When he retired this week from Howard County’s fire service, as the department’s deputy chief for operations, Charles Sharpe told the Baltimore Sun that his favorite part of the job was training new emergency responders on special-operations work, which he first studied at UMBC 20 years ago.
Sharpe says his training in water and rope rescues “truly proved to be of tremendous value” during his work as a search manager responding to Hurricane Katrina. He still returns to UMBC’s Emergency Health Services department annually to instruct students in a three-day search and rescue training program, a tradition which he plans to continue this year.
