Tracking Step by Step...

Joel Hardin Professional Tracking Services 

JHPTS Sign Cutters  by Joel Hardin

Bob Brady Awarded First JHPTS "Sign Cutter" Certification - 2004

Washington tracker Bob Brady was first to be awarded the highest certification from Joel Hardin Professional Tracking Services.

After being a participant of Joel Hardin's tracker training programs for nearly fifteen years, Bob Brady was recently awarded "Sign Cutter" certification, the highest level of this program.

Bob is employed at the The Boeing Aerospace Company as a Lean Consultant. He credits his wife Pat and two sons for supporting his tracking training and mission activities.

Bob also works as a commissioned reserve police officer for the Granite Falls Police Department and a team member and Instructor for the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office Tactical Tracking Team. He regularly responds to criminal investigations and searches. Bob is a vice-president of Snohomish County SAR, and tracking trainer for the group.

The local and a neighboring county's Sheriff's Office requested that Bob help design, develop and lead a special tracking training program for their SWAT sniper team. Bob also explores other major tracking programs available in the U.S. in a continuing effort to be fully informed and knowledgeable of possible techniques and practices to increase his personal and professional knowledge and skill. He has participated with this training program numerous times during the past six years as an Assistant Instructor throughout the western states. Bob is a respected professional tracking member of First Special Response Group and in that capacity has traveled to foreign countries to effect successful missions.

Congratulations to Bob Brady for reaching this milestone in his tracking training.

Marvin Pillers Awarded JHPTS "Sign Cutter" Certification - 2005

Marvin will tell you that we first met in 1979 during a State SAR conference being held at Ellensburg, Washington.  I was doing a tracking segment presentation to acquaint SAR responders with the use of tracking as a SAR resource.  Marv came to that short introduction, saw the application possibilities in SAR and has followed our tracking program ever since.
 
Marv wears many hats.  His volunteer work includes Captain and Training Officer for the Palouse Fire Department and EMT with the local EMS unit in Palouse, WA, in Whitman County. Marv is also a SAR Deputy and SAR Coordinator for Latah County in Idaho.  First Responder to Marv means that regardless of the emergency or crises you always get there first!  Marv’s primary job is working for the Garfield and Palouse school districts, where he is the Technology Coordinator and Network Administrator and has responsibility for all technology functions in both districts. For six years, in addition to his primary job with technology, he also served as the supervisor of the transportation department, and continues to serve as the district's bus driver trainer and fills in as a substitute bus driver when necessary.

Marvin is the leader of the North Idaho Trackers Association.  This group grew out of the association in the early 1980’s with Pacific Northwest Trackers and has gone forward continually improving and adapting to the developing of professional tracker response.  Marv's relationship with Latah County Sheriff’s office across the line in Idaho has helped promote tracking as an early response resource in local SAR opportunities. 
 
Marv has developed his own style of training and presentation of our program and with such has recruited numerous new trackers that have gone on and recruited others.  Marv is a trainer with confidence and experience.  He relates well with everyone and works both as primary search manager in the command post and the field coordinator position when not actually doing the tracking himself. 
 
Marv’s vast in-depth experience has prepared him well and in 2005 he was certified as a Sign Cutter in the JHPTS program.  He continues to be active in all public emergency services and a primary figure for SAR and law enforcement incidents involving tracking in the region of north central Idaho.

Ken Laidlaw Awarded JHPTS "Sign Cutter" Certification - 2005

Some of you may know Ken Laidlaw from other than our tracking program.  Ken is a recognized wilderness and SAR specialist in several disciplines.  He regularly is a presenter at various SAR conferences and expositions.  Ken was also a cop.  He was a seasonal police officer with the East Bay Regional Park District, across the bay from San Francisco, for 25 years.

He became very familiar with the back country in several of their parks.  He also retired as an administrator for the Berkeley Unified School District.

I first met Ken in an Ab Taylor tracking class in the early 1980’s.  He sat quietly in a back row, said nearly nothing and held the same facial expression for the two days of the course.  I couldn’t tell if he was interested, bored, pouting, or what.  He took part in the field training and studied each track in detail.  Obviously Ken was a solitary individual that spent nearly all waking moments engaged in one occupation or another and/or studying one or more of the wilderness and SAR disciplines that he was interested in.

In later years, much after I had left the southern border and was responding with Border Patrol permission to requests to provide tracking training in various areas I met Ken in another course.  We talked some, though talking to Ken is mostly a one-sided affair with lots of silence unless you have something to say.  Ken would talk endlessly about one or another of the disciplines that he was either working on or had mastered.  But, just making conversation wasn’t his bag.  Ken studied tracking, and with his diverse background and interests he full well appreciated how, when, and where tracking was important.

Ken was unusual even among the police officers with whom he worked.  However a good part of that, being unusual, was that he knew how to do things the other officers most often only thought about.  They called him frequently to find people in the parks.  Some that needed to be found weren’t lost, just using the park lands for growing marijuana.  Or, living in one of the canyons or forests, and littering, panhandling, or outright assaulting park patrons.  Ken became a specialist in locating and arresting these persons and many other violators through the use of tracking.

Ken traveled to courses throughout the country and would show up at a course in some of the most unusual locations, from Pennsylvania to Montana, Vancouver Island to San Diego.  He studied, learned, and became a good trainer to those interested in actually learning and developing tracking skills.  His tracking reports are well done.  Ken is well versed in SAR, law enforcement, and fire management systems and has mastered the organization and documentation for the Incident Command System.  Ken has a national reputation in cave rescue and technical rope rescue.  He has been an active member of the Alameda County Sheriff’s SAR group for twenty-five years and is a frequent responder.

Ken has been a loyal and trusted supporter of this program for almost thirty years and was awarded the Sign Cutter designation and certification in 2005.

William "Bill" Balfrey Awarded JHPTS "Sign Cutter" Certification - 2005

Bill, as he is commonly known by his friends and foes alike, is a retired psychology and assorted other topics professor from the College of the Siskiyou at Weed, California.  Bill arranged for the old Universal Training Systems group to come to the college at Weed and present a basic tracking course in about 1978.   Those were the days before we had to deal with paperwork, student tuition, evaluations, certifications, etc.  That was when tracking was fun, some might say, because tracking was practically all we did at the course.  Oh, of course I got up and talked until everyone got bored or went to sleep, that is all except Bill.

Bill was an interesting study.  He liked tracking that was for sure.  He was kind of a mountain man really and just taught psychology to pay the bills and pass the time until he could lead the mules back into the mountains.  Yes, he had mules and packed and rode a mule.  Bill walked slow and talked slow, thinking before he spoke and when he talked, he was more interesting to listen to than I was.  That first tracking course was a success and Bill was hooked on the methodology that we presented.  It was, in fact, to be the first of nearly twenty years of annual courses at College of the Siskiyou.

Bill struggled to learn and know every facet of tracking.  He would spend hours studying a track, and if one eluded him, he was back there until it gave up and let itself be found.  Bill began to participate with the local Siskiyou SAR team and worked with the Sheriff’s office on numerous cases of missing persons and/or crime scenes.  Bill was a good tracking trainer and traveled to courses both as a student and an Assistant Instructor.  Bill Balfrey was given the title and certification as a Sign Cutter in 2005.  Bill was active this past weekend working with another Sign Cutter and other JHPTS trainers in presentation of the tracking program to combined county SAR units in Southern Oregon.

The mules that circle the corral at Bill’s house and wait his coming to feed and water stand each day and watch Bill slowly head down across the area, examining the ground surfaces to see which critters have visited during the night or afternoon.  Cutting sign gets into the blood and becomes a natural habit beyond the consciousness of the Sign Cutter himself, seeing and knowing, aging and understanding.  Want to know something of depth regarding tracking, ask Bill.

Preston "Pres" Funkhouser Awarded JHPTS "Sign Cutter" Certification - 2008

Congratulations to Preston “Pres” Funkhouser. During the “Train the Trainer” event this past weekend (January 2008), the program blessed Pres with the coveted Sign Cutter certification. Pres is action oriented and a “get it done” guy. He is a no-nonsense serious tracker and tracking trainer who has traveled extensively during the past ten years with and for this program. He has tracked crime scenes investigations and missing person searches. And, he has engaged in military tracking training. Pres brings to this certification a vast amount of experience from all tracking arenas; but, most importantly, he is one who will not back away from or hesitate regarding any issue or situation. He always can make it work somehow.

The modern world demands that our program designate those with the unique ability to resolve and find success with all types of missions as Sign Cutters. In past times, Sign Cutters were individuals whose single minded purpose was the pursuit of one or two individuals to wherever they might be found regardless of time or destination. Times have changed significantly and the needs and responses today that call for Sign Cutters are as varied as life itself. There is little relationship to the Sign Cutters of the past other than the deep devotion to the unique knowledge and application of tracking skill.

Pres is retired military intelligence and has the experience of having been a military attaché, combat, and Special Forces Commander. He knows how to handle people and how to manage time and energy for success. He has been an active tracker with this program for fifteen years and is an active member of SAR responding to all types of missions, managing most.

We look forward to working with Pres in this new position and to his finding new ways to help the trackers and this program.