Employee is still missing

Wade Cooksey, a geodetic technician in Caltech’s Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences since 1999, has been missing since March 5, when he was caught in a blinding snowstorm while working atop Mount Lewis in Lander County, Nevada.

In a memo to the Caltech community, Caltech chief of security Gregg Henderson reported that Cooksey was “repairing a communications system used to recover global positioning system data from remote geodetic sites in north central Nevada.” Caltech operates 53 such sites, which are used to study movement of the earth’s crust and how it relates to earthquakes, in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and eastern California.

According to Henderson, the Lander County Sheriff’s Department reported that Cooksey had been caught in a snowstorm that reduced visibility to less than five feet. A search of the mountain was launched that included Navy helicopters, four-wheel-drive vehicles, dog teams, snowmobiles, and rescuers on foot.

As of press time, Cooksey had not been located, and the Sheriff’s Department is continuing to search the 9,600-foot mountain. Henderson said that they believe they know his approximate location, but they have had to scale back rescue efforts because of the potential danger of avalanches.
“The Caltech community expresses its hopes and prayers for Wade, his family, colleagues and friends,” Henderson said. “We appreciate the efforts by the Sheriff’s Department and citizen volunteers from Lander County who have given of their own time to assist in the search.”
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