The Executive Council meets on July 31 in advance of the conference. Photo Keri Losavio.

“We have a pretty good picture,” said APCO Deputy Director Mark Cannon during the finance report for the Executive Council of APCO International on July 31, 2010. Although he was referring specifically to the financial picture, that comment reflects the position of the organization as a whole.

On Saturday, July 30, the members of the APCO International Executive Council and Board of Directors met in advance of the 76th Annual Conference and Exposition to review the state of the Association, its achievements over the past year and review goals for the coming year.

Accomplishments
In his opening remarks, APCO President Richard Mirgon reflected on achievements of this past year. He stressed the importance of partnerships and relationships built with the other public safety associations for the reallocation of the D Block. In short, he said, “we decided to ‘go after the D Block.’”

To move the effort forward, APCO reached out to other public safety organizations, establishing the Public Safety Alliance. Regarding that alliance, Mirgon said, “This thing that everybody said couldn’t be done, we have done!”

On July 21, the Public Safety Alliance and 40-plus national organizations supporting its position, took their message of public safety D-Block allocation and funding for the nationwide public safety broadband network to Capitol Hill. They were joined by Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain, who introduced the First Responders Protection Act of 2010 (S. 3625). The EC viewed a video from the press conference held that day. (Note: H.R. 5081 is the House Bill that would reallocate the D Block to Public Safety.)

A little bit later, Executive Director George S. Rice Jr. said, “The PSA has regular conversations each week to make sure the effort moves forward. That campaign is moving along quite nicely, and I think it will be in place until we get what we need in terms of spectrum.”

Mirgon also discussed APCO’s efforts to help reestablish communications in Haiti following the earthquake on Jan. 12; APCO’s work with the FCC to create the Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) with the mission of establishing a technical and operational framework that will ensure nationwide operability and interoperability in deployment and operation of the 700 MHz public safety broadband wireless network; and APCO’s work on a Training and Certification Tracking (TACT).

The TACT system will leverage APCO’s technology resources to meet the industry’s professional development needs. As an add on to PSConnect, APCO TACT will be the first national registry of public safety communications professionals allowing telecommunicators, technicians, managers and others responsible for the delivery of public safety technology services to first responders to document their abilities and credentials in a national database. APCO has been discussing such a platform for years and, once completed, it will be the only one of its kind and will be critical to supporting national deployments of communications personnel in disasters.

President-Elect Bill Carrow gave a short report on the progress of ProCHRT. The initial report is now available. This report has comprehensive data with regard to training standards and retirement benefits through states.

The finance report was introduced by Dave Saffel and delivered by Mark Cannon. The really good news according to Cannon: “We’ve hit our benchmarks for 2011 already with this conference. The number of exhibitors is up from last year, and we expect that we will hit our registration marks this week.”

Even with the good news, said Cannon, “This is going to be another tough year.” Staff and the Finance and Budget Committee will continue to closely monitor revenue and expenses to ensure the Association remains in a strong financial position.

George S. Rice Jr. delivered the Executive Director and Staff reports. Among the efforts he discussed were the Public Safety Alliance; the Public Safety Foundation of America; the launch of PSConnect.org; the new APCO regional Technology Roundtables, which will replace the Winter Summit going forward; and the APCO World Congress, scheduled for June 6–8, 2011, in the United Arab Emirates.

The launch of PSConnect.org was a major achievement this past year, and Rice said, “This site is the only one of its kind. It’s a closed network.” The site is already seeing a series of exchanges. People are posting discussions, and it has been used to facilitate the work of several of APCO’s committees.

The Technology Roundtables will be held four times per year and offer facilitated conversations where you can discuss the most pressing IT and technology management issues in public safety communications with other managers, directors and supervisors. Going forward, the Roundtables will take the place of the Winter Summit, which has traditionally focused on technology.

Committee Actions
The work of the Association could not be accomplished without the tireless efforts of the volunteers who sit on the various committees and task forces. The accomplishments of the various committees were reported to the EC by the Group Leaders, including Gigi Smith, Governance; Carol Adams, Member Services; Julie Righter, Operations; and Rich Boettcher, Technical.

The list of committee accomplishments was impressive. To cite just one example, check out the list of operational standards alone that the Call Center Standards Committee has shepherded through the standard-setting process:

• Standard for Calltakers when Handling Calls Pertaining to Missing and Sexually Exploited Children (APCO ANS 1.101.1-2007)
• PSAP-Service Capability Criteria Rating Scale (APCO/NENA ANS 1.102.1-2008)
• Wireless 9-1-1 Deployment and Management Effective Practices guide (APCO ANS 1.103.1-2008)
• Standard for Telecommunicator Emergency Response Taskforce (TERT) (APCO/NENA ANS 1.105.1-2009)
• Core Competencies for Public Safety Communications Manager/Director (APCO ANS 1.106.1-2009)

Candidate standards in public review and comment are:

• Standard for Public Safety Telecommunicators when Responding to Calls of Missing, Abducted, and Sexually Exploited Children—revision and redesignation of APCO ANS 1.101.1-2007 (this 2nd revision will be ANS 1.101.2-201x) May 28–July 12
• Service Capability Criteria Rating Scale – revision and redesignation of APCO/NENA ANS 1.102.1-2008 (this 2nd revision will be ANS 1.102.2-201x) June 4–July 19
• Minimum Training Standards for Public Safety Telecommunicators APCO ANS 3.103.1-201x (2nd public review and comment period) June 11–July 26

“The role of members in providing review and comment for the Call Center Standards Committee is very important,” said Julie Righter.

Candidate standards now being drafted and the group working on it are:

Standard for Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement within the Public Safety Communications Center for the Processing and Response to Emergency Requests—QA/QI Joint Workgroup

• Minimum Training Standard for Public Safety Communications Training Coordinator – Call Center Standards Committee
• ADA Training Standards for Public Safety Telecommunicators—SDC ADA Subcommittee
• ADA Operational Standards for Public Safety Communications—SDC ADA Subcommittee
• Minimum Training Standards for Public Safety Communications First-Level Supervisors—Call Center Standards Committee

Amendments to the Constitution & Bylaws
The EC also reviewed the two resolutions that will be put in front of the Quorum for action during the two Business Meetings this week.

Resolution 1 is related to membership categories, and involves a group membership proposal and related category refinements.

“The recommendations in Resolution 1 would enhance the effectiveness and adaptability of the membership structure. It would retitle certain categories for greater clarity, particularly regarding voting rights,” explained Carrow. It would also expand the group membership option.

If adopted by the Quorum, Resolution 1 would rename several membership categories and create a new Online Member category. The changes:

• Active Member becomes Full Member.
• Member becomes Associate Member.
• Governmental Group becomes Agency Group.

There are no changes to the Commercial, Corporate Group or International Associate member categories.

The new, Online Member would not receive any mail from the Association, but would be able to print a copy of their membership card from the Web, have access to the magazine online, receive the eNews and be members of PSConnect. They would have no right to vote or hold elected office but could serve on committees and task forces. They would not be eligible for Senior or Life Member status, but their years as an Online Member would count toward the length of membership requirement. They would not receive discounts on APCO products or services.

The Agency Group memberships would be split into four levels based on agency staff size: up to 10 staff (three Full membership plus Online), 11 to 25 staff (eight Full plus Online), 26 to 50 staff (15 Full plus Online) and 51 staff and above (22 Full plus Online).

The EC voted unanimously to recommend that the Quorum vote to accept Resolution 1.

The goal of Resolution 2 is to define in more detail the APCO Senior and Life Membership qualifications to bring an even higher level of candidate forward and encourage the future leaders of the Association to strive toward meeting the requirements of the Senior and Life Member designations.

Recommendations include minor changes made to the nominations process for Senior (Section 4.3) and Life (4.4) member procedures regarding how and when nominations are to be submitted, including clarifying the manner by which APCO Membership staff receive, process and verify qualifications in the nominations prior to passing them to the APCO Credentials Committee for validation.

With two exceptions, the EC voted to recommend that the Quorum vote to accept Resolution 2.

Other Business
Also on the agenda, efforts to clarify APCO branding, long-term strategic planning, a ProCHRT update, SGI year-in-review and regional reports.

George S. Rice Jr., Yucel Ors and Sean Kirkendall gave an in-depth report on the activity related to the D Block, calling for active participation in contacting individual members of Congress to ask for their support in reallocating the D Block to public safety and get funding appropriated for the public safety broadband buildout.

Summary
This was the first EC meeting held under the SGI and in the new one-day format. Coincidentally, “it was the most efficient EC meeting in memory,” said T.G. Mieure, EC representative from Illinois.

Following the meeting, Mark Cannon said, “The Association is in a strong position today, and we are looking forward to a terrific conference over the next four days.”

About the Author
Keri Losavio is the editor of APCO’s magazine, Public Safety Communications, and has more than 12 years of experience in editing public safety publications. Contact her via e-mail at k.losavio@elsevier.com.