Instructor Bios

Denise Alvord is a firefighter/paramedic in Colorado, and has been heavily involved in multiple aspects of mountain search and rescue for over 12 years. She currently has 3 certified dogs; work-ing in Trailing, Air Scent, Cadaver (land and water recovery), Avalanche and Disaster. She is a K9 testing evaluator for state and national certification organizations. Denise responds regularly to K9 requests across Colorado, and has had opportunity to work and train in a variety of terrain and cli-mates across the United States and internationally. She enjoys training and working with handlers to assist in developing individualized training plans to maximize their dogs’ potential.

Mary Carson has been a K9 Handler since 2007. She is a founding member of Independent Search & Rescue Canine Handlers, Inc. (ISRCH) an all-volunteer team of SAR K9 handlers located throughout the US. She is also a member of her local volunteer fire department, SCVFD. As a Ca-nine Response Team (CRT) for ISRCH she currently works three certified Bloodhounds who have been successfully deployed locally as well as across the country, in HRD and Trailing. She has at-tended numerous schools and seminars both in the US and in Europe focusing on Mantrailing, HRD, dog training/behavior as well as Lost Person Behavior & Search Strategies. She continues to attend domestic & international seminars both as an instructor as well as student in the belief that one should never stop learning. Mary has owned and trained numerous breeds of working dogs for over 30 years including Australian Shepherds, Corgis, and Anatolian Shepherds-Livestock Guardi-an Dogs. She first became involved with Search & Rescue in 1994 when she lived in Collbran, Col-orado working as an outfitter in the Western Rocky Mountains.

Teresa McPherson is a member of Virginia Task Force One and Virginia Search & Rescue Dog Association and has responded to numerous missions on a local, State, Federal and International level, including the OKC bombing of the Murrah building, Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike, the Bam, Iran earthquake, the school collapse in Haiti, the Haiti earthquake, the Japan earthquake/tsunami, Super Storm Sandy, the Oso mudslide, the Nepal earthquakes, as well as responses to call-outs by the FBI, CIA, NCIS and local law enforcement agencies. Teresa has certified multiple canines in wilderness, water, Human Remains and disaster search and chaired the FEMA Canine Sub-Group for 9 years, which oversees the federal Urban Search & Rescue canine program. She is also a member of the NIMs SAR Working Group as well as several other canine organizations, giv-ing her a broad knowledge base of canine search.

Ann Wichmann began training service dogs in 1975, when she became the first female park ranger in the State of Colorado. Co-founder of Front Range Rescue Dogs, Ann has also co-founded a park ranger service dog program, Search and Rescue Dogs of Colorado, and Search and Rescue Dogs of the United States. She served on the FEMA Canine Subcommittee for many years, helping to develop both the teaching curriculum and national standard for the Disaster Search Canine Readiness Program. Ann has taught throughout the country and internationally and has certified five canines to the FEMA disaster standard and four canines to wilderness airscent standards. In addition, Ann has trained and handled dogs in water, HRD, evidence and avalanche search. She and her dogs have responded to emergencies since 1984, including the World Trade Center disaster in 2001; the sugar plant explosion in Scottsbluff, Nebraska; multiple hurricanes; the flood in Fort Collins, Colorado; as well as tornadoes in Limon, Colorado, and Greensburg, Kansas.