7/28/2019 Eric Marsh
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Name: Eric Shane Marsh
Date of Birth: September 29, 1969
Eric Shane Marsh, loving husband and dedicated son, was a jack
of all trades and a master of
many. Born and raised in the mountains of North Carolina, Eric
graduated with honors from
Ashe Central High, where he was a running back on the football
team. After graduating from
Appalachian State with a degree as a biologist/naturalist, Eric
worked and excelled at several
jobs, but the one that really grabbed his heart was wildland
firefighting. Eric cut his wildland
teeth with the Globe Hotshots and worked several years with that
crew out of the Tonto
National Forest. Eric had a great love for the outdoors as was
evidenced by his diverse list of
hobbies and pastimes. Eric was a rock and ice climber who
proposed to his wife on an ice
climbing trip to Ouray, Colorado. He was an equestrian with a
great love for his horse Shorty,a skier and ski patroller at
Sunrise Mountain, fisherman, motorcyclist, and avid cyclist and
mountain biker. He had lately been competing in endurance
mountain bike races and most
recently competed in a 24-hour mountain bike race as part of a
4-person relay team. He and a
friend had recently made a pact to compete in the next 24-hour
race as solo competitors. Eric
loved being in the woods and thrived on pushing his body to its
limits.
Eric took pride in everything he did and excelled in his
pursuits. He was a talented tile setter,
stone mason, and gifted welder/fabricator. He joined the City of
Prescott in 2003 as part of the
Fuels Management Crew and then started to work toward building a
city-sponsored wildland
team. The development ofthe Granite Mountain Hotshots became a
focus and goal of Erics
and he was an instrumental part of the organization and
certification of the team. His passion
for wildland firefighting and desire to share his almost 20
years of knowledge and experience
put him in a position to help start the Arizona Wildfire Academy
(initially operating out of his
living room), where he taught basic firefighting, Squad Boss,
and leadership classes. He took
pride in his ability to share that knowledge and experience with
the young firefighters and liked
