Those people you're claiming "don't need to know anything" are the ones who actually handle the investigations. In states where SAR is handled by county sheriffs it can vary depending on which random deputy is on duty, and in a few states where it's handled by state police you might have one or two SAR liaison officers who handle most SAR cases but if they're not available then it's luck of the draw. These guys aren't particularly highly paid, either.

In cases that the NPS handles, seasonal rangers have a huge involvement. I don't know what you know about seasonal rangers, but it's not exactly a career path.

But on top of that, in every state you typically have volunteer incident command staff. There usually aren't that many of them because it's a hell of a process (I'm considering going through it now, but only because I was recently able to stop working another job so have more time to devote to SAR), but they're the ones who actually take charge of the search. They work closely with law enforcement, but they're the ones calling the shots and making the decisions unless you happen to get a really terrible OIC or something.

And we (the volunteers) are the ones who find the deceased victims, who take initial photos of the scene, who secure the site. I mean, I'm random Joe Schmoe Volunteer and I have an archive of crime scene photos because one of the first things we do upon finding a deceased victim (after radioing in) is to take a bunch of pictures because it can take awhile for the coroner and crime scene techs to get there (all unattended deaths are initially investigated as crimes).

And u/R_B_Kazenzakis is correct. We get invested in these cases, and often continue to run unofficial searches for years afterwards (it's good training, at the very least). We are successful sometimes. I have Google alerts set up for all the victims I've never found, even in states I no longer work in.

My spouse also works for a shadowy government agency (well, okay, it's not that interesting but it does require the highest security clearance). There's no comparison for the security protocols and the way these operations are run. I mean, on searches, we literally can't even stop unauthorized people from tramping over the trails. As a K9 handler, let me tell you how frustrating this is because untrained people interfere with the dogs and I've literally seen well-meaning friends of a victim call a dog off scent. And often those higher profile cases turn into us rescuing lost or injured would-be rescuers. But there's nothing to be done.

Seems like a shoddy way to run a top secret cover up, though.