Meet our speakers and organizers

Dave Weber has worked as a rescue technician, remote site medic and skills instructor for over two decades. He currently works as a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park and a flight paramedic and hoist rescuer for Intermountain Life Flight. Dave is the owner of Mountain Rescue Collective, a training and auditing firm dedicated to ground and air SAR operations. He has also instructed technical skills for Rigging for Rescue, the American Avalanche Institute and the Khumbu Climbing Center. He lives in Park City, Utah with his wife and daughter during the fall and winter months before transitioning to rescue work for the National Park Service in Jackson, Wyoming for the spring and summer months.

Christopher Van Tilburg is an author and physician practicing emergency, wilderness, occupational, and travel medicine. He’s medical director for four Mount Hood search and rescue teams, past chair of Mountain Rescue Association’s Medical Committee, and a USA delegate to the International Commission for Alpine Rescue. He serves as the Hood River County public health officer and as medical examiner for five Oregon counties. He has volunteered for the Hood River Crag Rats mountain rescue team for 25 years.

Eric Gagnon has over 25 years of experience in Search and Rescue (SAR). For the past 14 years, he has been conducting helicopter rescues with the King County Sheriff’s Office, building on a foundational career in SAR with the U.S. Coast Guard, where he served as a heavy weather SAR coxswain, diver, and emergency medical technician. Currently, he works as a rescue specialist and hoist operator. As the lead instructor, he is responsible for training new members in hoist rescue operation

Cully Wiseman is a general surgeon and the Trauma Medical Director at Providence Hood River Hospital. He has been an active SAR member of the Hood River Crag Rats since 2015. He is also an avid ski mountaineer, climber, biker, and wind sport enthusiast.  Dr. Wiseman will present his rescue of a multisystem trauma patient from a fumarole on Mt. Hood.

Ben Stoner-Duncan is an Emergency Physician at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is
a lifelong climber, paddler, skier and cyclist. Previously, as a wilderness EMT, he provided
medical care on remote whitewater trips in the Western US and Central America. He has an
interest in disease ecology and has published on vampire bat-related rabies outbreaks in
Amazonian Peru and the effects of climate change on avian influenza transmission in the arctic.
He has been an active member of Seattle Mountain Rescue since 2018, designs equipment for wilderness medical use and serves as Local Emergency Medical Advisor for the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest.