Entering her final months as president, St. Peter reflects on her term and U.S. Figure Skating’s future To say Patricia St. Peter has had an eventful
presidency is an understatement. She was elected to the top office when the U.S. economy was in a severe slump, was tasked with the remembrance of the 50th anniversary of U.S. Figure Skating’s worst tragedy and was at the helm for an Olym- pic gold medal and a historic World Champion- ships. After having been elected to a fifth term, an additional year to coincide with the Olympic quadrennium, St. Peter will pass the torch to the organization’s 31st president at the 2014 Govern- ing Council in May. “It’s been both a privilege and an honor to
serve as president,” St. Peter said. “Te issues and responsibilities of the position are wide-ranging and can be challenging at times, but overall it’s been a positive and professionally satisfying ex- perience.” St. Peter, who lives in Minneapolis with her
husband, Tom, and daughter, Claire, was elected president at the 2009 Governing Council in Buf- falo, N.Y. Before serving as president, St. Peter was the Midwestern vice president and first vice president and previously served on the Board of Directors as the administrative/legal group coor- dinator. She is a national singles/pairs judge and national referee. In an interview with SKATING magazine,
St. Peter shared her thoughts on her tenure and legacy.
SKATING: When you became president in May 2009, what were the organization’s big- gest challenges and how were those challenges met?
ST. PETER: “Te biggest challenge was how we were going to address the significant budget shortfall that U.S. Figure Skating was experi- encing at the time. Te slumping U.S. econo- my during this period didn’t help the situation, forcing us to re-examine our business model. To address the shortfall, I formed a working group of board members; we called it the Business Planning Group. We looked at every aspect of our events, programs, services and headquarters’ operations, both on the revenue side as well as
U.S. Figure Skating President Patricia St. Peter introduces Olympic champion Evan Lysacek follow- ing his triumph in Vancouver.
on the expense side. We conducted an in-depth analysis and came up with projections regard- ing increased areas of revenue and reductions in expenses. From those projections, we created a four-year business plan that is now in its third year. Te first two years have been successful, and we exceeded our projections by increasing rev- enue in some areas and reducing expenses. We are on track for the next two years. During this
12 DECEMBER 2013
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