The conference will be held at the D.J. Bordini Center, 5 Systems Drive, Appleton, Wisconsin.  Registration for the 2 days of  training is $49.00.  This includes the registration, banquet and membership for one year with ALERT International.  To register online, please visit: https://www.fvtc.edu/apps/mytraining/Public/Home.aspx  or e-mail at cjregister@fvtc.edu. 

During the conference, attendees can choose from a variety of presenters         and experience different driving opportunities.  Presenters from Wisconsin      and throughout the U.S. will be in attendance.

Lodging will be available at the Comfort Suites, Hwy 41 & Wisconsin Avenue, Appleton.  Telephone 1-800-424-6423 or direct at 920-730-3800.  The room    rate for Friday, Saturday and Sunday is $72.00 per night single or $89.00 per night double occupancy.

Within driving distance, you can experience the Green Bay Packer Stadium;   the Packer Hall of Fame; the National Railroad Museum; Heritage Hill State Historical Park; Houdini Historical Center; Fox Cities Children’s Museum; Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA), Fox River Mall and Door County.

Take the time to experience this educational weekend designed for emergency vehicle operator instructors.  If you want to check out the ALERT International website, go to www.AlertInternational.com.  

The conference coordinator is Tom Witczak.  He is also the North Central Regional Representative for ALERT International.  Tom can be reached at tmwitczak@sbcglobal.net or calling 920-539-1797.

See The Schedule of Training

Date:  March 27-29, 2012

Location:  Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy (London, Ohio)

Cost:  Free & attendees will receive a free membership to ALERT International and a Conference T-Shirt.  Lodging is $15 per night. 

Schedule:  Track time as well as presentations from the Peel Regional Police Department, ALERT Treasurer Kevin Navarro, Jeff Eggleston, STOP STICK, STINGER, Dodge and many more. 

Registration:  Just 60 spots exist for this exciting conference.  To register, you must download this form.  The course name is “ALERT Regional Driving Instructor Seminar”; The course number is 03-679-12-01.

We look forward to seeing you in Ohio!

Proposals should be in word or pdf format outlining the advantages of hosting the National Conference in your city.  Agency and Instructor support should be outlined in detail as well as venues in your city that could be an attraction to potential attendees.

Submissions should be e-mailed to Info(AT)alertinternational.com.  Deadline for submission is March 15, 2012. 

Travis Yates, President
ALERT International

 “Surviving Code 3” 

When I read about code 3 collisions and their subsequent trail of misery, suffering and loss, I tell myself this doesn’t have to be.  As a member of ALERT Int’l, I mentioned my feelings to Captain Yates.  He kindly invited me to put it in writing.  In my over 25 years of developing driver training technologies, I have found few professions outside of law enforcement that demand  as much vigilance, competence and skill in order to survive while performing their job. This is especially the case when driving with lights and siren.

 Vigilance in driving requires processing constant situational awareness snapshots  of your driving environment, pedestrians, traffic, road conditions, evolving hazards, essentially your changing world second by second.

 Competence is your ability to interpret and act upon what your vigilance acknowledges.

 Skill is your ability to control the situation that your vigilance and competence has just handed you. 

 Those attributes, when balanced can improve an officer’s survive-ability. Developing solutions to safely and effectively reduce police code 3 collisions resides in balancing theses job related qualities.  This is easier said than done because in the real world the simple balancing of these three critical attributes are not all the officer is dealing with. When the lights and siren go on, serious distractions compete with the discipline learned in class or on the track; changing physiology, perishability of past training, bad habits creeping in on skills and interpretation of and conformance with department EVO policy. 

 I have seen the assigned training officer take on the job to maintain or improve officer driving proficiency with little or no department priority for his initiative.  But how often does that happen compared to when its needed? Given the complexity of the task to drive code 3 and the seriousness associated with the consequences for when things go wrong, what can be done?  Repackaging those nuggets of wisdom reinforces proficiency in vigilance; a first but crucial step in rearming drivers with the tools needed to survive code 3. 

 Over the last few years, technologies have evolved that can meet these needs. I will be the first to acknowledge that a good training officer can design a training regimen that compensates for the loss of a driver’s ability to recall those essentials for good decision making, however, their time, resource and budget is limited.  Technology that is online, available 24/7 and that prepares the driver to make good decisions while navigating the streets with lights and siren exists now.  Data collected over the last 4 years confirms that. Depending on the size of your organization, it costs as much as dinner at Burger King.  If your department needs help in this area, do some research on the web for “online EVOC tools”; then ask around, what works and what doesn’t work.  It seems that until we change what we are doing, we are doing nothing to make a change.  It doesn’t have to be.
Reg Welles is the President & CEO of Applied Simulation Technologies.

North Central Regional Conference

Co-Sponsored with Fox Valley Technical College

April 21-22, 2012

Conference Agenda

April 21, 2012

8:00 AM     Registration, Coffee & Rolls
9:00 AM     Welcome and Orientation by, ALERT President Travis Yates

10:00A M   Court Decisions & Police Pursuits by, Assistant Attorney General Dave Perlman

 Noon   Lunch (On Your Own)

 1:00 PM     Fatal Crash Presentation by, Denise Nash Schultz,  Sgt Ken Tschedy   & Nancy Erickson

 3:00 PM     On Track Activities (Proper Use Of The Driving Exercises w/ Pete Thelen)

 5:00 PM     End Training Session

 6:00 PM     Banquet @ FVTC Main Campus

April 22, 2012

7:00 AM     Breakfast (Coffee & Rolls)

 8:00 AM     Vehicle Dynamics by, Jeff Pettis, Retired Sheriff’s Department Captain

10:00 AM    Ethics for Pursuits and Emergency Responses by, John Sorenson, WI State Trooper (retired).

Noon   Lunch (On Your Own)

 1:00 PM      Below 100 with Travis Yates

3:00 PM     On Track Activity (Roadblocks w/Tom Witczak)

 5:00 PM     Closing Comments/Adjourn          

Registration & Additional Information Here               

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