CSAR’s volunteer state coordinators come from the backcountry SAR teams across the state that make up the Colorado Search and Rescue Association’s membership. Most have extensive experience running incidents for their own local teams, but they still train for almost a year to become state coordinators. State coordinators must have a much larger quiver of tools and contacts to coordinate resources between different counties. They need to build up a knowledge base of how differently BSAR teams work, which teams have which specialties or resources, which teams work well together, and which typically have bandwidth for incidents outside their own counties. They need to understand the complicated processes and resources of various aviation organizations in Colorado, including medical helicopter companies, the Colorado National Guard, the Civil Air Patrol, and the Colorado Department of Fire Prevention. They must have a basic working knowledge of helicopter operations, search dog types, satellite messaging systems and technical rescue resources.
In 2025, CSAR ran a nine-month training program for new state coordinator recruits consisting of weekly instructor-led online sessions. The training series began with different modules designed to support each of the incident and activity types the coordinators support, then progressed to mock incidents and simulations. In the final stages of training, the trainees were assigned to shadow experienced coordinators during real incidents. In January of 2026, five of them graduated to full coordinator status and were assigned to regular three-day shifts.
Jeff Edelson – Mountain Rescue Aspen (MRA)
Jeff has been with MRA since 2005, serving on the Board of Directors from 2006-2017 in several roles, including president and director of operations. In 2010, he became a team rescue leader as well. In 2026, he re-joined the board of directors by taking on the chief rescue leader role for his team. He decided to apply to join the CSAR state coordinator team in 2025 to make a bigger impact with his volunteer time and give back to the broader Colorado community.
Jeff started his emergency services career as a volunteer firefighter and EMT when he was 18 in his home state of Michigan, then moved to a paid firefighter and paramedic role before working his way up to division chief with the Aspen Fire Department. In addition to Jeff’s fire career, he also currently volunteers as a flight-certified critical care paramedic with the Colorado Hoist Rescue Team. In his day job, Jeff owns a telecommunications company that builds and maintains radio towers and communication systems, servicing both private and government customers throughout the country. He has a passion for supporting emergency first responders and ensuring they have adequate communications capabilities for operational efficiency and safety.
Jeff has lived in Colorado for over 20 years and has two kids, ages 9 and 11. He says, “I just want to help take care of people, help keep them safe.”
Trevin Montano – Boulder Emergency Squad (BES)
Trevin’s day job is working in the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office – Fire Management Office. He’s part of a team of wildland fire subject matter experts who help with fire suppression, but also with incident objectives and resource coordination, so joining the ranks of CSAR’s state coordinators was not too much of a stretch for him. “I always enjoyed the logistics side of resource coordination,” he says. “Although I will also say there was just a ton of information in the training program that I didn’t already know, such as cell phone forensics and how it works. It was a lot.”
Trevin travels throughout the U.S. to help manage fire incidents and has been on a few of the country’s largest and most serious fires. “I was a victim’s advocate earlier in my career,” he says, “and that has helped me with handling stressful incidents, both in fire management and in my role with the Boulder Emergency Squad.”
Trevin has been a volunteer with BES since 2019 and is qualified in everything they do, including rescue, swiftwater, diving, drones, and incident coordination. He’s currently training to become a lieutenant with the team.
For fun in the backcountry, Trevin is a whitewater river boarder and hiker.
Erik Rasmussen – Chaffee County Search and Rescue North (CCSARN)
Erik says the state coordinator training program was like drinking from a firehose. “I didn’t realize how much was happening behind the scenes,” he says. “I was fortunate to already be familiar with the tech stack, but understanding the workflows behind each type of incident was challenging.”
Erik has been a software engineer for 30 years, hence his familiarity with the state coordinator’s tech stack. He has five kids and says it’s important to model good citizenship for them. Since joining CCSARN in 2013, he’s served as the team’s president three times, and also as the treasurer, training director and IT director. He says serving as a state coordinator seemed like a great opportunity to understand resources at the state level and bring that knowledge back to his team.
Erik is an avid mountain biker and has hiked 42 of Colorado’s 14ers.
Brant Scalan – Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery (CO 4×4 R&R)
Being from a non-traditional rescue team, one whose primary mission is to recover stuck vehicles in the backcountry, Brant says he was interested in becoming a state coordinator to get experience in traditional BSAR. “The training might have been more challenging for me than for the others,” he says, “because I didn’t have the traditional BSAR background that the others had. But it was good training that provided me with confidence.”
Brant works for Google as a cloud infrastructure engineer, so he too had a leg up with the technology piece of state coordination. He’s been with CO4x4RnR since shortly after he moved to Colorado from Virginia in 2018, and has served on its board for most of that time. He’s currently the team’s president.
Brant says eventually he hopes to retire from his day job and do incident management as a next career.
Danny Andres, Chaffee County Search and Rescue South (CCSARS)
Danny is a project manager for a residential builder, but that’s a relatively new career for him. Previously, he was in outdoor recreation industry sales, and he was a whitewater raft guide in his youth. Whitewater rafting remains his backcountry passion, along with mountain biking.
He echoes the other graduates when he says, “The training was challenging, it was a lot. Much more goes into it than people realize. The system CSAR and the Colorado National Guard have put together for hoists is incredibly seamless, amazing and impressive.”
Danny has a long history of volunteering in public safety positions. His father was a fire marshal and Danny became a volunteer firefighter when he was only 13. He’s been with CCSARS since 2018 and has served as membership coordinator, training coordinator, president, and now operations team coordinator. He says he couldn’t do it all without the support of his wife and son.
CSAR’s State Coordinator Program is unique – no other state handles cross-county resource coordination using a group of highly experienced and qualified volunteers. Most states have a paid position within their emergency management offices or state law enforcement agencies. Want to learn more about how it all works? Read about it here.