COACHING.
6 Head Coaches
guiding your athlete
75 + 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
Jude Arvidson
Gateway & Devo Head Coach
Jude Arvidson is a long time ski racing coach and educator. She started coaching in 1985 at Crystal Mountain, WA after growing up ski racing at White Pass, WA where she raced in FIS, Jr Olympic and NorAm races. After graduating University, she moved to Taos, and Wanaka, New Zealand in the Northern Hemisphere summers, to coach full-time from 1986 until 1993 when she decide to go back to university to get a Master in Education and become a school teacher. She worked in the public school system and coached on weekends at White Pass WA and then at Crystal Mt where her daughter ski raced as well. She left the school system in 2017 and moved to Sun Valley where she coached Travel Team racers with the Sun Valley Ski Educational Foundation.
She and her snowboardering husband are thrilled to be in Taos, and is very excited to be back working with young athletes at TSV.
Julian Lacome
Alpine Race Head Coach
I was born and raised here in Northern New Mexico. My ties are deep to this community, this mountain, and this sport. I am excited every day that I get to head up the TWST alpine race program and do my best to develop young athletes into passionate and competitive skiers. In the 2022/23 season, I was honored to be named Head Alpine Coach for the TWST Alpine Race team.
I have seven years of personal experience as a youth ski racer with two different teams: Red River Ski Team and Taos Ski Academy. In that time I devoted myself to training, traveling to races, and attending off-season race camps and dry land training sessions.
I have continued to follow my dream of becoming a professional skier, gaining many different experiences and certifications that are focused on skiing, teaching skiing, and outdoor leadership. As a full-time ski Instructor for Taos Ski Valley and then a full-time Alpine Race Coach for TWST, I honed my skills by working with youth snowsports teams. I coached 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
I am excited to begin my fifth season with TWST as the head coach of the snowboard team. I spent my teenage years in Albuquerque, NM where I volunteered at a local non-profit called NMX Sports, specializing in exposing underprivileged youth to skiing and snowboarding in northern NM. This is when I found a love for snowboarding and moved to Taos as soon as I turned 18.
My sixteen years of riding bring a unique depth of experience to TWST. I began competing in USASA competitions when I was 16 and spent several years competing locally in slopestyle competitions. After some injuries, I decided to retire as a competitor and started instructing for the Taos Ski Valley and eventually coaching for TWST.
I look forward to the opportunities to help TWST athletes develop their own path through snowboarding and life.
Jeff “Mugzy” Mugleston
TWST Masters Head Coach
Mugzy has been involved with TWST since the late 1980’s. Previous member of the Board, Alpine U16 coach, Gateway coach, and Training coordinator.
His love of mountains has keep Mugzy busy as a Jeep tour guide, River Runner, Ski Instructor, Tele Instructor, Snowboard Instructor, Trail Builder, Alpine Ski Race Coach and Mountain Biker. Mugzy loves to share that love of the mountains with athletes.
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.
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.
