For seven years, Bobby Aldighieri has provided high-level expertise as director of the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club’s freestyle program. After this week, he’ll be stepping down from the SSWSC and joining Steamboat Sotheby’s International Realty.

“It’s a good time for a change for me and my family,” Aldighieri said. “Real estate’s been really good to me in this town, personally. It’s nice to pass that on a bit in a pretty dynamic market as everyone knows.”

Aldighieri has spent two stints with the SSWSC, previously coaching the moguls team for five years, spending 12 years total with the club and the freestyle program.

“What I’m most proud of is the professionalism we brought to the process,” he said. “We’ve tried to take the day-to-day process to a new level for our sport and really try to do our best to be aware of best practices in the world. You don’t want to just be thinking about Colorado or locally. You have to have a broader … more international perspective. As a former World Cup athlete and coaching on the World Cup and coaching at the Olympics, that’s something I think that I brought.”

Aldighieri spent seven years skiing for the U.S. Ski Team, winning a World Cup Gold Medal in 1988 and taking part in the 1991 World Championship Team and attending the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France.

Upon retiring, he coached the Canadian National Ski Team and Olympic Team and lived in Whistler, British Columbia, for five years.

Athletic Director Dave Stewart said Aldighieri’s passion and attention to detail were obvious and a huge contributor to the success of the freestyle program.

“As director, the focus and energy he brought to the high performance side of the program contributed to an impressive streak of six consecutive years during which a new SSWSC freestyle skier was named to the U.S. Ski Team, including Landon Wendler and Kenzie Radway in the last two seasons,” Stewart said. “Also during this time, two SSWSC coaches, Kate Blamey and Lars Johnson, were recognized as the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Freestyle Coach of the Year, a testament to the program’s quality under Bobby.”

The freestyle program just hired Sam Tarrant as the freestyle high performance coach. He and head U17/U19 mogul coach Ann Battelle will share duties as program director until a new one is hired.

“I think change is always hard, but I think we got some great personnel in place to keep our successes going,” Battelle said.

Aldighieri suspects he won’t be able to quit cold turkey and will spend some time with the club even as he picks up real estate, a career he dabbled in a few years ago.

“I really, really love the athletes,” Aldighieri said. “More than anything, I’ll miss the athletes. I love coaching, and I love educating and … focusing on the minutiae. I wanted to offer them the very best coaching and programming I could.”