CAIC Staff
To email individuals: first.last AT coavalanche.info
Ethan Greene, Director
Ethan has approached snow and avalanches from both a practical and
theoretical perspective. He grew up in Boulder skiing Colorado’s
Front Range. After a few winters in the San Juan Mountains, he worked at
Big Sky Ski Resort in Montana as a ski patroller and at the Forest
Service Utah Avalanche Center in Salt Lake City as an avalanche
forecaster. Ethan also studied meteorology at the University of Utah
(BS) and snow drift formation at Colorado State University (MS). He has
spent a lot of time looking at the microstructure of snow and its
metamorphism in very large freezers in Colorado and Switzerland (PhD).
Ethan has published a variety of articles on snow, weather and
avalanches and been a member of national and international working
groups on snow and avalanche projects. Ethan lives in Fort Collins and
in the summer you can find him somewhere in the Cache la Poudre
drainage.
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Brian Lazar, Deputy Director
Brian has spent much of last 15 years chasing snow in the South when
things got too warm here in the North. He began backcountry skiing in
Colorado as a college student, and later as a mountain guide; and as an
avalanche educator, curriculum developer, and as current Executive
Director with the American Institute for Avalanche Research and
Education (AIARE), and member of the American Avalanche Association
Education Committee. After a decade or so of guiding in a variety of
snow climates on both sides of the equator, Brian returned to graduate
school where he earned a MS in Engineering, studying snow and ice
mechanics in Alaska's Chugach, and conducting research at the Institute
of Arctic and Alpine Research. In the summers, you can find Brian
complaining about the heat, planning his next trip to the snow, and
trying to keep up with his wife Michelle on mountain bikes.
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Tim Brown
Tim loves snow. He studies it, eats it, photographs it, talks about it, dreams about it, often sleeps on it, and plays in it whenever he can. After earning a degree in biology from the University of Virginia, Tim moved to Crested Butte and took his curiosity about the natural world into the winter backcountry. He soon realized that what you don’t know about snow actually CAN hurt you, so he found mentors and began learning from them. A fully certified IFMGA mountain guide, Tim spent much of the last decade guiding rock, alpine and ski mountaineering routes worldwide and teaching avalanche safety courses throughout the western US. He finds great fulfillment in learning and sharing techniques to mitigate the risks involved in exploring mountains. Tim continues to be intrigued by the nuances of snow and is glad to know that the learning will never cease.
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Mark Gober
Mark grew up in the Front Range taking an early interest in skiing. Once
able to drive, he began to explore the backcountry and with that,
realized the importance of getting educated about avalanches. This led
eventually to a job at Copper Mountain where he worked for ten years as
a ski patroller taking a greater role in snow work. He spent two seasons
at Silverton Mountain learning what is possible is terrain management.
Mark was hired as a forecaster in Silverton in 2009 after interning for
two seasons. When not on snow, Mark can usually be found on the oars on
a desert river.
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Susan Hale
Susan is a forecaster at the Silverton office of the CAIC. She has spent
21 years working and recreating in the Colorado Rockies, where her
interest in avalanche work peaked during many years with Snowmass Ski
Patrol’s Snow Safety and Avalanche Rescue Dog programs. She also
spent two years as an intern for the CAIC Silverton office, where she
learned the ins and outs of highway forecasting.
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Rob Hunker
Rob has been forecasting for Colorado highways on the Western Slope
since 1994. He started working with avalanches as a professional ski
patrolman at Crested Butte during the winter of 1970-71. Rob created the
Snow Safety Program in 1977 for the development and opening of the
Extreme Limits, studied at the Swiss Institute of Snow and Avalanche
Research in Davos under the guidance of Walter Good, pioneered the use
of telemark skis for avalanche route control along with Rick Borkovec,
and was a member of the Crested Butte Ski Patrol for 18 years. He earned
a BA degree in Psychology and Geography from Western State College of
Colorado. Flying and aerial photography are passions equal to that of
living in the snow.
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Spencer Logan
Spencer learned to ski at the now-defunct Hidden Valley Ski Area, near
Estes Park. He still enjoys touring there. Spencer joined the CAIC in
2004. He spent the two years prior in Montana obtaining a MS in Earth
Sciences from Montana State University. Spencer investigated how shear
strength of weak layers changed over space and through time. He and his
colleagues dug many snowpits, moving over 25,000 kg (55,000 lbs) of snow
one winter. He learned to backcountry ski in northern Utah, where he
managed to graduate from college, spent three winters forecasting for
the Utah Avalanche Center-Logan, and married a wonderful gal. He hopes
that his son will grow up to be the fourth generation of the family to
ski and the fifth to fish in Colorado.
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Brian McCall
Brian joined the CAIC in 2007. His background includes more than 12
years of experience in the avalanche industry as a forecaster, ski and
climbing guide, avalanche educator, and ski patroller at Aspen
Highlands. Brian holds American Mountain Guides Association
certification as a ski guide and rock instructor. Brian was also a
founding member and director of the Roaring Fork Avalanche Center. In
his free time, Brian enjoys all forms of climbing, ski touring, mountain
biking, and just goofing off in his back yard of the Elk Mountains and
well beyond.
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Ann Mellick
Ann has spent much of her avalanche career in the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado,
where she was mentored by a longtime local forecaster. Prior to working full-time for the
CAIC, she worked extensively in the avalanche education field, including teaching a unique
month-long Avalanche Forecasting course for Prescott College. She worked as an intern
avalanche forecaster for the CAIC’s Silverton office and as a forecaster in the Boulder office,
before taking over as the Northern San Juan forecaster.
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Lee Metzger
Lee moved to Summit County in the 1970’s. He worked on the ski
patrol at Breckenridge for 15 years and joined the CAIC in 1992. Lee has
been working on Vail, Berthoud and Loveland Passes ever since. He is an
avid hunter and outdoorsman. In the summer he works with Metzger
Brothers Concrete.
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Mark Mueller
While Mark was living in North Lake Tahoe and working at Alpine Meadows,
an interest in ski mountaineering led to an early encounter with an
avalanche. A fortunate outcome left Mark with a keen desire to learn
more about avalanches (and a permanent dent in his skull). A ski bum
since graduating from high school, he patrolled at Squaw Valley, CA,
becoming Patrol Director for 12 seasons. Mark moved to Pagosa to become
a CAIC/CDOT highway avalanche forecaster. In addition, Mark is the
Executive Director of the American Avalanche Association. He and his
wife Sandy, a seasoned avalanche professional herself, have played the
avalanche game for many years. They own and operate Wolf Creek
Backcountry, offering yurt-based backcountry skiing and avalanche
education near Wolf Creek Pass. Mark loves skiing, road biking in the
off-season, reading, drinking beer, learning foreign languages,
traveling, and hopes one day to live in the Alps for a winter (or
longer).
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Stu Schaefer
Stu is a third generation Leadville resident. He worked as a ski
patroller at Ski Cooper in the late 80’s and helped develop
Chicago Ridge Snowcat Tours. He later became the director at Chicago
Ridge as well as ski patrolling at Breckenridge Ski Resort. Stu joined
the CAIC in fall of 1999 and has been working along the highways in
Summit, Grand and Eagle Counties ever since. He has a B.S. and M.S. in
Geology from Fort Lewis College and Colorado School of Mines
respectively. In the summer, Stu enjoys wandering through the desert and
running rivers.
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John Snook
John has a long history in forecasting and technology transfer. He
received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University
and spent fourteen years working at NOAA’s Forecast Systems
Laboratory. He has also worked as a consultant, developing weather
forecast systems and mesoscale atmospheric models for several private
and government groups. John is an avid backcountry skier and has been on
the volunteer ski patrol at Arapahoe Basin Ski Area since 1985.
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Matt Steen
Matt grew up on the Front Range and learned to ski at El Conquistador in Southern Colorado. His passion for skiing and snow science led him to ski patrol in Utah and Colorado where he landed in the San Juan's in 2001. Matt patrolled in Telluride for 10 years where he worked as a snow safety supervisor, helping the ski area expand into new and uncharted terrain. Matt finished his ski patrolling career with an avalanche study mapping Bear Creek, a backcountry playground adjacent to the ski area. In the summer he continues to explore the surrounding mountains in the south west, and always loves to run through the sprinklers.
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Scott Toepfer
Scott's first encounter with an avalanche came while full moon skiing on
Loveland Pass. A friend was caught and buried up to his neck in the
debris. At the time Scott did not know an avalanche from a VW micro bus.
Eventually Scott began ski patrolling at Arapahoe Basin (1977) and
played that game at various resorts around the world, including
Courchevel 1850 in the Savoie of France, Mt Hutt in New Zealand, and
Vail. He joined the CAIC in the early 90s. Since he has lots of free
time, especially after deciding with his wife Andrea to have a baby (A
boy named Beau) he dabbles at mountain bike racing and road bike riding.
When the opportunity arises he goes to Europe to do one of the classic
ski tours there. Scott lives in Breckenridge in a house he built a few
years ago.
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