Céline Gauci was part of the first classof work-study engineering students in Environment and Risk Management at the Chambéry institute in the fall of 2010. She chose to combine her passion for the mountains with her engineering training by becoming a consultant in risk management and prevention for ski resorts.
During her three years of work-study training, her host company was Val d'Isère Téléphériques, which set the tone! She then worked as a temporary quality and safety coordinator at Sogenor, which manages the ski area at La Norma ski resort.
She also wants to finish her state-certified ski instructor qualification, which she started at the same time as her engineering degree, because Céline can't settle for just one activity at a time! But this is complicated when you're an employee, which is the main reason why she is drawn to entrepreneurship and its corollary: freedom to organize her own time. She wants to be able to manage her time as she sees fit.
The mountain as an office!
Being in the mountains allows him to recharge his inspiration and creativity.
She spent her first full season as a ski instructor in Orelle, in the Maurienne region, where she met the director of the ski lifts, who showed interest in her proposal to provide consulting services to the ski lift company. She then began working as a consultant in management and risk prevention and Quality, Safety, and Environment (QSE) for ski area operators and small and medium-sized businesses.
If the weather is bad, I can stay in the office; if it's nice, I'm out in the field. During the ski lift season, it's possible to work on weekends, which gives us a lot of flexibility in how we organize our work.
Two passions: mountains and prevention
She loves teaching skiing and is known as the most cautious instructor when it comes to prevention and safety! But this activity also allows her to use the ski lifts every day in winter, giving her a user's perspective that she can put to good use in her work as a consultant.
For five years since starting its business, it has been providing support in improving management systems, workplace safety, preventing dangerous situations, monitoring regulatory issues (ski lifts must comply with transport regulations), and preventing specific risks (terrorism, mountains). It also conducts audits and proposes tailored solutions, provides professional training, etc.
She has joined forces with three other freelancers within the Société de Contrôle Périodique des Remontées Mécaniques (SCPRM). With the health crisis, e-learning and escape game training courses (AL-EST pack) are currently being developed. The aim is to be able to validate the skills of seasonal and permanent staff.
As part of this association of independent contractors, and in partnership with other companies, Céline is also seeking to develop innovative technical solutions to enhance safety at stations:
- Based on feedback, via an app, she wants to create a database that would serve as an observatory of inspiring best practices.
- To a start-up that has developed an alarm system for when guardrails are not lowered, it proposes developing the same thing to alert anyone entering a dangerous area, where there are rotating ski lift parts, in order to avoid the risk of collision.
Prevention as a guiding principle...
She would like to apply prevention and safety everywhere.
She completed training in terrorism prevention and, to take things further, enlisted as a reservist in the 13th Alpine Chasseurs Battalion in Chambéry. She even thinks she could explore risk prevention in the military! In the meantime, alongside her operational duties as a reservist, she is using her quality management skills to strengthen the company's administrative capabilities.
She also wants to write a thesis on risk prevention in the mountains, a changing environment where everything is linked to the environment, which is completely different from prevention in a closed environment such as a company.
In the summer, I would also like to do something in the mountains. I have just started training to become a nature guide so that I can work with nature parks and mountain refuges, and maybe even develop safety consulting services there.
She recently discovered cindynics, which is the science of danger: it involves taking into account the entire environment and system surrounding a dangerous situation that could lead to an accident.
And next year, Céline will return to the Chambéry institute from time to time to teach work-study students.
I want to open students' minds to risk management in all areas, not just in business. I want to contribute to the excellence of this program, if only for its reputation and thatArts et Métiers has given me so much. I am grateful to the school and would like to give something back in return.
And I want to promote prevention and safety at all levels!
