Trading Steel for Stone - Softcover

Wood, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555664679 ISBN 13: 9781555664671

Publisher: Bower House, 2016

Synopsis

When the author began his career as a volunteer mountain rescuer with the Alpine Rescue Team in Colorado seventeen years ago, he was a clueless Youngstowner fresh off the interstate from Ohio who didn't know Gore-Tex from Tex-Mex. He had a lifetime of ridiculously dangerous pursuits and backcountry sins to atone for, so he became a Rocky Mountain rescuer with the intention of repaying the massive karmic debt he had accumulated. This is the story of how a career in volunteer service to others transformed a self-absorbed Rustbelt redneck adrenaline junkie into one of the nation's leading voices in technical rope rescue.

About this title

About the Author

In addition to his present duties as the Field Director of the Alpine Rescue Team in Evergreen, CO (one of the busiest volunteer mountain rescue teams in the country), Tom writes curriculum and teaches industrial rope rescue and safety to cell tower climbers, wind turbine workers and just about anyone else who wears a harness and works at height, for Vertical Rescue Solutions by PMI.

A regular speaker and presenter for the Mountain Rescue Association, the National Association for Search and Rescue and the International Technical Rescue Symposium, Tom is also the United States alternate delegate for Terrestrial Rescue to the International Commission for Alpine Rescue (ICAR). Wood presently serves as the chair of the Safety Reporting Committee for both the Mountain Rescue Association and the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians (SPRAT).

A 1990 graduate of Kent State University's photojournalism program, Wood also served as a Combat Photographer for the United States Marine Corps Reserve.

An accomplished writer, Wood has contributed essays and articles to many books, magazines, blogs, columns and industrial rescue newsletters. He's also participated in filmed re-creations of rescues for reality TV shows.

An avid ice climber, caver and semi-reformed redneck, Wood is married to a home birth midwife who not only tolerates but supports his addiction to rescue. His three teenage children keep him on his toes and give him extra incentive to come back home alive off the mountain. He lives at an elevation of 8,500 feet in the foothills west of Denver in a house that is much too small for a family of five humans, two cats and two turtles.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bower House
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555664679
• ISBN 13: 9781555664671
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 234