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May 26, 2010
Tower training class for National Park Service collaborators
By Kevin Schallert, NPS Research Associate
Over two beautiful spring days in sunny San Diego, HPWREN's Jim
Hale led a Tower Climbing and Safety Course for the National Park
Service's Mediterranean Coast Network. The first day of the training
was split between classroom protocol overviews at the San Diego
Super Computer Center and the group's initial climbs of 15 feet
on the Mount Soledad tower in La Jolla. The second day was entirely
on the tower and the curriculum was repelling and rescue drills.
Pablo Bryant of SDSU added to Jim's instruction team, allowing for
simultaneous on-ground and on-tower coaching. The National Park
Service staff surely got quite the thrill suspended 30 feet off the
ground preparing for rescue drills.
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Jim gives Kevin some last minute high rise pointers before his descent.
Photo: Susan Teel
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The training graduated four Park Service Rangers to maintain a
growing network of tower mounted environmental monitoring equipment,
built in collaboration with HPWREN, that range from wireless networks
to fire monitoring cameras. NPS Research Associate Kevin Schallert
summed up the mission importance "this training will allow greater
flexibility in leveraging human resources to sustain the hardware
component of our partnership with HPWREN" and NPS Research Associate
Nick deRoulhac added that "Jim's commitment to safety and passion
for perfection ensured that this training was comprehensive and
stressed established best practices." Other trainees were Network
IT Specialist Mike Maki and Firefighter Ryan O'Neill.
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Ryan rescues Nick: newly learned techniques in a rescue drill.
Photo: Susan Teel
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