The 2026 Symposium is tentatively scheduled to be in conjunction with the 2026 Missing and Unidentified Persons Conference being held at the Planet Hollywood Hotel in Las Vegas, NV.
The 2026 theme is "DETECTION".
The Syrotuck Symposium began in 1996 to: “Foster the intellectual and scientific development of SAR methods and techniques, to promote new ideas, and to encourage development of new techniques and the practical use of technology.”
The idea of a symposium focused on search for the lost person has its origins with Bill Wade and the National Park Service (NPS). In 1975, Bill brought together the prominent search function researchers to share information and methods. In addition to Bill, participants included Dennis Kelley, Lee Lucas, Bob Mattson, Bill Syrotuck, and Jon Wartes. Out of that meeting, and concurrent work on the new search management course, came the foundation of what we now recognize as the theory and practice of search for the lost person.
At Rick LaValla’s suggestion, the Symposium was named in honor of the late Bill Syrotuck, one of the true pioneers in the field of search for the lost person.
The Symposium has evolved the following mission statement: “A focused public SAR gathering with curated invitation-only speakers discussing emerging trends that affect SAR”.
The 2026 Symposium program theme is “Detection”. We are in search of detection (POD) research, use of detection technologies, field research/applications, training methods, etc. We anticipate hearing about the use of sensors (including the human eyeball), artificial intelligence, platforms like UAS, research into POD, and other exciting new areas that are of interest.
Here is a link to our YouTube channel so you can view videos from the last Syrotuck Symposium. https://www.youtube.com/@SyrotuckSymposium/featured
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