Did you know that CSAR’s Public Information and Education Program has eight members from seven different teams? The PIE program has existed in its current format since 2022, when it expanded from public information to include public backcountry safety education. Its acronym came about when Jeff Sparhawk said, “Because who doesn’t like PIE?” CSAR members may not realize that a diverse group of folks from teams across the state make up the engine that drives this very active program.
The PIE program has six public information officers: Anna DeBattiste from Summit County Rescue Group, who is the program manager; Cindy Howard from Custer County SAR; Drew Hildner from Rocky Mountain Rescue Group; Jay Christianson, formerly of El Paso County SAR and currently in training as a state BSAR coordinator; Dawn Wilson of Alpine Rescue Team; and Dale Atkins, also from Alpine. This year, the program added Al Lichtenstein from Western Mountain Rescue Team as a marketing assistant and Mikinley Way from Arapahoe Rescue Patrol as a social media admin. Al helps us review our email communications, and you may have seen our recent Saturday Safety Note social posts, which were Mikinley’s brainchild and which highlight a different team each week.
The program’s responsibilities include CSAR’s public communication efforts, from social media to traditional media interviews to our blog and public facing website. CSAR PIOs are responsible not only for public backcountry safety education, but also for broadening awareness of how backcountry search and rescue works in Colorado, the important service we provide to the tourism and outdoor recreation industries, our need for public support, and how CSAR collaborates with other emergency responders. We’re also involved in various state agency collaboration projects and outreach to other nonprofits focused on outdoor recreation and stewardship of public lands. For the past couple years, members have been working diligently to get us a voice in state agency outdoor recreation and stewardship plans and increase the focus on backcountry safety in these plans.
But what makes the PIE Program tick is not just its official members, but also the wider network of BSAR team and other PIOs we collaborate with. Through quarterly meetings, a private Facebook group, email communications, an annual PIO class, and an annual face-to-face meeting at SARCon, this network of PIOs and social media admins share best practices and resources, amplify each other’s messaging and work together on PSAR projects.
During our visit to Denver 7, the assignment editors let us do a little goofing off!
You may have noticed a higher volume of media coverage recently, both for BSAR in general and CSAR specifically. An early start to the busy summer season and a number of high profile incidents have driven this increase, but CSAR has also been making a deliberate push for coverage to help support our fundraising needs and public education goals. CSAR PIOs Dawn and Anna, along with Alpine PIO Howard Paul, have been visiting Front Range television network headquarters to learn more about how they work, and Dawn has been proactively pitching story ideas across a broad spectrum of media outlets. Anna is also writing regular columns for Out There Colorado and the Summit Daily, and other guest writers are welcome to submit a column through CSAR. Do you have story ideas, or an interest in writing a guest column? Reach out to [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you.
