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CAIC Staff

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Ethan Greene, Director
Brian Lazar, Deputy Director

Backcountry

CDOT

Boulder Office (303-499-9650, email)
Scott Toepfer
Spencer Logan
John Snook
CAIC-Breckenridge
Tim Brown
CAIC-Aspen
Brian McCall
CAIC-San Juans
Matt Steen
CAIC-Eisenhower Tunnel
Lee Metzger
Stu Schaefer
CAIC-West Slope
Rob Hunker
CAIC-Silverton
Susan Hale
Mark Gober
CAIC-Ouray
Ann Mellick
CAIC-Pagosa Springs
Mark Mueller

Staff Photo Fall 2012

Ethan Greene, Director

Ethan's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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

Mark's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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's Photo
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 Photo
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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