In Memoriam
Rod Willard
2002
This winter we said goodbye to our friend Rod Willard. It was much too soon.
Rod's had been a powerful presence in the mountaineering and Search and Rescue communities for many years. His death while ice climbing in January stunned all who knew him and elicited stories and memories from people all across the country, which is a testament to the type of man he was and the manner in which he lived his life.
On paper alone, his was a full and rich life. Trained as an EMT and Paramedic in Arkansas in the early 1980s, he worked as a paramedic in Cheyenne and Estes Park prior to coming to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins in 1989. He joined Larimer County Search and Rescue that year and began a long connection with the team. He acted as our delegate to the Mountain Rescue Association for a number of years in the 90s. He was a National Park Service Seasonal SAR Ranger and worked in Rocky Mountain National Park during the 1980s. He was an executive officer of the MRA from 1995-1997 and acted as chair of the MRA Rescue Technology Committee. In 1996 Rod was co-chair and captain of the Wildlands Rescue Workshop and demo team in British Columbia. He was a frequent lecturer for SAR teams, the National Park Service and MRA conferences and was a regular contributor to the MRA Rescue Forum Journal. Rod was also known as an innovator of specialized mountain rescue medical treatments, packaging and evacuation for First Aid and paramedic-level personnel.
Additionally, he attained the MRA level of4-Season Mountain SAR Operations Chief-Paramedic. For many people, the above list would be the full story. But for Rod Willard that was only the basic framework on which he hung the rest of his rich life.
Rod loved climbing the big mountains and he climbed all over the world, including in New Zealand, the Himalayas, Mexico, Alaska, Washington and of course throughout Colorado. He was a sponsored athlete for Marmot, testing and endorsing their equipment. He summitted 22,467-foot Ama Dablam and climbed to within 1000 feet of the summit of Everest. While in Nepal Rod joined rescue efforts to help a French climbing party in trouble and suffered severe frostbite to his hands, causing him to lose the tips of several fingers. This didn't slow him down at all, however, and he was back in the mountains as soon as they were healed.
By all accounts, Rod Willard was a man who crammed 80 years of living into his 42 years. And perhaps the real proof of the man is in the number of people he touched. He was a mentor to many people coming up in both the paramedic and mountaineering communities, taking younger people under his wing and helping them along. Said Jason Greany, a paramedic and friend who had worked with him on Rod's last shift, "A lot of people say, 'Gee, I'd like to do that some day.' Rod spent 42 years saying, 'Guess what I did yesterday!'" Rod took over as Everest Base Camp manager from Tami Kovacs in the mid-80s and he spent 6 months as a volunteer rescue climber at Denali, afterward proudly wearing his "1999 Denali Pro" pin on his paramedic name tag. Rod was also known as someone who was always trying to learn new things and was excited to share his knowledge with others. Peter McCabe, from the Appalachian Region MRA, described Willard as "a true professional and a gentleman" whose serious intensity over mountain safety issues will be missed.
Last fall Rod married Kerry, an ER nurse and his longtime climbing- and life-partner. All who knew him knew that even more important to Rod than his time outdoors was his passion for his family and he spent as much time as possible with Kerry and his stepson Kollin. Kerry described him as humble and said that he would have been amazed at the outpouring of love from the community toward him and his family upon news of his death.
Rocky Henderson, president of the MRA, said that Rod lived a life "defined by a passion for climbing and for helping people." In this spirit of service the MRA has set up the Rod Willard Memorial scholarship fund to assist worthy MRA members to attend MRA training conferences, and many teams and individuals have already donated to the fund.
Passion is a word that continually comes up when anyone is talking about Rod. Even his computer screen saver reflected his approach to living. It said, "Get out and do it. Live Life." Rod died pursuing his passion in the mountains. We should all be so lucky. The loss of Rod Willard has left a void in the mountaineering and SAR communities, and he is deeply missed. He was a positive influence on everyone with whom he came in contact and even those who hardly knew him have been touched by his positive spirit. And he was, indeed, humble. I recently came across the letter he sent to the team upon his resignation from LCSAR. In it, he was thanking us and hoping he had lived up to our expectations. Ironic. His own closing words from that letter speak yet again of passion and of service:
Please feel free to contact me if I can be of any service to the team.. ..or any other way I might be able to continue to serve in the future.
Train hard, be fast and perform safely, Rod Willard. You have shown us how, Rod. Thank you.
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act,
but a habit.
Aristotle
