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As much as he loves the South Bay, the 50-year-old also loves taking time off to hit the ski slopes. He’s passed his enthusiasm for the sport on to his family. Chang and his wife, Joanne, take their three sons, Michael, 18, Matthew, 17, and Marcus, 14, on skiing vacations several times a year. Plus he goes skiing on his own several more times a year. He talked to Pulse about his passion for skiing, plus his newfound love of golf.

How did you get into skiing?

Stanley Chang: I used to play ice hockey as a child, then my parents made me quit because it became too rough, and they were afraid I would get hurt. So we went on a family skiing vacation to Mammoth Mountain at age 14 and went regularly from then on. In college, there was less opportunity to ski and even less in medical school, but I still kept it up. One winter during medical school, I took the semester off and lived in Aspen, Colorado, and did a lot of skiing. That’s where I really advanced in my skill level and solidified my love of the sport. Of course right after that, my medical training prevented me from skiing regularly for about 12 years until my sons were old enough and we introduced them to the sport, the way my parents introduced me.

What is it about skiing that you love so much?

SC: It’s fantastic to be out in nature. It’s very peaceful doing your own thing—you have a sense of freedom. It’s very serene and meditative.

You’re also a fan of helicopter skiing, or heli-skiing.

SC: I started heli-skiing nine years ago. Richard Shrader, a local orthopedic surgeon, is an avid heli-skier and he introduced me and my ski buddy, Ramin Mirhashemi, a gynecologic oncologist at Torrance Memorial, to it. Once I tried it, I was pretty much hooked. Now we go heli-skiing in the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia once a year for the past nine years.

How is heli-skiing different?

SC: With most skiing, you stay at a resort and take a ski lift up the mountain and then ski down a wideopen path. With heli-skiing, you stay in a lodge that is only accessible by helicopter during the winter. There are no roads in winter so you have to take a helicopter up to the lodge. The lodge is totally isolated in the wilderness. You take a helicopter up the mountain and ski down. Then the helicopter takes you up to the top again. This goes on for a week. It’s great.

What, you jump out of the helicopter and ski down the mountain?

SC: No, that’s something James Bond might do. You take your skis off and load them into a basket on the side of the helicopter. You ride inside the helicopter with the 10 or 12 others in your party. When the copter lands at the top of the mountain, you put your skis on and go down the mountain. Sometimes you’re skiing on a glacier where there are no trees and it’s wide open. Other times you’re tree-skiing through a native forest where there are no runs cut out; that big wide path does not exist. You ski on fresh, untracked powder every run. It gives you a sense of exhilaration being in deep powder in the unspoiled wilderness.

This sounds dangerous.

SC: You ski down the mountain as a group. There are guides skiing with you who know the terrain. There are rocks, cliffs, tree wells, etc., you want to avoid and they know where they are. We always emphasize safety. We’re not thrill seeking by any means. It’s just a different way to ski. We try to minimalize the danger, not seek it out.

Do you work out as well?

SC: Skiing is physically demanding and a lot of stamina is needed. I do weekly sessions with a physical trainer, Alonzo Garrett, during the year, but we ramp up right before ski season. We do circuit training, which is good for cardio endurance to build up your stamina, then we do leg exercises to build up what we call “ski legs.”

You started golfing five years ago at age 45. What made you take up golf so late?

SC: My wife, Joanne, sent me out. She thought it would be enjoyable since my teenage boys were learning to golf. So, now when my sons and I go golfing together, that counts as family time. You can do a lot of bonding for four hours together on a golf course.

And now you’re an avid golfer.

SC: I’m on the golf course two or three times a week. It’s funny because I always thought golf was too hard, too expensive, too time consuming, not even interesting to play. And then I started to play and found out I was wrong on all those counts. It’s good for physical health, but it’s also mentally stimulating. The mental challenge is to learn to play the game and be constantly improving and challenging yourself, which I never knew until I started. I’ve even had some success by winning our club championship, which is something I am proud of.