At the base of Seven Springs Mountain Resort’s Front Face, the swishing of skis has been accompanied by the sound of a familiar voice. It’s the same one that helped lead Pittsburgh through life-changing events such as 9/11 and the Tree of Life shootings, but now, it’s instructing novice skiers and cheering on their slightest victories. The voice belongs to Pittsburgh TV news veteran Susan Koeppen, who in December became one of the resort’s newest ski instructors.
Ms. Koeppen, 48, spent 13 years broadcasting Pittsburgh-area news, first as WTAE-TV’s consumer reporter and, for the last nine years, as an anchor for KDKA-TV. Between those roles, she spent seven years as a national correspondent for CBS’ “The Early Show,” based in New York City.
Even those who don’t know her by her TV presence may recall her sudden cardiac arrest in 2011 that made her a face of women’s heart health.
None of that fame was able to shield her, though, when she, like so many Americans, was laid off last year. In May 2020, KDKA’s parent company, ViacomCBS, eliminated 400 jobs nationwide, including hers and fellow local anchor Rick Dayton’s.
Although she views any job loss as “traumatic,” she has a history of finding the silver lining in trying situations. This time, the silver is made of snow.
Home on a hill
She was raised in Albany, N.Y., where skiing is more culture than recreation. Her childhood home stood at the base of a hill that became a personal resort for her and her brother. They used stickers and safety pins to make their own lift tickets and filled hours skiing down to the driveway and walking back up.
It cemented a lifelong love for the sport that Ms. Koeppen shares with her husband of 18 years, plastic surgeon Dr. Jim O’Toole, and their three children — Baden, 15, Reagan, 14, and Declan, 12 — all of whom are accomplished skiers.
The sport has become a bonding activity for the family as well as a personal haven for Ms. Koeppen, who was interviewed on a brisk sunny morning at Seven Springs.
“For me, skiing is freedom,” she said, while looking up at the Front Face’s intermediate-difficulty slopes. “When I click on my skis and fly down that hill, all my troubles and worries disappear.”
Ski instructing had been on her bucket list, but this season was the first that time allowed for it. But while pursuing her other love, tennis, in early September she tore a muscle in her left calf. She finished rehab only to repeat the injury on the right side in early November.
“That’s all I kept asking my doctor, ‘When can I ski?’ ” she said.
Her recovery, both from layoff and injury, didn’t surprise her husband, who said with a laugh, “I’ve always had a joke with my friends, ‘Didn’t you get the memo, the don’t mess with Susan if she’s got a goal in mind memo?’ ” Now, “that memo is in bold print.”
‘That’s Susan Koeppen’
She cops to being a “grab the bull by the horns kind of person.” That’s how she was raised.
Her father was born in Germany at the cusp of World War II. His father had gone missing. Forced to flee his home, he and his three siblings survived by swiping food from farmers’ fields. But he eventually attended medical school, and, after borrowing $200, he sailed to America, where he built a family.
Working as a neurologist, Dr. Koeppen gave his family means to continue an uncommon life.
Rather than trips to the local pool and Disney World that she craved, Susan spent summers country-hopping through Europe, where she attended part of first grade in a German school despite only a cursory knowledge of the language. Then there was the business trip when Dr. Koeppen insisted his family stand at the border of Hong Kong and mainland China, although he neglected to plan a way back to the hotel.
After 20 years with her, her husband can see where she gets it from.
“You’re living in foreign countries for months on end when you really don’t know anyone, I think that’s part and parcel of why she’s so driven because from a young age she was put in situations that would typically be uncomfortable for a young kid, and she just had to make do,” he said.
She’s known for that determination.
She was standing in the newsroom at WTAE-TV — where she first became familiar to Pittsburgh audiences — on 9/11 when news of a downed aircraft in Stonycreek, near Shanksville, came across the scanner. This wasn’t a story for a consumer reporter but, “I’m going,” was all she said while racing toward a live truck manned with a photographer. Having no idea where the crash site was, the pair followed sirens and emergency vehicles to reach the wreckage. They were the second media outlet on the scene.
When the station tried to replace Ms. Koeppen on site with another reporter a few days later, she refused.
“I said, ‘This is the biggest story of my life. This is the biggest story in the world. I’m not leaving.’ ”
The station’s news director rewarded her gusto and responded, “Good for you. Go cover it.”
Then-WTAE-TV anchor Sally Wiggin remembers the hustle shown by many staff members that day. She saw it as a proving ground — “if you’re a journalist or if you’re just ‘on TV’ ’’ — where Ms. Koeppen earned the respect of her peers.
Then there was Ms. Koeppen’s response to her near-death experience. She knew she had a benign grade of mitral valve regurgitation — where small amounts of blood flow backward in the left side of the heart — but it unpredictably led to a nearly fatal heart rhythm while she was on a half-marathon training run with friends in 2011. Nearby medical students and Pittsburgh firefighters were able to save her, although she also had to undergo 48 hours of therapeutic hypothermia and a significant recovery period.
As soon as she was medically cleared, however, she went back to training runs and finished that half-marathon. She then became spokeswoman for the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Foundation and the national CPR spokeswoman for the American Heart Association, roles she still holds
A situation in 2004 might define her best.
While she was WTAE’s consumer reporter, she learned of a similar role at the national “The Early Show” on CBS. Instead of mailing a resume tape and crossing her fingers, she flew to New York and personally delivered the tape to the talent scout. Two weeks later, she was back for an interview and was subsequently offered the job.
“To me, that’s Susan Koeppen,” she said. “If I had just sent him that tape, I would never have gotten that job.”
No celebrity
After enduring Seven Springs’ ski school’s four-day tryout, nine-time regional Emmy Award winner Susan Koeppen had to await her fate with everyone else. At 3 p.m. on a December day, she reported to a wall near the so-called Beginners’ Bowl to view a list of the resort’s new instructor hires.
Forty years of ski experience helped her to make the cut, but she takes little for granted.
“I really want to make sure I’m doing it right and people are learning correctly,” she said while sitting gloveless on a 28-degree morning. “I put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure I’m learning exactly how to teach never-evers how to ski.”
Suited up in a COVID-19-aware gaiter/mask combo and a resort-owned jacket with Velcro name tag, an almost unrecognizable “Susan” received her orders with the rest of the instructors. Five children under age 10 were assigned to her. She settled nerves by backing up (to create safe social distance), removing her mask briefly, bending to their height and introducing herself with a smile. After jotting first names on a card, which she quickly stashed in a pocket, she called each student correctly by name. She created a connection by likening basic ski motions to other activities the students know and, after hoisting her skis over a shoulder, taught them “how to carry skis like a pro.”
“She really is brave,” said Ms. Wiggin. “I think it takes a certain amount of courage to embrace career hardship, then to turn toward something that opens you up.”
Ms. Koeppen, who has also taught at Point Park University, finds that teaching has a lot in common with broadcasting. “You take someone who is maybe terrified and wants to learn something and you help create something for them. Like broadcasting, you have a tiny seed of an idea. You see it grow and blossom.”
For the past 20 years, one constant has been a fill-in role on WDVE-FM radio’s morning show. Although she’s tasked with reading the news — only when longtime host Val Porter is unavailable — her banter with hosts Randy Baumann, Bill Crawford and Mike Prisuta often takes unexpected and entertaining turns.
“She’s wicked smart, great sense of humor, but she has a great sense of what makes Pittsburgh Pittsburgh,” said Mr. Baumann. “... I make fun of her for being hoity-toity, but the truth is she’s the most down-to-earth person in the world.”
As her husband explains it, her goals are more of a to-do list than dreams. “Yes, she loved her [TV] job. Yes, she did a great job. But she was never one of those people who was impressed with it.”
The next hill
When Dr. O’Toole reflects back on his wife’s cardiac arrest, he says, “I don’t want to relive it, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything,” and she agrees.
The ordeal lit a fire under her to fill each day to the brim with activity.
“I have not once sat down on a couch flipping through the channels looking for something to watch,” she said. “I really tell my kids every single day, ‘We cannot waste this day! What are we going to do?’ Almost to the point of being annoying ....”
While an evening anchor for KDKA, she rushed through the first half of each day: getting kids off to school, cleaning the house and doing laundry, making a dinner at noon for the family to enjoy later, fitting in a workout, a shower, hair and makeup, all before beginning a workday that wouldn’t land her in bed until 1 a.m.
Her new schedule is just as full, though the audience has changed.
Now, days begin at 6 a.m., often after a night of wake-ups with the family’s 4-month-old Havanese puppy, Izzy. When the kids are off at school, she starts a new version of work, sharing news on Instagram, where she sometimes racks up 100 new followers a day.
Other work includes writing the book so many have urged since her cardiac event. Other days, it’s meeting with a web designer to flesh out the website for her new company, Susan Koeppen Media, which promotes her as a speaker, storyteller and consultant.
Although she cherishes the family time — “I think during COVID it has been beneficial for me to be at home and be a mom” — she misses the camaraderie with her co-workers and the adrenaline rush of breaking news, which is why she’s eager to get back in front of a TV camera as soon as an opportunity arises.
“If you’re someone who’s worked hard at something your whole life, it’s hard to not go after the next thing,” she said.
One of the first skills she teaches never-ever skiers is how to stand back up. On that, she is an expert.
“Life is a lot of times one step forward, two steps back, and you’ve got to be willing to do that dance,” she said. “You may be clumsy and you may fall and trip over your own feet, but you’ve got to be willing to do the dance.”
Abby Mackey: abbyrose.mackey@gmail.com, Twitter @AnthroAbbyRN and IG @abbymackeywrites.
First Published: February 7, 2021, 5:00 a.m.
