Avalanche Control People

I know you have to take a course that's at least a week long and has a fee (I have no idea how much), and I think there are different levels. The course includes material about identifying avalanche danger based on the snowpack, being able to identify the different kinds of snow crystals in the pack, and avalanche paths and safer/dangerous areas on a slope, snowpits and stability tests, and how to find a person buried by an avalanche using transceivers, probes and shovels, and probably without any of the gear as well. There would also be much more in-depth information and you would probably need ski patrol training as well, and training on how to use the blasting equipment.

In Canada, there's the Canadian Avalanche association, their website is http://www.avalanche.ca/

I'm sure there's a similar association in the US.

If you have the opportunity to take the course, you definitely should, because the more people educated about avalanches the better, plus it would be a pretty cool job like you say, but a lot of responsibility.

Also, The Avalanche Handbook IS the best resource. Period. It is informationally dense, and very detailed, but there is no better resource. Tremper's book (Staying Alive...) is a great way to ease yourself into some of the mid-level material (metamorphism, shear mechanics, etc) but it is far from a complete text. Considering that US level 2 requires familiarity with many chapters and level 3 requires familiarity with the entire book, I'd say its worth the read.

As per nomen, definitely look into the Canadian schools. Their level 1 is equivilent to US level 2-3, and their level 2 is pretty much the gold standard re: avalanche study. That said, the US schools are very impressive, and getting better. The American Avalanche Association's AvPro class is top notch.