BBA student Matt Hallat takes shot at Paralympic glory

The Beedie School of Business has a tremendous number of students and alumni with impressive résumés, but few can rival undergraduate student Matt Hallat’s claim of being an Olympian.

Hallat took up skiing at the age of seven, after losing his right leg to cancer just over a year earlier, and immediately fell in love with the sport. After learning on the BC slopes, he quickly progressed to competing in national championships, and after graduating from high school, joined the Canadian national team.

Since then, Hallat has achieved some impressive results, including top ten finishes in a number of International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Cup events, as well as competing at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Paralympics.

Hallat has completed three years of his BBA degree, initially combining his studies with training for the 2006 Winter Paralympics in Turin, Italy, where he competed in the Slalom, Giant Slalom, and Super G skiing events.

“My first Winter Paralympics was quite an overwhelming experience, but at the same time pretty amazing,” says Hallat. “The standard was a steep learning curve for me, but gave me an understanding of where I needed to be four years from then if I wanted to compete in 2010.”

It was at this point that Hallat decided to train full time to give himself the best preparation possible for the 2010 Paralympics in Vancouver and Whistler, BC. Having grown up skiing on the BC slopes, he was determined to give a good account of himself in front of a home crowd.

With a career high placing of seventh in the 2009 World Cup Downhill race in Whistler, a test event for the Parlaympics themselves, Hallat entered the games with hopes of a top ten finish. Although he narrowly missed out, ultimately achieving 11^th place in the Downhill race, the experience was still extremely positive.

“I have some very fond memories of the 2010 Winter Paralympics, but at the same time it was a very hard experience,” he says. “I didn’t ski as well as I could have, but I got to carry the Paralympic torch and light the Community Cauldron in Whistler the day before the opening event, which was a career highlight for me. To have the Games at home was very special, with lots of friends and family in attendance. It also marked the twentieth anniversary of me losing my leg, so it almost brought things around full circle.”

Although a business degree and a career as a professional skier may not have many similarities on the surface, Hallat maintains that many of the skills he has learned at Beedie have helped him manage his athletic career.

“I’ve been able to use a lot of my education – qualities such as leadership and public speaking are very useful in sport,” he says. “As I get older and my team mates get younger, I have tended to be thrust into the position of leader, so it helps to know what you are talking about. I also need to market myself, build business contacts and communicate effectively with my sponsors, and maintain those relationships over time. They are all running a business, so it helps to understand both their role and mine, and the Beedie School of Business has definitely helped me with that.”

When choosing which university to attend, the flexibility of the BBA program at the Beedie School of Business was one of the main attractions for Hallat. Little did he know, that the flexibility would allow him to achieve his dreams of competing as a professional athlete, while at the same time earning his degree.

“The Beedie School of Business has been extremely supportive of my athletic career – they’ve enabled me to follow my dream,” says Hallat. “If it wasn’t for the flexibility the school provides, I might not even have had the chance to start my university degree yet, so I’m very thankful for making this possible.”

Hallat’s immediate future is already mapped out – he currently runs a yacht detailing business with his fiancée, and aims to compete at the 2015 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships, to be held at Panorama, BC. Longer term, he has plans to put the skills he has earned at the Beedie School of Business to good use.

“My passion when I was young was always to ski and I’ve been lucky to be able to live that dream for the last ten years, but the reality is that has to come to an end eventually,” says Hallat. “No matter how long you want to hang on for, your career has to end. I would love to run my own business in the future, but whatever field that may be in, I have no idea right now. I am leaning towards majoring in entrepreneurship, so hopefully I will be well prepared for whatever comes.”