Brandon Swanson’s disappearance seven years ago has spurred numerous searches, the most recent taking place last weekend. The volunteers – who sacrifice time and money to help families

they often don’t even know find their loved ones – define dedication, and each has a never-give-up attitude.

The genuine gift of volunteerism cannot be understated, especially when it comes to missing person searches. Though it’s often difficult to measure the actual impact volunteers have on those they’re helping, in the case of searchers looking for Brandon Swanson, they rise to the level of amazing, everyday heroes.

Swanson, a 2007 graduate of Marshall High School, was 19 when he disappeared on his way home to Marshall from a college graduation party in Canby in the wee hours of May 14, 2008.

Since then, hundreds of volunteers have searched for the young man, beginning in the Taunton area, where his Chevy Impala was found the day after he disappeared.

“There’s been such a constant response from people,” said search manager Ken Anderson, founder of Emergency Support Services (ESS). “The volunteer participation has been high.”

ESS is an organization that has provided technical, logistical and management solutions to search, rescue and recovery situations for more than 25 years. ESS networks with other search and rescue resource organizations that specialize in air, ground, mounted and K-9 searches, along with water recovery, cave rescue and other technical rescue providers.

“It all comes down to what I call a ‘toolbox,'” Anderson said. “To do a job, you have to have wrenches and other tools. With searching, it’s the same thing. You have to have the right resources at the right time.”

Swanson’s search is complicated because of the distance he could have walked in any direction, the difficult landscape in the area where he went missing and the constantly-shifting prairie winds. Searches are not like people see on television. In reality, they’re much more complicated and time-consuming.

“Searching is getting to be more and more of a mathematical equation,” Anderson said.

Despite massive searches, both official and unofficial, Swanson has yet to be located. But selfless, good-hearted volunteers refuse to give up hope, dedicating their time and effort to providing answers for Brandon’s parents, Brian and Annette Swanson, as well as to other family members and friends.

“When this first happened, I made a promise to Annette to bring Brandon home, and I totally intend to fulfill that promise,” said Brandon’s aunt, Laura Swick, who once lined up 1,600 sandbags and a number of garbage pumps so searchers could dam up and drain an area of a creek.

While it hasn’t been easy, Swick has remained faithful to that promise, doing whatever she can, whenever she can, to help move the search along.

“I’ve been there since Day 1, and I don’t intend to give up now,” she said. “I help with whatever I’m asked to. If I need to make sandwiches for the searchers, I make sandwiches. If I need to dig, I’ll dig.”

Swick’s brother, Robert Swick, is equally determined to help out when needed. It takes a strong, conscious effort to be part of the search, especially knowing that everyone is now at the point of looking for remains.

“I appreciate you doing this,” Robert Swick said to recent K-9 handlers who volunteered their time and effort recently.

Nearly 40 canine teams specializing in human remains detection (HRD) have helped search managers try to pinpoint Swanson’s location in the past seven years. Numerous dogs continue to indicate that there are human remains, though not necessarily Brandon’s, northwest of Porter.

“I’ve been out here searching for Brandon 28 times,” said Sandy Vernlund, of Brookings (South Dakota) County K-9 Search and Rescue. “I have an investment. It just pulls at my heart.”

Vernlund has been a canine handler for 12 years and often works alongside fellow Brookings County handler Eric Peterson, who has eight years of experience. Vernlund has trained three pet rescue dogs for HRD work. K-9 Rowdy most recently assisted at the search area.

“Dogs can smell so much better than humans,” Vernlund said. “They can detect one drop of blood in five gallons of water. They amaze me all the time.”

For 19 years, Bill and Lois Hall have provided services to Clinton County (Iowa) as well as independently through their own organization, Emergency K-9 Operations, Inc. Search and Rescue.

“Our plan is to clear the area with three dogs,” Bill Hall said recently. “They are command-specific. If we have a live find, we have one type of command to give them, and they wear different equipment. And when they’re looking for a deceased person, we give them a different command.”

Hall praised the incredible abilities of dogs, including the capability of detecting cancer and predicting oncoming seizures in people.

“They’re amazing,” he said. “What odor is coming off a person’s body that they pick up that we never imagine?”

K-9s Hawk, Deker and Strider have helped in numerous searches across the country and Canada. Theyre continuing the legacy of service that K-9 Trax provided as the first K-9 in Iowa to serve on a Sheriff’s Reserve. His career spanned 12 years.

“The hardest part is leaving the area and not finding someone,” Hall said. “We all come here and say ‘we’re going to find him today.'”

Despite the often unpleasant conditions and terrain, K-9 teams do what they do because they are compassionate.

“We did a search (last Friday), a 10-year-old murder case for a drug addict,” Hall said. “He has a mom, and she wants to know where her son is.”

Lois Hall said she felt the same way, noting that Brandon could be anyone’s son.

“You can’t take this lightly when these young people go missing,” she said. “You can’t say, ‘oh, they’re out having a good time and just don’t want to come home to their parents.’ You have to be serious about this.”

The Halls drove more than eight hours one way to assist in the search on Saturday. Like others present, the Halls absorb all the travel, accommodation and food expenses themselves since there is currently no funding to help.

“A lot of us are here searching, and we don’t even know Brandon,” Bill Hall said.

Yet the selfless handlers ask for nothing in return. They continue to spend between 12-15 hours a week training their dogs in addition to dedicating three weeks a year to certify their canines. They continue learning and preparing.

“This (southwest Minnesota) area is the same as Iowa,” Lois Hall said. “It’s agricultural, and it’s small community. This could happen at home, very easily. How this search is handled, and how a search would be handled there, I think could be educational.”

Most canine handlers now use GPS systems that include a unit on the K-9’s collar that transmits the movements of the dog, along with that of the handler, back to a hand-held radio for the support person to view. All of that information can be downloaded and used to overlay previous search data.

“We have our own internal communications, but we can connect to others, so we can track their movement as well,” Bill Hall said. “The support role of a handler is to watch the dog from afar and maybe see something the handler misses. We’re looking for something so small. When you’re doing something like this, you have to be within four feet of it (remains).”

While he estimated that the point of detection (POD) was low, about 5 percent, Hall said he never underestimates the ability of dogs.

“Hawk has picked up people an eighth of a mile away inside of a corn field,” he said.

Proving what type of people they are, the Halls chose to spend more than $16,000 for 11-year-old Hawk’s cancer treatment a year ago.

“Colorado State has stereotactic cancer treatments, which came out of the human world on brain cancers and things,” Lois Hall said. “He went through radiation and at six months, there was no visible tumor. (October) is his one-year mark, which he never would have seen if we hadn’t done the chemo.”

Having dipped into his retirement fund for the money, Bill Hall spoke from his heart, saying, “Who am I to tell Hawk he can no longer search when he’s saved lives and brought closure to so many families?”

Lois Hall created a number of videos that highlight some of the searches they’ve been on, as a way to pay tribute to the lost and as a reminder of why she and her husband do what they do.

“It’s not easy, that’s for sure,” she said.

Deb Graupmann-Doering has helped multiple times in the search for Brandon, though in different capacities. She first searched on horseback, then on foot and finally as a canine support person.

“I just support when they need support,” she said. “I want to finish this case, for the family.”

Graupmann-Doering’s first search effort began in 1986, when she and her father, Fred Graupmann, who died a year ago, both joined the Carver County mounted reserves. After assisting there until 1999, she helped start a mounted reserve group in Scott County, where she worked until 2006.

“It’s a lot of security and parades,” she said. “We did presidential security on horseback a few times.”

There were a few tears shed during the recent search for Swanson, which was the first without her father by her side. To pay tribute, Graupmann-Doering wore her dad’s hat.

Illinois native Mary Heinrich brought K-9 Sorina to the recent search and was grateful for Graupmann-Doering’s support. While it was Heinrich’s first time searching for Brandon, she’s been handling dogs for 17 years.

“I learn more with each dog,” Heinrich said. “They all did a wonderful job (Saturday).”

As the search manager, Anderson spends countless volunteer hours preparing for and analyzing after a search. In addition to transporting a mobile weather station with for a search, Anderson also brings 10 hand-held radios, one mobile radio, one high-end metal detector, three laptops, compasses, GPS equipment, mapping sheets that are handed out to the searchers, a first responders emergency kit, an archaeological screen, soil samples and camera equipment for documental purposes.

“I basically have a mobile command center with me,” said Anderson, who takes the data from the search, and especially the formal indications of human remains present, and analyzes it in a methodical way. “We’ve been doing this (GPS tracking and analyzation) before anybody in Minnesota.”

Using Garmin systems, data is collected and compared to previous indications.

“There’s a batch of way points, and obviously the dog was working hard,” Anderson said. “Every former indication is marked. Now if we send another crew over, completely blind, we should see the same kind of thing, the same kind of accuracy with about 7-14 feet.”

The challenge is that the weather, the wind in particular, changes quickly in the area.

“The geographic ridge that runs down here actually changes the air flow pattern,” he said.

Searchers have also struggled to find answers due to the small time frame allowed to work the area, which includes the end of harvest to the first snowfall and then again in the spring before planting begins. While frustrating, it’s something family members understand.

“We understand weather and how that impacts the ability to be effective,” Annette Swanson said. “If you’re going to put the time, effort and expense in to be out there, you want it to be purposeful and efficient.”

The Swansons, who used to be in charge of feeding searchers and providing beverages, no longer physically assist in the searches for their son, citing the excruciating emotional toll it takes on them as well as the need for searchers to distance themselves from the family somewhat so they’re able to do their job. They said they’ve put their trust in Anderson, previous lead Jeff Hasse and the committed support team personnel.

“Being too close brings in that emotional part of it, which is a dangerous place to be,” Swanson said. “My being there doesn’t change what they do, so I try to put energy into my family (husband Brian, daughter Jamine and grandsons Eli and Leo) and let them do what they do. Ken is a very logical thinker and a good-hearted person. He’s been so professional and ethical, and Jeff was great, too.”

The gratitude also extends to countless other volunteers, including K-9 handler Jim Hanley and community members Sam Tutt (Balaton), Larry Yackley (Porter) and Katrina Davis (Minneota). All anyone can do now is continue their commitment and keep following the clues.

“A lot of people don’t realize the science behind searching for missing people,” Laura Swick said. “Ken and Jeff are geniuses in my opinion, to put it all on a map and have it make sense to someone like me. And these teams we work with are phenomenal. They show up and pay out of their pockets, to prove their dogs can do it, so I have no intentions of letting it go. If I’m 60 years old and using a walker, I’m still going to be looking for Brandon if that’s what it takes.”