BETHEL — Gould Academy has promoted Kurt Simard to direct all of its snow sports.

He has been Alpine skiing director and head Alpine coach since 2007.

Darcy Lambert, director of Marketing and Communications for Gould Academy, said Simard served as interim director of snow sports programs since August, when the school began looking for a new director.

She said Simard’s new duties include overseeing the Gould Academy competition program, “a full-time and weekend-only partnership program between Gould Academy and Sunday River that supports high-level Alpine, Nordic, snowboarding and freestyle athletics” looking to compete nationally and regionally.

Other programs Simard will help oversee and develop are:

• Gould Academy prep Alpine, prep snowboarding and prep Nordic teams, consisting of full-time student athletes competing throughout Maine and the United States;

• Noncompetitive programming for full-time students, including the Rugrats instruction program, the Maine Adaptive instruction program, a learn-to-ski and snowboard program, and the only nationally recognized high school ski patrol program in the country; and

• Winter term program for seventh- and eighth-grade students who compete at the highest levels of Alpine, Nordic, snowboarding, and freeride/freestyle from November through March.

“Kurt’s breadth of experience as a competitor, coach and leader is exactly who we want championing our on-snow programs,” said Matt Ruby, head of school for Gould Academy.

Simard has worked with athletes ranging from the junior development level to Division I collegiate level. He was head coach for the University of New Hampshire’s Division 1 women’s Alpine team for eight years, with his athletes attaining 19 All-American Award honors and placements to the U.S. Ski Team.

mdaigle@sunmediagroup.net