Morrill awarded for emergency service

Scott Morrill has been on the front line of emergency response in the Gunnison Valley for more than four decades. On the eve of his retirement as the Gunnison County emergency manager at the end of June this year, the Colorado Emergency Managers Association has awarded him the organization’s highest honor. He is this year’s recipient of the President’s Award, given to recognize a lifetime of achievement in the field.

“Scott has been a mentor to a ton of us,” said CEMA President Nathan Whittington. “I'm protesting [his retirement]. He's just always been a pillar of our community within the emergency management world. He's been the foundation a lot of us have built our careers on.”

Morrill first came to Gunnison when he was 12 years old, tagging along with an older brother who was considering attending Western State College. The brother declined and went elsewhere, but Morrill’s mind was made up — the Gunnison Valley would be his home. When the time came, he enrolled in Western and studied business administration.

A chance encounter with a classmate led Morrill to join the university’s Western Mountain Rescue Team.

“I was just instantly hooked, just the concept of college kids forming a group like that to go and help community members or visitors who needed help,” Morrill said. “It was just so gratifying, and a lot of hard work and training and all that, but every bit of what was worth it.”

After graduation, Morrill was working multiple jobs to make ends meet when he heard about an opening at the Gunnison Police Department for a dispatcher. The position paid just enough to allow him to quit the extra jobs. Besides, he “fell in love with it,” growing addicted to the experience of helping people when they needed it most.

He spent 17 years in dispatch, rising to the position of supervisor. Then, after a year spent trying to sell furniture and appliances at a local retailer — a job he quickly realized was not for him — he applied to become Gunnison County’s emergency manager. He not only got the job, but in many ways created the position as he went.

“Scott’s attention to detail and deep care for this community are evident in the carefully considered emergency plans and scenarios he has overseen over the years,” said County Commissioner Laura Puckett Daniels. “In his tenure he’s had to face some of the biggest emergency scenarios a community can face: a global pandemic, a forest fire, and a bridge closure on a critical highway. Whatever the crisis, Scott has been a calm, steady hand.”

Between his time on the search and rescue team, as a dispatcher and then emergency manager, Morrill reckons he’s been “on call” long enough. After retirement he plans to spend at least some of his time in a small cabin he owns in the San Juan mountains with “power, but no internet, no phone, no cell coverage.”

According to Whittington, Morrill leaves behind a legacy that spans the state, in the form of the emergency systems he helped design and procedures he developed that he freely shared with other departments.

“I've just been doing my job, and for others to recognize me like this was very meaningful and really humbling,” Morrill said. “There were 500 people in that room when I got the award, and there's probably a couple dozen of them that were as deserving as I am.”

(Alan Wartes can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or publisher@gunnisontimes.com.)