Whitewater Rescue Institute

The Whitewater Rescue Institute is an industry leader in Swiftwater Rescue Training, Fastwater Spill Response, as well as river safety research.  WRI offers a variety of Classes in Ice Rescue, Hi & Low Angle Rescue, Oil Under Ice Recovery, and SAR. WRI is a certifying agency for rescue instruction and has provided certified training for thousands of students from hundreds of different agencies and organizations. WRI regularly presents at national whitewater and search & rescue events throughout the United States and Canada.

WRI offers  Swiftwater Rescue classes throughout North America and abroad, from the Kern River in California to the Potomac River in Washington DC; from the Kootenai River, Montana to the Rio Sevegre in Costa Rica. WRI staff and former students have responded to river incidents throughout the United States and assisted with safety, risk management and spill clean up operations.

Montana River Guides worked on the Yellowstone River in 2011 with the Whitewater Rescue Institute (WRI) coordinating the river cleanup for an oil spill near Billings Montana.  MRG owner Mike Johnston and longtime MRG Guide and Rescue Instructor Cody Harris are the co-founders of WRI.  They worked on the Yellowstone from early July through late October providing transportation and safety for cleanup wildlife teams, researchers and cleanup crews working on islands on over a one hundred mile section of the river. WRI developed a cleanup staff of over 200 EMTs, Swiftwater Rescue Technicians and jetboat operators who collectively transported over 30,000 people — over 100,000 aggregate river miles.

WRI also develops GEOGRAPHIC RESPONSE PLANS  for rivers throughout the United States and coordinates community spill response trainings across the wester U.S. from the Mississippi to the Columbia Rivers

WRI continues to set the standard in professionalism for Swiftwater Rescue instruction and industrial spill response on rivers along with providing quality Montana Rescue training.