The St. Louis County Board of Commissioners and county sheriff recognized two men who helped pioneer underwater sonar search technology in their decades of service in northern Minnesota.

Tom Crossmon and Dave Phillips were credited with changing how underwater search and recovery work has been conducted over the last 20 years ago.

Remote operated vehicles, or ROVs, equipped with a camera and sonar are used by St. Louis County’s Search and Rescue teams when looking for a victim in the water.

“We’ve used them in the middle of winter and days in the summer,” said Lt. Jesse Evjen, part of the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office who leads their ROV team. “Without this … the unfortunate reality — a lot of the times we’d probably not find the person.”

County officials said Crossmon and Phillips were some of the first to try using an ROV for recovery efforts of drowning victims.

The ROV allows a searcher to view what’s under the water or ice from a screen.

“We wanted a better way to search underwater without endangering divers,” said Phillips, a former St. Louis County undersheriff.

In the early 2000s, Crossmon — a St. Louis County Search and Rescue Team captain — and Phillips came up with the idea after a vehicle went into Duluth harbor.

“Our divers came out covered in oil and gas. We had two go to hospital to be checked out. It’s insane that we’re risking human life after lost life. There’s got to be a safer way to did this,” Crossmon said.

“The technology has come a long way,” Phillips said. “We’ve been able to accomplish a lot over the years.”

Back in the spring, St. Louis County Search and Rescue used the technology to find two canoeists missing at Curtain Falls in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. In the past five years, St. Louis County Rescue Squad has used ROV technology to bring 30 families closure after their loved ones drowned.

“To be able to bring a loved one home — you can imagine the agony that these families are going through as they wait,” Phillips said.

It’s tech the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office prides itself on to help communities across the state when tragedy strikes.

“For what we can do, many surrounding agencies locally and in the state look to St. Louis County because of the capability we have. It’s pretty cool,” Evjen said.

Crossmon and Phillips now help other search and rescue teams across the country and world with training with ROVs and side scan sonar.