So last week I was down in Washington, D.C. for two very interesting and very important conferences that I would like to share with people. The first one I went to was the National Unified Goal (NUG) Summit that was addressing Traffic Incident Management (TIM) issues. The objectives of NUG, under the direction of the National Traffic Incident Management Coalition (NTIMC), are Responder Safety, Safe, Quick Clearance and Prompt, and Reliable Interoperable Communications. At the summit some things that were presented to the folks in attendance, physically or through webinar, included but were not limited to incident management best practices, TIM self assessment, TIM training, towing and TIM, as well as interdisciplinary incident management issues and best practices for the resolution of those issues. I will say that this was probably one of the most interesting and informative summits that I have been a part of. I will gladly admit that my knowledge of this issue prior to going to this summit was rather limited to the microcosm of the town in which I live and worked in. After leaving the summit my eyes were opened wide to the many concerns that this organization has chosen to tackle.
The other conference I went to was one that was put on by the Transportation Safety Advancement Group (TSAG) and the topic was that of NexGen 9-1-1 and where do we go from here. This forum brought together many stakeholders who would directly be involved the planning and implementation of what would be the Next Generation 9-1-1 system. TSAG identifies surface transportation-based technologies and applications and promotes a national dialogue on public safety practitioners’ first hand experiences and corresponding best practices and lessons learned which is done on behalf of the US Department of Transportation (US DOT), Research, Innovation and Technology Administration (RITA), and its ITS-Joint Program Office, (ITS-JPO). After leaving this forum I was just as amazed at how interconnected these two organizations are and how intertwined their missions and goals are.
So as for the title of this blog, “Sandal’s to Suits”, I will tie it into the fire service and the two conferences that I have just discussed. I noticed that some people were wearing sandals while others were wearing suits. It was obvious that no matter what attire the attendees wore, they clearly were comfortable with what they were wearing. This can be directly related to the cross section of folks and the industries they represented. We all come from different parts of the country and we all wear different uniforms or clothing. The big thing is that we were all there for one common thing and that was to ensure the highest level of public safety and that we would all go home at the end of the day. It didn’t matter what people were wearing, just that we were all there to make a difference. So that’s how I came up with this title and I hope I was able to tie it into the fire service and public safety.
Here are the links to their websites, and I apologize if my blog was a little long this time it’s just a lot of information to share with you all. Feel free to contact me and I will gladly share with you any information that I can.
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