Cover photos by Howard Paul.
Hugh Zuker and Bruce Beckmann have been recognized with the 2025 J. Hunter Holloway Spirit Award, CSAR’s longest-standing and most prestigious award.
“Hugh and Bruce have both lived honorable lives of service to their communities and we are lucky that they continue to dedicate themselves to CSAR and the entire Colorado BSAR community,” says Jeff Sparhawk, CSAR’s executive director. “They consistently solve difficult, behind the scenes, detailed issues that others are unwilling to take on, just like Hunter did. They give an incredible amount of time and energy to ensure CSAR and the coordinator program run smoothly, collaboratively, and are safe for all responders. They live the values of CSAR.”
Hugh Zuker has been a CSAR state coordinator since 2020 and was named chief coordinator in 2023. He is currently serving a three year term as an elected director of CSAR. He also brings extensive experience leading for-profit and nonprofit organizations.
Hugh joined Mountain Rescue Aspen in 2000. During that time, he served eight years as president and 22 as a rescue leader. He still serves as a rescue leader and juggles this role with his extensive CSAR responsibilities and as a deputy coroner for Pitkin County.
He was nominated for the Holloway Award for all he does but most importantly for his monumental work in advancing the CSAR Coordinator Program. Hugh’s ability to collaboratively see a better system and then to bring that system to life has benefited BSAR teams statewide and, through the volunteer responders, saved lives. The CSAR Rapid Activation Process now includes an entire tech stack that seamlessly allows real-time situational awareness by all those involved in an incident and has resulted in dramatically reduced response times. The soon-to-be 24 on-call coordinators volunteer a great deal of their time partially because they have a leader that inspires them, that deeply cares about them, and is dedicated to everyone’s success.
Bruce Beckmann joined the Alpine Rescue Team in 1984 and again in 2018. In between, he served with the Seattle Mountain Rescue Team. During his 15 years with the Alpine, he has served as a mission coordinator, communications manager, vehicle manager and the team’s PSAR manager. He has contributed many educational services to the general public and to other BSAR volunteers, including hosting webinars and in-person backcountry safety classes. He currently serves as an in-town coordinator assisting the on-call mission coordinator with mapping, paging and securing resources. In 2020, he became a CSAR state coordinator, and in 2023, he was promoted to deputy chief coordinator. He also serves as the CSAR Electronic Communication program manager, in which he manages radios and keeps an eye on the ever changing world of communications. He teaches search management classes for CSAR’s Education Program, and contributes his expertise in several technical topics to the Public Information and Education Program.
For the State BSAR Coordinator Program, Bruce is the lubricant that keeps the never ceasing engine running. All of the complex spreadsheets and processes work smoothly because of Bruce. He not only has been instrumental in building and maintaining the tech stack but he makes himself available day or night to teach or remind any coordinator of any of the thousands of details. Bruce also faithfully maintains the statistics for the State Coordinator Program.
Anna DeBattiste, PIE Program and Awards Program manager, comments, “Bruce is my go-to whenever I need a new blog article or guest newspaper column on technical topics such as PLBs, satellite communications devices, and our FRS radio channel designation. He has also been very helpful with general PSAR topics, and his maintenance of detailed state coordinator request stats is a tremendous help to our PIOs in media interviews and identification of trends. No matter how busy he is with the State Coordinator Program, he is always willing to help out when I call him for public information and education needs.”
Jeff Sparhawk adds, “These two are the epitome of a high functioning team. They lead, they follow, they are true to CSAR’s values and to doing everything they can to make Colorado a better place. They do whatever is necessary to ensure success for all of us and they do so with caring and compassion. We are better because of both of them.”