Ted Katauskas

Since joining Eagle County’s all-volunteer search and rescue team in October 2012, Ted Katauskas has logged nearly 3,000 volunteer hours as a SAR responder fielding as a K9 search specialist with Vail Mountain Rescue Group in Edwards, Colorado, where he also serves as a mission coordinator and the SAR team's president/chief executive officer.

Ted and his current K9 partner, Stryker (a fiercely earnest working Labrador retriever acquired as a pandemic puppy from Katalyst Kennels in 2020), specialize in search and recovery operations, fielding on dozens of missions throughout the Rocky Mountain west since validating as an operational cadaver dog team with the National Association of Search & Rescue (NASAR) and Search & Rescue Dogs of the United States (SARDUS) in the spring of 2022. Current K9 team certifications include NASAR Canine HRD Water Type I/II (swift and flatwater bank search); SARDUS Human Remains Detection Type III/IV, SARDUS Ancillary Large Area/Large Source HRD, SARDUS Avalanche Type I, and Tri-State K9 Cadaver Level 1 and Level 2 .

Adding to their operational capability, Team Stryker also is pursuing certification in open water search and recovery, joining Northwest K9 Search & Recovery in September, 2023, to assist NWK9SAR in its important mission of finding the lost and missing, and bringing them home.