Western Carolina University

Brad Dennis is the National Director of Search Operations for the KlaasKIDS Foundation and its Search Center for Missing and Trafficked Children. Brad has over 25 years of experience in search-and-rescue and crisis management, and has managed search efforts for over 200 missing/abducted children around the country. He managed the community-assisted search effort following the abduction of Polly Klaas -- which has become the model for child-abduction search strategies. Brad travels extensively throughout the United States, providing dynamic and relevant instruction concerning K-9 HRD operations, advocacy to families of missing children, child-abduction search management, and sex trafficking of minors; he also serves as "Master Lead Evaluator" for the National Association of Search and Rescue (NASAR). Brad is currently working his fourth HRD K-9. Brad's effort to locate missing and abducted children has led to the discovery of traffickers abducting and recruiting our children into the unsavory world of prostitution. Brad has been instrumental in the rescue of numerous children from sex trafficking, and the intelligence he has gathered has assisted in taking down several child-prostitution rings. His rescue efforts have been chronicled on CNN, "The Early Show," "The Today Show," "Dateline," MSNBC, and "48 Hours." Besides his duties as Search Director of KlaasKIDS Foundation, he participates on the U.S. State Department's Trafficking-in-Persons and Technology Working Group, the State of Florida Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force and the Florida Department of Children and Families Sex Trafficking Working Group. Brad is a retired Cryptologic Master Chief Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy. He has been recognized and highly decorated for his intelligence analysis and counter-terrorism efforts.

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Lisa Higgins started her service in SAR as a mounted officer with Pearl River Police Department as long ago as 1978. In 1979 learning from Master Chief (retired) Larry Sorenson how to handle a dog in obedience; It wasn't until November of 1989 when LaSAR dog team got it's start that she started to handle a dog in scent detection. Remaining in Law Enforcement as a mounted officer she retired from PRPD as a LT to join St. Tammany Sheriff's Office Special Operations Division working both mounted crowd control and canine SAR. In 2008 with thirty years in LE she retired her commission. Lisa now works full time with her dogs responding to over four hundred searches since starting her first dog in 1990 and currently working her third and fourth dogs. She continues to serve local, state and federal agencies, and is now a member of the Victim Recovery Team for the FBI.

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Paul Martin has been active with search and rescue since 1997 and was a K-9 handler with the Washington County Sheriff’s Department from 2000-2007. Since 2000, Paul has specialized in human remains detection and has conducted searches or consulted on cases for national, state, and local agencies. Paul is currently working his third, fourth, and fifth canines certified in human remains detection. From 2003 to the present Paul has conducted research into the use of cadaver dogs as a tool to locate historic and pre-historic burials and has helped coordinate the Annual Human Remains Specialized K-9 Training Invitational. In 2012, Paul presented the results of this research entitled “Cadaver Dogs as a Tool for Archaeologist: Fact or Fiction?” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2011, Paul also began exploring the use of partnering cadaver dogs with ground penetrating radar in mapping of historic cemeteries, and in 2012 presented “Dog Versus Machine: Exploring the Utility of Cadaver Dogs and Ground Penetrating Radar in Locating Human Burials at Historic Archaeological Sites” during the Southeastern Section meeting of the Geological Society of America. Paul graduated from Western Carolina University in 2011 with a B.S. in Anthropology with a concentration in Forensic Anthropology. While at WCU Paul’s primary research interest had been scavenging and scattering of infant and child sized remains, with the results “Taphonomy of Infant and Child-Sized Remains in Western North Carolina” having been presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Additionally, Paul has assisted in developing the study of the occurrence of scavenging within the FOREST, Western Carolina University’s outdoor human decomposition research facility. He has also assisted in the instruction of the Western Carolina University summer course “Field Recovery of Human Remains” under the direction of Dr. Cheryl Johnston. Currently, Paul serves as a Graduate Assistant in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi where he is pursuing a Masters in Anthropology. His research interest at the University of Mississippi includes human osteology, bioarchaeology, forensic anthropology, and the application of remote sensing technology to locate clandestine burials.