A Powell River resident has been given a service award for his work with Canadian Armed Forces Transport and Search and Rescue Squadron 442, 19 Wing Comox.
Ken White was presented with the award on Wednesday, February 6, for his outstanding service in assisting the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Victoria. The award was authorized by Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Sharp, squadron commander.
Crews from the squadron’s CH-149 Cormorant helicopter and CC-115 Buffalo search and rescue airplane landed at Powell River airport to present White with his award. Two search and rescue technicians skydived from the Buffalo onto the airport tarmac. As the aircraft landed, White greeted them and said he was “overwhelmed” by the attention.
“These are the guys I work with,” he said.
White started monitoring the airwaves when he was a senior student at Max Cameron Secondary School in 1979 when his aunt gave him his first patrolman’s radio. Over the years he’s bought a wide range of radios and has set up a home-based operations centre. Over the past 34 years, he’s been involved in about 2,000 search and rescue cases, often going up in the Buffalo as a spotter. White said he thinks that he’s helped more than 500 people over the years.
White is often the first person alerting the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre of mayday calls in the northern Strait of Georgia. He is a member of the Provincial Emergency Program Air and Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASARA) in Powell River. He has also assisted the centre in many other search and rescue calls in the Powell River area and has supported the US Coast Guard in its searches as well.
“We rely on CASARA all the time for their spotter support,” said Captain James Loose, first officer. “We do a lot of joint work with them.”
