taos ski team and was asked to start coaching the following season.
She decided to stay in Taos and coached ski racing until the spring of 2011, when she brought a ski race athlete to a junior freeride event in Snowbird, UT, and her dream of starting a junior Freeride team became a reality. The 2011/2012 season marked the first year that Taos Winter Sports Team had a Freeride team, and the team has since produced multiple high-level Freeriders who have qualified for the North American Junior Freeride Championships.
Sydney Dunton
Snowboard Head Coach
Sydney began her TWST career in 2019 as the head coach of the snowboard team. She spent her teenage years in Albuquerque, NM, where she volunteered at a local non-profit called NMX Sports, specializing in exposing underprivileged youth to skiing and snowboarding in northern NM. This is when she found a love for snowboarding and moved to Taos as soon as she turned 18.
With a couple of decades of riding, Sydney brings a unique depth of experience to TWST. She began competing in USASA competitions when she was 16 and spent several years competing locally in slopestyle competitions. After some injuries, she decided to retire as a competitor and started instructing for the Taos Ski Valley and eventually coaching for TWST, taking the helm of the Snowboard competitive program.
Sydney is looking forward to the opportunities to help TWST athletes develop their own path through snowboarding and life.
Jeff “Mugzy” Mugleston
TWST Masters Head Coach
TWST DEVO / Gateway Head Coach
Fourth-generation New Mexican, Mugzy moved to Taos County two days after graduating from Santa Fe High School. Working in the mountains has always been the priority: Jeep Tour guide, River guide, Ski Instructor, Ski Coach, Trail builder,
Starting in 1981 as a rookie Ski Instructor in Red River Ski Area, graduating to Taos Ski Valley in 1985. Coached with Taos Sports Associates and the Wanaka Ski Club in the late 80’s. Attained USSA level 100, PSIA level 3 in Alpine and Telemark disciplines, Child Specialist 2, and Wilderness First Responder are a short list of professional accreditations. While working in the Ernie Blake Snowsports School Mugzy worked his way up to Snowsports School manager and Bike Park director.
Currently finding fulfillment filling the roles as Taos Winter Sports Team Gateway/Devo head coach, Masters head coach and Training Coordinator
Peter Donahue
Adaptive Head Coach
Peter has been teaching and coaching athletes of all ages and abilities full-time for over 40 years.
His career has ranged from training and certifying instructors as an examiner for the Professional Ski Instructors of America, to serving as the Taos Snowsports School’s Children’s Program Training Coordinator, to working with physically and intellectually disabled students for the Taos Snowsports School, and serving Special Olympics of NM as founder and head coach of the TWST Special Olympics Team. Peter helped to create the Spectrum Race Camps, TWST’s summer race program, at Mt Hood, Oregon. Recently, he added June Zoom HIT (High Intensity Training) to the summer race programs and coached for the Adaptive Ski and Ride Summit, an international training program for snowsports professionals to learn the skills to work with adaptive athletes and create programs all over the world for snowsports and race programs for athletes on the Spectrum.
In 2019 he received Ski New Mexico’s “Best of the Best” Instructor of the year award, and is currently serving on the PSIA Rocky Mountain Division’s Adaptive Snowsports Committee.
