Toiling over data from cell phones and putting that together with graphics and maps, Justin Ogden blends his backgrounds in electrical engineering and Civil Air Patrol search-and-rescue missions to pinpoint locations of missing people and missing aircrafts.

Ogden, 28, has been called a pioneer in cell phone forensics. The Civil Air Patrol captain from Arizona says that's because he has more practice and hands-on experience in using data to aid searches than most people in the field.

"I'm called in nationally and have an incident once a week or every couple weeks," he said.

Ogden got the call this week to help locate missing Dickinson State University students Kyrstin Gemar, 22, of San Diego; Ashley Neufeld, 21, of Brandon, Manitoba; and Afton Williamson, 20, of Lake Elsinore. The three women were reported missing late Sunday night after calling two friends for help at 11:17 p.m. and 11:18 p.m. During the scratchy call, the caller mentioned water, police said.

Crews on the ground and in the air searched through Monday and Tuesday for the women. who were believed to be out star gazing before the calls for help.

Tuesday afternoon, rescuers found the three women, all members of the DSU softball team, dead in Gemar's white 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which was submerged in a stock pond northwest of Dickinson.

Rescuers considered information Ogden provided crucial in locating the Jeep.

"It was probably one of the most instrumental pieces in finding the missing girls," said Brent Pringle, the emergency manager for Stark County, N.D.

Ogden joined the Civil Air Patrol 16 years ago as a cadet in Pennsylvania. His family had backgrounds in aviation and military, and the 12-year-old found "guys running around in camo" to be pretty cool.

CAP, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with 58,000 volunteer members nationwide. CAP performs 90 percent of inland search-and-rescue missions in the lower 48 states, as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center.

As a member of the Civil Air Patrol, Ogden gets called in by the Rescue Coordination Center to lend his expertise to searches. In 2008, he participated in 27 searches, leading to the recovery of 19 survivors. So far this year, his work has been used in 30 or 40 searches, he said.

When he gets called into a case, he uses information from cell phone providers to narrow a search. Rather than wait for his final result, he takes a first look at the information to provide a broad area to searchers, then narrows the gap using the historical and real-time information from the phone so the "boots on the ground or aircraft in the air" can focus their search.

"The area was really broad for a missing person search," Ogden said about the North Dakota case. "As the data can be interpreted better or under further refinement, we can narrow down the search areas."

Ogden was able to determine which tower the emergency calls hit, at what angle they hit the towers and how far off from the tower they were during the call, Pringle explained.

"He could analyze it and say it's within so many feet or so many miles of this particular tower, in this direction," he said.

Under federal law, cell phone companies can voluntarily divulge the cell phone data to the Rescue Coordination Center when it is being used for lifesaving purposes involving the owner.

"Even if a cell phone is not being used but is still powered up and within coverage of the network, we can often receive enough information to allow us to concentrate the search in the right area," Ogden said.

Ogden works extensively in finding missing aircraft; in those cases, cell phone data first is used to narrow the search to within 25 miles.

"With a missing person search, that's not the level of detail you need," Ogden said.

When he finishes analyzing the cell phone data, he can make his best guess of where the last cell phone data came from, meaning the last place the missing person or people were.

In the search for Gemar, Neufeld and Williamson, Ogden's data led to a spot within 730 feet of the pond from which the Jeep was pulled.

In cases where the search is for missing aircraft, the likelihood of finding survivors is low, though occasionally a plane is found safely sitting at an airport. "Survivors" are counted as people pulled from crash sites who wouldn't otherwise have survived or missing people who wouldn't have been found.

Ogden participated in numerous searches as a Civil Air Patrol member before he started doing cell phone forensics. Not everyone in the organization flies planes ---- some serve as navigators or searchers on the ground.

"I'm a ground pounder," he said.

In his civilian life, he works for General Dynamics C4 Systems, working to develop a nationwide communications system for the Department of Justice, called the Integrated Wireless Network.

About three years ago, he first began working on cell phone forensics during a search where the only information they had was some interaction via cell phone from the pilot.

"I was the right guy, in the right place, to pick up an incident we had in Pennsylvania, where I'm originally from," Ogden said.

He's had "a lot of on-the-job training since then," he said.

Ogden said it's part of Rescue Coordination Center procedure now to call him up during missing aircraft searches. Though many of the searches end tragically, like the search for Gemar, Neufeld and Williamson, Ogden's work provides searchers with a greater chance of finding survivors.

"That's a successful outcome when we can find them," he said.

Pringle said at least 40 people participated in the ground search for the students on foot, ATV or in vehicles. But without Ogden's contributions, they may not have found them.

"I can't even imagine," he said. "We would still be searching, I suppose."