2022 Summit
Presenting with Kori Ade in 2018
Alex Chang: The Pandemic President BY KENT M C DILL
I
t was with good fortune, perhaps, that the Professional Skaters Association selected Alex Chang to be its president in 2019, just before the coronavirus pandemic struck the world. Chang, it turned out, was the perfect person to be in charge of an organization built on live interactions to pull it through a period when nothing occurred in-person. Chang, who turned over the presidency at the conclusion of the recent PSA Summit in Chicago in May, was awarded the David Shulman Award for Lifetime Achievement, in great part due to the manner in which he led the PSA at a time when leadership mattered the most.
It starts Chang was encouraged by coach Frank Carroll to take advantage of what the PSA offered. “In 2001, I began as a general
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member and started slowly getting involved in other parts of the sport, initially as a technical specialist,” Change said. “From there, I started getting more involved in the leadership role in figure skating. “You know, you go to the PSA events, and they are fun,” he said. “You go in, you socialize, you listen to a couple of things, pick up a couple of nuggets. I am an analytical person, and I found there was a whole infrastructure of coaching education that was appealing to me. It was well beyond what I realized or imagined. Once I started doing ratings exams for the PSA, that’s when I finally got it. It would not have happened if I had not gone through the process of preparing for the ratings exams.” Chang followed the normal course of leadership roles, being a board member at large, accepting committee appointments, and eventually chairing committees.
Alex took over the preside from Christine Fowler-Binncy der.
“It is one of those things where you support from a place of intended outcome to make things better,” Chang said. “When you volunteer, you give to have an impact that is positive. And then you just keep doing it.” When the idea of becoming PSA president came up, Chang realized “for this period of time, it looks like I might be the best candidate. It was incumbent upon me to step up and do my part. But I do not think of it as a solitary position, as a captain of a ship. It’s more of being a member of a crew and now it is your turn.”
The COVID President Chang became president at the 2019 PSA Summit, taking over in the summer of that year, not knowing what was about to happen. Then it happened, and Chang realized “I am the COVID President, apparently.” “The main thing for me was
