board of directors
JEFF SPARHAWK
JOHN AGNEW
John Agnew is an entrepreneur and business owner. His company, Breeze Thru Car Wash, has 250 employees and washes three million cars a year in 15 locations between northern Colorado and southern Wyoming. It is the only ISO-9001 certified car wash organization in the world. John was also a volunteer BSAR responder for 20 years, serving as a mission coordinator and a board member with Summit County Rescue Group in the 1990s and 2000s. He lives in Fort Collins. Read more about John here.
JIM DONOVAN
KHARIS EPPSTEIN
Kharis has worked in government and nonprofit her entire adult career. She joined Alpine Rescue Team in 2019 after completing a leadership course through Outward Bound and recognizing she finally had the time to give back to her community through volunteer work. She has always loved being outside in nature, backpacking, and helping people, so joining a BSAR team seemed like a good fit. Recognizing she was never going to be the most skilled rock climber or skier on the team, she focused her efforts on the board and team governance. Kharis was the team’s secretary for two years and served as president for three. During her last year on the board, she served as an advisor for the team’s newest class, which blended her love for teaching with the team. She alsorecently completed the team’s EMR course. Outside of Alpine, Kharis is an audit manager with the City and County of Denver, helping to ensure taxpayer dollars are used efficiently and effectively and that programs serve residents equitably. Over nine years with the office, she has reviewed topics spanning from safety and security in city facilities to homeless encampment response to affordable housing. She is certified in internal audit, fraud examination, and government auditing. Kharis lives in Denver with her partner and loves spending time outdoors with her teammates, visiting with her seven nieces and nephews in the Longmont area, cooking, and reading.
REESE IRWIN
Christopher “Reese” Irwin has been the Team Lead of Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue (PCSO SAR) since 2019, a position he will hold until the end of 2025, when he will transition to a focus on state search and rescue efforts while remaining as a fielding member of the team. He has been an instructor for the Colorado Search and Rescue Association (CSAR) Responder Education Program since 2021 and accepted the Program Manager position in late 2024. In this position, he oversees efforts to bring CSAR constituents together for continuing education opportunities. Reese has been a search dog handler since 2018 and is also a member of the dive rescue/recovery and wildland fire teams for the PCSO. He has been a member of search and rescue teams in Wyoming and Colorado for over twenty years, fielding on his first mission at the age of 10 - a byproduct of having two parents who were active in SAR for over twenty years themselves.
Outside of search and rescue, Reese is a Financial Planning & Analysis Manager for Rocky Mountain Steel Mills in Pueblo, CO. He spends his free time hiking, rock climbing, and playing Magic the Gathering. He lives in Pueblo, Colorado with his partner Rebecca Faul and their four dogs.
KEITH KEESLING
Keith Keesling has been the captain of Dolores County Search and Rescue for a decade and a CSAR state search and rescue coordinator for two years. He has also been employed as the emergency manager and IT manager for Dolores County since 2014. He started in search and rescue in Colorado in 1987, and for several years has been focused on a goal to ensure adequate and equitable funding for SAR operations in the state of Colorado for all counties large and small. He is currently the chairman of the Southwest All-Hazards Advisory Council for DHSEM, the president of the Dolores County EMS Council, the secretary of the Southwest Regional Emergency and Trauma Advisory Council, a board member of the Southwest Healthcare Coalition, president of the Dolores County Local Emergency Planning Committee a board member for the Southwest Regional Emergency Planning Committee, and a member of the High Alpine Hazard Mitigation Committee for Region 9. Keith and his family have managed the Dolores County Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Dove Creek Care and Share Food Pantry for over a decade. He is certified in search management through CSAR, the AFRCC and the National Park Service. He is a whitewater rescue technician and a state certified train-the-trainer for C.E.R.T. (Community Emergency Response Team). Keith started the Dolores County Rapid Response Team (with Flight For Life) and ensured that all SAR responders in the county were medically certified for the first time in 35 years. He is also a volunteer for the Dove Creek Ambulance District. Keith comments, “I think I may be the only SAR captain to have been provided 2 F-16s for a SAR mission in the state, but that’s another story.”
JOHN RELLER
John Reller has over 30 years of SAR experience and specializes in avalanche and search dog training and operations. He and his wife Andrea have served as members, team leaders and dog handlers for Summit County Rescue Group since the 1980s, and in the 2010s John was part of a team that founded Colorado Rapid Avalanche Deployment, a non-profit focused on the training, preparation, and validation of avalanche deployment teams for successful search and rescue in Colorado. He is also a member of the Summit County Water Rescue Team.
John lives in Silverthorne, Colorado, where he works seasonally for the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and Arapahoe Basin's ski patrol, and he manages his own residential construction business. He also serves as a CSAR state coordinator.
BEN WILSON
As a member of the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group since 2000 and a member of the Colorado Search and Rescue Association since 2010, Ben Wilson has served in multiple leadership roles both operational and administrative. Ben has a strong sense of community, giving back and family and has always sought to combine those ambitions with his love of the outdoors. He has served on CSARs board as a director and treasurer and has served on the American Lung Association’s outdoor programs steering committee. Out of college, Ben spent 10 years in the software-for-finance industry and in 2017 went back to school to earn a master’s degree in education from the University of Colorado. He now runs the corporate education program for a Colorado based investment firm. Ben enjoys outdoor activities like fly fishing, mountain biking, skiing, climbing, backpacking trail running and alpine mountaineering. He currently resides in Boulder, Colorado with his wife Lauren and son Eliot.
