If you’re planning to apply for a scholarship to participate in APCO’s Certified Public-Safety Executive (CPE) Program, time is running out. Applications for the APCO scholarship program must be received by March 31. When completing your application, please be sure to select CPE as your program of choice.

In the meantime, we encourage you to begin the CPE Program application process here. The deadline for applying for CPE is April 15.

The program is open to anyone who: is a Registered Public-Safety Leader (RPL); or possesses an associate’s degree or above; or has a high school diploma and at least 10 years’ experience in public safety communications at the supervisor, manager or director level.

Social Media and Public Safety Communications: The Positive and the Negative
March 14 | 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET

This webinar will examine the use of social media in public safety and the effects of that use on the communications center. It will provide students with an understanding of various social media sites and their uses, the benefits of social media in public safety, the detriments of social media in public safety and the telecommunicator's role. It will describe the use of social media for public education, recruitment, crime prevention and crime solving, and explain the telecommunicator's ethical use of social media as it relates to their job. Cost: $59 for APCO members, $79 for non-members

Public Safety Quality Assurance Best Practices, Tips and Tools
March 23 | 2:00 - 3:00 p.m. ET

Two years ago, APCO and NENA introduced the standard for Quality Assurance and Improvement (QA/QI) for public safety answering points (PSAPs). The objective was to "establish a long overdue quality assurance and improvement process for all PSAPs and their telecommunicators to ensure call taking and radio dispatch actions are delivered at the highest possible standard." In this webinar, you will learn why ‘QA Everyday’ is essential and what you can do to improve your 9-1-1/9-9-9/1-1-2 quality assurance program. Cost: Free for APCO members; $25 for non-members
Sponsored by NICE.

APCO’s Government Relations Office recently met with the OMB staff who will be working on the SOC revision for the new Administration. APCO staff reiterated the importance of appropriate recognition for the lifesaving work performed by 9-1-1 professionals and offered to continue serving as a resource. According to OMB staff, the final SOC revisions will likely be announced in the summer (a delay from the "Spring 2017" milestone). APCO continues to seek support from members of Congress and others to ensure OMB applies the classification principles fairly and makes its decision on an accurate understanding of the work performed by 9-1-1 professionals. More information on the SOC revision and APCO’s advocacy, including additional data provided to OMB in December, can be found here. APCO will continue engaging with OMB, members of Congress and others to ensure public safety telecommunicators get the recognition they deserve. 

APCO is excited to announce our keynotes for APCO 2017 are General Keith Alexander, USA (Ret.); Colonel Jill Morgenthaler (Ret.); and Scott O’Grady. Learn more

That’s right. You can now complete all recertification processes online. No more waiting and no more paper recertification forms to worry about. Learn more

Steve Makky, AFC Staff Engineer
Steve Makky grew up in Bergen County, N.J., where volunteering on a local ambulance squad in high school opened the door to becoming a New York City and Jersey City paramedic in his early 20s. He spent 15 years on the Cliffside Park Fire Department and served as its volunteer fire chief. He was also an officer in the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department. Concurrently, he worked as an electronics technician in both the private and public sector, as well as paging, IMTS mobile telephone, "air-to-ground," maritime public coast and AMSP cellular telephone.

Paul M. Mayer retired in 2014 after more than 46 years of service to the citizens of Ohio. Paul began his state service on April 29, 1968, as a communications officer at the Berea District 10 Headquarters (Ohio Turnpike) of the Ohio State Highway Patrol. He was transferred to the Massillon District 3 Headquarters where he continued to learn his craft. In 1980, he was promoted to radio technician 3 and sent back to Berea as the district chief technician where he primarily supervised highway patrol telecommunications operations across the 241-mile-long Ohio Turnpike and secondarily served as the Highway Patrol’s telecommunications liaison with the public safety community in northeastern Ohio.

AMBER Alert is offering a one-day class at NCMEC’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va., that is a blend of the TELMAC class for dispatch/telecomm and first responding patrol officers. There is no fee to attend this training, however, pre-registration is required. The deadline to register is March 30, 2017.

RCR Wireless AT&T worked quickly to restore service to 9-1-1 call centers in several states on Wednesday night. Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Virginia and the District of Columbia were among the areas in which some residents were unable to get a response when calling 9-1-1 from a mobile device. Local authorities used social media and radio to share alternative emergency numbers, and so far there have been no reports of any lives lost during the 9-1-1 outage.

Vail Daily Three telecommunicators from the Vail Public Safety Communications Center (Colo.) were honored for their life-saving actions during the past year at the March 7 Vail Town Council meeting. The Life-Saving Recognition Awards were presented to Tina Mojzer, Kelly Klein and Michelle Aranda by Vail Police Chief Dwight Henninger and Communications Center Director Marc Wentworth.

"Hello Aaron, I am the father that called 9-1-1 yesterday with my toddler having a seizure. There are no words for how thankful we are for you leading me through CPR when he stopped breathing. We tried for 10 years to have a baby, and we finally had Andrew. He is our world. He is doing alright now. We are home from the hospital. You were our angel yesterday. Thank you and God bless you."
Share your story on http://www.npstw.org/tell-us-your-story/

Experts Discuss Transforming Public Safety Communications at Harris Corporation Symposium