30 U 30: Curtis Jones, 24
Curtis Jones is the youngest rescue tech with the top-notch mountain rescue operation North Shore Rescue.
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Updated: October 14, 2009 3:59 PM
At 24, Curtis Jones is the youngest rescue tech with the top-notch mountain rescue operation North Shore Rescue. His dad Tim Jones is the team’s manager and has logged two decades with the operation.
“It’s (mountain rescue) definitely a family business,” says Curtis. “We’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s very rewarding.”
The third-year SFU business student has spent five years on the NSR roster, but Curtis has been unofficially involved with NSR for nearly a decade, heading up the local mountains with his dad to work on his mountain safety skills. Since 2004, Curtis estimates he’s helped with over 200 rescues, including two recent rescues on the Lions and the three-day rescue operation of an injured snowshoer out near Seymour’s Theta Lake in 2007.
This spring he trained with a handful of other team members in NSR’s Helicopter Flight Rescue Systems plan to exact faster, safer rescues by airlifting subjects out of the backcountry.
Manager Tim Jones says Curtis is an exception in a demographic trend that sees most young recruits in their early and mid 30s. “Usually these guys are at their peak fitness level and usually they have time to give back to the community,” says Jones of the other 30-somethings identified by older management to head up the NSR succession plan. In that crew, Jones named DNV firefighter and NSR helicopter rescue coordinator Mike Danks along with Jeff Yarnold and Mike LaVigne.
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