Today started out with the General Business Session. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Dept. Honor Guard presented the Colors and one of their members sang the National Anthem. Our President, Martha Carter, welcomed all of us. Various Executive Board members were introduced and audience members asked to stand and be recognized. APCO's award winners were given trophies. The Team of the Year, Combined Communications Center, Las Vegas, was given a standing ovation. Then our keynote speaker walked out.
Sal Giunta is the one of the few living winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions in the line of duty during combat. He gave an amazing speech. If you ever get a chance to listen to him, take advantage of it.
Then we were excused to attend classes. My first one was an overview of the 2017 Northbay Wildfires. I jotted down a few stats as the speaker, Aaron Abbot, of the REDCON talked about the incident. REDCON, or Redwood Communications, is a joint fire dispatch for 40 different agencies, 3 private ems services, and 2 private helicopters. Their usual call volume is 50 a day but for that first 24 hours on October 8, 2017, their Dispatchers handled 356 calls PER hour for a total of 4,200. There were 800 different incidents. The Center had to stack (hold calls until a unit was available) events which is only done in the worst situations.
My next session was Training for success and again, a great class. I left with some wonderful ideas. The instructor, Doug Showalter, started with California Highway Patrol as a Dispatcher and worked his way up to their Training Coordinator. He has his own company now.
Finally, I attended Avoiding Ethical U-turns. The class was taught by Kimberly Clark of the Maricopa Police Department. It was about choices and decisions. Interesting class but nothing that I really didn't already know.
One of the problems with APCO is the sheer amount of classes available. One has to pick from conflicting sessions. Often there are multiple classes at the same time as an event. Which one do you chose? It's tough. You can, for a fee, order a tape of every session once the conference is completed. For those who are required to obtain CEUs, that doesn't help.
The one thing I wish the Conference did have was a room for those attending who just want to meet folks - especially those travelling by themselves. I keep running into folks who are milling around. I have reached out and introduced myself but I see a lot of people who are just roaming, except while in class. Perhaps if there was a way of connecting folks to no one had to eat lunch or dinner by themselves?
Today is the 50th anniversary of 9-1-1 celebration and tonight our APCO Block Party.
Stay safe out there!
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