The rescheduled SAR Council Meeting was held on the 3rd of February. At this meeting we had the chance to give Lt. Glenn Grabiec our farewells and presented him with a plaque on behalf of all of our SAR personnel. We wish him the best in the future.
At this meeting we also had the opportunity to welcome in our new Lt., Lt. Todd Paterson. All of us are looking forward to working with him in the future. Lt. Paterson is a 22-year veteran of the department. He has spent eight years in Narcotics, has worked in Corrections, Central Patrol, Detectives and Adminsitration. In 2004 when he promoted to Sergeant, he was assigned to Volunteer Forces. That is where most of you are going to remember him from. In 2006 he was promoted to Lieutenant and was transferred to Court Services and was the Executive Officer of that division. He has held that position there until his recent transfer back to Volunteer Forces.
Lt. Paterson understands our mission, has worked with volunteers in the past and cares greatly about the efforts that we put forth on a day-to-day basis. All of us are very excited about his contributions, experience and leadership skills that will pretain to SAR.
There is going to be an open house at Volunteer Forces in the next couple of weeks. This event is going to be held so that you can have the opportunity to drop by and meet Lt. Paterson personally. VF and the Council will be sending out that information in the next few days…I hope that all of you get to the chance meet with him.
The Council also presented two awards at the Council Meeting, The Commander of the Year and the Member of the Year Awards.
We are pleased to announce that Derek Rice, the Commander of the West Valley SAR Unit, was the named as The Commander of the Year. His unit was involved in numerous missions on Mt. Baldy with almost all of these missions being held under extreme weather conditions. He also had the large task of having to deal with the relocation of his unit from one station to another. Through his leadership skills and efforts, all were accomplished in a very professional and smooth manner.
Our Member of the Year Award was presented to none other than Mr. Mike Ward. This is an award the Mike probably deserves on an annual basis. His contributions to the SAR Council, the Department and to SAR in general are beyond reproach. If there is an event, a task that needs to be accomplished or a mission to be completed, you can almost always bet that Mike has been involved in one form or the other.
The SAR Council and our SAR members would like to thank these two individuals for all of their efforts during 2009! Congratulations to you both!
On January the 12th the dedication was held for the Civilian Volunteer Memorial. If you get the chance to go by Headquarters you will see this monument right inside of the main lobby. Thank you for attending this event; it was truly a first class affair. Thanks to the CV Memorial Committee, Ardeen with Public Relations and Volunteer Forces.
The 2nd Annual Directors Breakfast was held on January 9th, almost every one of our SAR Unit Commanders attended. Thank you to Chief Coronado for attending and the breakfast was nothing short of outstanding. Mr. John Cornin of Food Services again did an outstanding job providing us with some great food.
Call-outs were numerous in January, the largest being the lost snowboarders on Baldy, the Lytle Creek Airplane Crash and the lost hikers on Vivian Creek Trail up by Forest Falls. Morongo Basin SAR and MSAR had two call-outs for evidence searches. Thanks to all of the units and the SAR personnel who responded to these missions.
Commanders and Coordinators Meeting: This event will be held on February 20th at the San Bernardino County Behavioral Health building located at 850 E. Foothill Blvd in Rialto. A continental breakfast will be from 8:30 to 9:00 with the meeting starting at 9. Meeting is open for Unit Commanders, Vice Commanders and all station/division coordinators (SSS’s, deputies, corporals and sergeants).
SBSAR.org website and logging on: All of the units and their members have been provided new emails addresses for this site. If you do not have this information please have them contact me or Jeff Lehman. Also, please encourage all of your members and teammates to get logged on ASAP.
BSAR: The BSAR school starts on February 27th and 28th. Make sure your members are prepared and the following two weekends will be on March 13th and 14th and March 27th and 28th.
The next SAR Council Meeting will be held on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day, so hope to see all you there, make sure you wear something green! Until then…
Be Safe
Dave Nicolet
DirectorSan Bernardino County Sheriff Department’s
Inland Empire Search and Rescue Council
dnicolet@sbsar.org