How to Lose Your Volunteer Support

This is from the ARES E-Letter for April 20, 2011. It specifically talks about how to damage volunteer support for an ARES program, but it applies to all volunteer groups.

Moderator

Sure-Fire Ways to Kill Your ARES® Program,
by David Coursey, N5FDL

Last month, I offered what I believe are ten ways to grow an ARES® or EMCOMM program. This month, I'll offer a list of ways to do just the opposite. Most are related to leadership.

Politics - If you've been around a while, you've experienced the evil of Amateur Radio politics, often made worse because we're a passionate bunch and nobody really has an important (job, money, family) stake in the debate. ARES® is different. We have a public safety mission and people count on us. We do not have time for politics.

A commitment to community service and mission can fill the vacuum politics would otherwise be drawn into. Before you "start something" or play someone else's games, ask yourself, "Is this really worth it?" Sometimes you'll say "yes," but "no" is often a wiser, long-term decision. The best way to avoid politics is honesty and obvious goodwill.

Failure to communicate and delegate - This is absolutely key. One of the best ways to keep volunteers - arguably the only way - is to give the ones who want something to do a task they can do and want to do. You need to match the task to the volunteer and be careful to match the task and deadline to the volunteer's reliability. Getting others involved is the key to your group's success. Train these people to become your leaders.

Obviously, you need people to know what your plans are, what you need, and what progress is being made. A weekly e-mail is a good way to accomplish this. Monthly is probably too infrequent. If you can't fill at least a short weekly newsletter, you probably are not doing enough to be an active group.

Not loving your volunteers - Hot news: As a leader, you can't accomplish very much working alone. Your job is creating excellent volunteer experiences and keeping your volunteers involved, fulfilled, and happy. If you don't really love your volunteers, not merely respect or like them, but love them, you will fail. Think of your volunteers as an extended family and get them to think of each other the same way. Be the example.

Forgetting to say "Thanks!" - A wise manager once told me that there is really only one thing you can tell a volunteer - "Thanks" - because you can't force them to do anything. Remind your people constantly that their effort are (1) important, (2) make a difference and (3) are appreciated. You need to concentrate on all three.

Failure to apologize - As a leader, you're going to make mistakes. Decisions you make are sometimes going to make people unhappy. You must always weigh the gains made by doing something against the people it will upset and that potential loss. I generally find myself "doing something" while remaining sensitive to the people those actions might upset.

If you follow the adage, "it's easier to apologize than to get permission" then apologies really, really matter. And, you must be successful in the task for this strategy to work. Yet you still risk making permanent enemies.

In general: Apologize - sincerely - early, often, and sometimes even when you might not be wrong. But you must be sincere or this will totally backfire.

Misunderstanding served agencies - This is a topic for an ARRL Handbook-sized essay, but if you don't understand what your agencies need and want, how they function, and what they value, you will not have a good relationship with them. That could be your undoing. Work with multiple agencies to reduce the potential downside.

Not investing in growth - This is absolutely key. I don't care how you do it, but you need to constantly work to sign up and train new members. I am a big fan of ARES® groups and Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) working together. See my article in May, 2011 QST for more on that. Do what works in your area, but you may be better off creating new hams than re-recruiting the burnout cases.

Last month, I recommended one-day HamCram licensing events as a growth tool. Not everyone agreed, so here is my response to a HamCram critic. How to do a HamCram? Click here.

Not investing in relationships - The primary job of ARES® leaders isn't radio, it's relationships -- with volunteers, agencies, one another, allied groups, etc. If you put your time and effort into building relationships among people, your communications capabilities will improve by multiples.

Personal burnout - Leaders need to look after one another as well as themselves. If you need help, support, or cheering up, ask for it, especially from the leaders you have created. You can always drop me a note, too.

I'd like to tell you I am an expert at all these things, but it would be a lie. Still, these are what I try to focus on: Excellent volunteer and program management. Members make the ARES® world go 'round. - David Coursey, N5FDL, Contributing Editor (visit his blog http://n5fdl.com/)

The Great ShakeOut Report

As a member of the LAFD Auxiliary Communications Service, I was privileged to participate with the ACS in this drill. Our task was to set up multiple HF radio communication stations and communicate with each other using NVIS propagation. In plain English, we set up and exercised comm systems that allowed us to have communications over a wide area using Amateur Radio 'shortwave' frequencies.

I am very pleased to report that all of our stations, including portable stations at several regional hospitals, were able to contact each other, and we were able to maintain communications to the City of Los Angeles Emergency Operations Center, and the Office of Emergency Services in the Governor's Office in Sacramento. Had this been a real emergency, we would have been able to provide emergency communications as necessary.

The Drill did expose some shortcomings in our training -- especially in formal message handling, and we'll continue to train and improve.

The following is a report of the Great ShakeOut drill. Interesting information inside...

Moderator

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-quake27-2008dec27,0,2002741.story

From the Los Angeles Times

Major Southern California quake drill reveals significant gaps in preparations

The Nov. 13 'shakeout' showed officials that in the event of a 7.8-magnitude temblor they will need more emergency workers, better sources of water and come up with new ways of restoring electricity.

By Jia-Rui Chong

December 27, 2008

The largest earthquake drill in U.S. history, held last month in Southern California, found some serious gaps in local earthquake planning, prompting utility companies, emergency managers and others to rethink their planning for a major temblor.

The Great Southern California Shakeout was the first time so many agencies and earthquake officials teamed up to examine what would happen if a huge quake struck the region, in this case a 7.8 magnitude temblor. Many Shakeout participants said they have gone through earthquake drills before, but never with a scenario so detailed.

Based on the results of the Nov. 13 experiment, in which each agency estimated damage and emergency services requirements based on detailed quake scenarios developed by supercomputers, officials said they will need more emergency workers, better sources of water and come up with new ways of restoring electricity.

Fire protection

For local fire officials, one of the most worrisome estimates from the drill was the 1,600 fires expected to ignite with lamps overturning, electrical wires shorting and natural gas lines bursting open. Many fires would grow out of control as firefighters struggle to get fire engines across damaged roads and water stopped coming out of their hoses, experts found.

An estimated 200 million square feet of property would be damaged in the blazes. The fires would cause more than 900 deaths -- about half of the total for the earthquake.

"To hear it quantified like that, it more than got my attention," said Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman. "This was really the worst-case scenario for us. Today, if this were to happen, we would need outside assistance."

Unfortunately, Freeman said, they probably would not get help for quite some time because neighboring fire agencies would be fighting fires in their own districts and departments from Northern California would have to make their way around damaged highways. Because they can't afford to multiply their staffs, several fire agencies are looking into training more members of the community to be first responders, learning such skills as basic first aid and turning off gas lines.

Freeman said the county is also looking into ways to better draw water from other sources during a disaster, such as pools or storm drains that are collecting runoff from broken pipes.

Water supplies

But the drill also raised troubling questions about how much water would be available after a major quake. Of all utilities, water would take the longest time to restore, experts found. Some communities might have to wait six months for taps to flow again.

The Shakeout helped officials at East Valley Water District in San Bernardino County estimate that they would see about 1,000 leaks in their 450 miles of pipe because about 40% of their pipes are made from a material that is particularly brittle in earthquakes, said Gary Sturdivan, the district's safety and regulatory manager. All 78,000 of its customers would lose water for some period because all of the agency's reservoirs are on one side of the fault and all of its wells and distribution systems are on the other.

As a result, the district plans to stock more replacement pipe parts in repair sheds near those areas and store more bottled water for their employees, employees' families that might stay at their facilities and their customers who need water, Sturdivan said.

The water agencies are also retooling their mutual-aid agreements so they can figure out how to prioritize different agencies' needs and distribute replacement parts or water from other states fairly, he said.

"I think our agency, like a lot of water agencies, was pretty prepared, but it was glaring that we have a long way to go," Sturdivan said. "It was a little overwhelming."

Electrical supplies

The 7.8 temblor modeled by the test would leave large swaths of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties without power, according to estimates by a working group that included utility companies representatives. Breaks in natural gas pipelines could add delays because many plants use gas to generate electricity. It probably would take about 10 days to restore power to 90% of customers, the estimates found.

But Jim Kelly, senior vice president of transmission and distribution for Southern California Edison, said even that is an optimistic forecast.

"The problem is harder than people initially think," he said. Although Edison already uses equipment designed to be safer in earthquakes, such as transformers with low centers of gravity, Kelly worried about other utilities and parts vendors that would probably be having problems at the same time.

"If we lose bridges or roadways, how are we going to get people or materials to the job site," Kelly asked. "We don't know if rail transit will be available if we don't have roadways."

When Kelly added these potential problems together, he estimated it would take two to four weeks to restore power to the vast majority of Edison's 12 million customers.

"The scenario's value to us was in identifying that we have to look broader than just our stuff," he said.

Lucile Jones, the U.S. Geological Survey seismologist who served as the chief scientist for the Shakeout, said she hopes the drill gave agencies concrete data that will help them better prepare.

"People don't need to be convinced an earthquake can happen," she said. "They need concrete statements so they know what to do about it."

The effort to develop the scenario cost about $500,000, engaged some 300 experts and took two years to complete.

Geophysicists wanted to plot a plausible event, so they started the earthquake at a part of the San Andreas that has not moved for more than 300 years. They decided the energy stored in that part of the fault could cause a 200-mile rupture moving northwest from Bombay Beach, at the Salton Sea. Quakes of this size are possible, Jones explained, because they rocked San Francisco in 1906 and Fort Tejon in 1857.

Seismologists used the supercomputers to calculate the shaking, generating data for 25,000 points of a grid laid out over Southern California.

Geologists, engineers, utility managers and other experts used the data to estimate the damage, which included more than 10,000 landslides, more than 50 sewage spills and more than 100,000 addresses losing phone and Internet service for two or more days. Motorists would have to wait one to two weeks to use arterial roads in cities such as Los Angeles and seven months to use damaged highways.

Public health experts estimated some 1,800 people would die and 50,000 would be seriously injured. The economic costs of the disaster, including the business interruption, would total about $213 billion.

The scientists purposefully avoided a worst-case scenario but wanted to analyze an earthquake far more damaging than the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which had a magnitude of 6.7. "We wanted people to understand how bad it could be," Jones said. "Some people think, 'I've been through Northridge,' but getting through Northridge is not enough."

jia-rui.chong@latimes.com

ACS-CERT Combined Radio Communications Plan

For several years now we have been encouraging our Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members to obtain their FCC Technician Licenses. We showed them the need to use Amateur Radio Frequencies to communicate at times when normal communications are likely to be impaired.

Well, it's worked...

I'm happy to report that a significant number of CERT members in Los Angeles now have their Tech Licenses -- enough that I have written a new combined Radio Communications Plan for all the volunteers for the Los Angeles Fire Department. The Plan follows LAFD communication protocols and is currently being approved by the LAFD Staff.

The new plan includes both the existing frequencies used by the LAFD Auxiliary Communications Service, and additional frequencies for the CERT radio operators. It also includes instructions for using FRS radios at each incident so all responding CERT members, FCC licensed or not, will be able to communicate back to the CERT Incident Radio Operator.

The plan includes sufficient frequencies and alternate frequencies that the LAFD volunteers should be able to maintain adequate communications even if there are multiple incidents within a Battalion, or multiple Battalions involved in a larger emergency.

We realize this plan is just a beginning, but it will be a good start.

When all else fails, Amateur Radio Works.

Your Moderator

Jonathan Zimmerman K6JGZ
LAFD ACS-CERT Liaison
Battalion 14 Communications Unit Leader

Communications in an Emergency

Just as we suspected would happen, cellular telephone service was disrupted by the very moderate earthquake the Los Angeles area experienced on Tuesday, July 26th, 2008. Our cellular service was unavailable here in the San Fernando Valley for over 30 minutes, and I hear that cell service was not available from other carriers and in other locations for up to several hours.

Our land line POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) continued to work, as did our DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) Internet service. If you rely on your cell phone for emergency communication, and you needed help during that time, you were in trouble.

When Pacific Telephone had an approved monopoly for copper wire telephone service in the Los Angeles area, they were required, as part of their permission to operate, to maintain enough excess capacity in the system to provide adequate service during times of increased demand -- like during an emergency. To the best of my knowledge, there is no such requirement for cellular service providers. So if you rely on cellular telephone service as you primary means of communication, be advised that your carrier is under no obligation, other than market pressure, to provide adequate capacity into their systems to allow for unusually heavy call volumes. That, according to news reports, is what the cell companies said happened on Tuesday -- increased demand made their systems slow to operate, if they could operate at all.

Even though my wife and I both have cell phones, we pay for minimum POTS service at our home for emergency communications. We know that during an emergency, there is a much better chance the old copper wire systems will work -- at least in the near term, than our cell phones.

In addition to our cordless handsets, we also have an old fashioned telephone -- one that doesn't need batteries or a power supply, connected connected to the POTS. So if we lose power and our cordless phones don't work, and for whatever reasons our cell phones aren't working, we still have the older hard wired phone to rely on for emergency traffic. There is a much better chance that the older phone will still function.

The phone company uses continually charging battery to power the POTS system, so even if there is a major power failure in our area, there's still a reasonable chance the POTS system will work -- at least for a while.

In an emergency, even if all the systems are still working, it's good advice not to make any phone calls that aren't absolutely necessary -- especially right after the emergency begins. Leave whatever phone system capacity is still available for those with true emergencies. If you and your family are OK, there's no reason to call Mom back East, or your Sister in Texas, to let them know you're all right immediately after the event. They probably haven't even heard about the problem yet... Wait until those with true emergencies have had a chance to report them before you call. Or better yet, don't call at all -- send an email (if the Internet is working) or, if not, send a text message. Text messages require fewer system resources and allow more people to use the systems without driving them into the ground.

And, of course, when all else fails, Amateur Radio still works...

Moderator

National Emergency Communications Plan

On July 31st. 2008, the Department of Homeland Security released the first National Emergency Communications Plan.

A press release and .pdf of the plan can be found here:

http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1217529182375.shtm


"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released today the National Emergency Communications Plan (NECP) to address gaps and determine solutions so that emergency response personnel at all levels of government and across all disciplines can communicate as needed, on demand, and as authorized. The NECP is the nation's first strategic plan to improve emergency response communications, and complements overarching homeland security and emergency communications legislation, strategies and initiatives..."

Moderator

Emergency Communications

In a regional emergency, like an earthquake or other disturbance, there's a very good chance our communications systems will fail. Experience in other disasters and emergencies tell us that the cell phone system will fail, land line phones (if still connected) will work sporadically at best, and the Internet will generally be inaccessible. There's a good chance the power will fail over significant areas for considerable time -- for days, maybe. And if it's a big earthquake, experts tell us communications and power could be out for many days -- 10 or more. And if it's a really big earthquake, it could be a week or 10 days before any professional help arrives. We could be on our own to take care of ourselves and our neighbors, and that's what CERT is all about.

Wouldn't you like to be able to communicate during an emergency? When all else fails, Amateur Radio still works. With an Amateur Radio Technician's License you will have the ability to communicate with other Hams in the region using the UHF and VHF frequencies commonly used by Hams during disasters. The Los Angeles basin is ringed with repeaters on these frequencies that could link you to the rest of California. And with a Technician's license and a Ham radio and a battery operated computer you could use Winlink2000 or other communication protocols to contact the rest of the world with email and other digital communication.

If you are a member of a CERT team you could become a CERT Ham Radio Operator and help your team and Incident Commander with real time information. Several Ham Radio Operators on a CERT team make you a instant disaster communications system that would be invaluable in effectively managing the situation.

Once you receive your FCC license, you might want to to join the Los Angeles Fire Department's Auxiliary Communications Service -- a group of Hams dedicated to providing emergency communications to the City of Los Angeles, CERT, and the LAFD.

Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn't it? Getting your FCC Technician's License is fun and easy to do. Here's how:

To become a Ham radio operator you need to pass the FCC exam and obtain your FCC Technician Radio Operators license. The Technician License allows you to go on the air using the UHF and VHF Amateur Radio bands commonly used for local contacts and regional emergency communication.

Earning your FCC Technician's License is as simple as passing the 35 question FCC Element One multiple choice written exam. The FCC realizes that Ham Radio Technician Operators are a public safety asset and purposely made the exam uncomplicated. No Morse Code is required. All you need to do is learn some of the FCC rules and regulations and learn a little bit about how radios and repeaters systems work. With a little preparation, many people find the exam easy to pass.

Exams are given by Volunteer Examiners -- local Hams who administer the test as a public service at many local locations. Exams are scheduled frequently -- usually every week. Exam times and places can be found on the American Radio Relay League website http://www.arrl.org.

There are a number of ways to study for the Technician Exam -- Amateur Radio clubs have free classes, classes are available on line, and there a number of excellent self-study books available. My wife and I passed the Technician exam by studying "The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual" on our own a few hours a day for about 10 days and by taking the practice tests we found at http://www.qrz.com -- that's all it took.

You can take the sample tests on line and learn immediately if your answers are correct, and if not, what the correct answer is. You will eventually learn the correct answers to all the questions in the FCC Exam question pool. Many people have passed the exam simply by practicing the sample tests on QRZ.

Most people do very well on the exam by reading the "The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual" published by the Amateur Radio Relay League. It sells for $24.95 and is available from Ham Radio Outlet in Burbank and at other radio supply stores. It's also available on line from the ARRL at: http://www.arrl.org/catalog/?item=9639#top. This well written text is easy to read and contains all the questions available for use on the FCC exam.

Other books you might consider are the "ARRL Tech Q & A - 4th Edition" ( $15.95) and the "Technician Study Manual" by Gordon West ($18.95). Both are available at most radio supply stores, amateur radio stores (Ham Radio Outlet, Jun's Electronics), Radio Shack and on the Internet at either http://www.arrl.org or www.w5yi.org.

The http://www.w5yi.org , http://www.qrz.com and http://arrl.org web sites all contain a wealth of information to help you obtain a license.

I recommend self study and the taking the sample tests. It's inexpensive and you can study at home at your own pace. If there's something you don't understand in the book I may be able to help you with a phone call or two. Leave a comment to this blog entry and I'll get back to you as quickly as I can. If not, there are other highly experienced Hams who are excellent teachers and will be pleased to help -- ask around and you'll find a good one.

When all else fails, Amateur Radio works.

Jonathan Zimmerman
ACS-CERT Liaison
ACS Battalion 14 Communications Unit Leader

Phone Service During Emergencies

As most of us know, an emergency that disrupts the power grid or physical structure of the telephone system will cause mass communication outages. The standard phone system requires physical connections which must remain intact, and the cellular system can barely keep up with the demand for services at high volume times as it is. A cellular technician friend tells me that many of the cell circuits may already be in poor repair due to maintenance cuts.

The POTS phone system (Plain Old Telephone Service) that you may still have hardwired to your homes, if still intact, will continue to work when the power fails because the telephone land lines are battery powered from the telephone Central Offices. So if you have an old fashioned phone plugged into the wall, and I highly recommend you do, you may still have phone service in an emergency as long as the phone company batteries last.

If you rely on cell phones or Internet based services like Skype and the power grid is disrupted, you probably won't have service until the grid is restored. If you can't get cellular voice service, try text messaging. Because text messages are sent in short bursts, something they can get through when voice communications can't.

Even though we never use it for regular calls, my wife and I keep an older hardwired phone pluged into a phone jack. We chose the AT&T Princess phone because the handset lights up when off the hook and we can see the push buttons in the dark, and it has a smaller footprint on my desk. We saved one from an older service precisely for this purpose.

If you have a cordless phone system, I recommend you at least plug the master phone station (the one that broadcasts to the other handsets) into a UPS (uninterruptable Power Supply) like the ones sold for computer use. Then, if your power goes out but the phone lines are still working, you'll have at least a few minutes of communication time before the UPS runs out of charge.

Getting dial tone or a connection during an emergency is another problem entirely. There aren't enough phone lines or switches or data capacity to handle the increased demand during an emergency because the first thing everyone will want to do is pick up a phone and call their homes and loved ones to find out if they are safe. The system, if it works at all, won't be able to handle the demand and will probably crash.

Services nearest the disaster will obviously be affected the most, so of your phone works at all, you probably won't be able to place a local call. But if you can get a dial tone, you may be able to place a long distance call to an area away from the disaster. That's why it's a good idea for families to have a contact number some distance away -- perhaps with a friend or family member that lives in another state. If you can't make local calls, but can reach your out of state contact number, you can leave messages for your family and loved ones.

The FCC is aware of this problem and may be acting to do something about it. The phone companies, of course, are fighting it.

And remember, when all else fails, Amateur Radio works.

Moderator

Here's an article from the Associated Press:

CELL PHONE TOWERS

Wireless carriers fight FCC rules to add backup power for cell phone towers

By David Twiddy
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Monday, March 10, 2008

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - When Hurricane Katrina assaulted the Gulf Coast in 2005, winds and flooding knocked out hundreds of cell towers and cell sites, silencing wireless communication when emergency crews and victims needed it.

To avoid similar debacles in the future, the Federal Communications Commission wants most cell transmitter sites to have at least eight hours of backup power.

More than 2 1/2 years after Katrina hit and eight months after the FCC's regulations were released, the agency and the industry are still wrestling over the issue.

A federal appeals court has put the regulations on hold while it considers an appeal by some in the wireless industry.

Although several cell phone companies agree that their networks need to be more resilient, they have opposed the FCC's regulations, claiming that they were illegally drafted and would present a huge economic and bureaucratic burden.

There are almost 210,000 cell towers and roof-mounted cell sites across the country, and carriers say many would require modification to meet the regulations. At least one industry estimate puts the per-site price tag at as much as $15,000.

In asking the FCC to delay the change, Sprint Nextel Corp. said the rules would lead to "staggering and irreparable harm" for the company. Jackie McCarthy, director of governmental affairs for PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association, said the government should allow the industry to decide how best to keep its networks running, pointing out that backup power can't help a cell tower that has been destroyed by wind or wildfires.

"Our members' position is that the 'one size fits all' approach to requiring eight hours of backup power at all cell sites really doesn't accomplish the commission's stated purpose of providing reliable wireless coverage," McCarthy said.

The wireless carriers are also claiming that the FCC failed to follow federal guidelines for creating new mandates and went far beyond its authority when it created the eight-hour requirement.

FCC officials have so far stood their ground. "We find that the benefits of ensuring sufficient emergency backup power, especially in times of crisis involving possible loss of life or injury, outweighs the fact that carriers may have to spend resources, perhaps even significant resources, to comply with the rule," the agency said in a regulatory filing.

"The need for backup power in the event of emergencies has been made abundantly clear by recent events, and the cost of failing to have such power may be measured in lives lost," it said.

A panel of experts appointed by the FCC after Katrina was critical of how communications networks performed during and after the storm. The group noted that service restoration was "a long and slow process."

Panel members recommended that the FCC work with telecommunications companies to make their networks more robust. Regulators then created the eight-hour mandate, exempting carriers with fewer than 500,000 subscribers.

Wireless companies called the regulations arbitrary and said they would rob them of the flexibility to target backup power upgrades at the most important or most vulnerable sites.

They also said local zoning rules, existing leases and structural limitations could make it impossible to add batteries or backup generators to cell sites.

Miles Schreiner, director of national operations planning for T-Mobile, said it can take 1,500 pounds of batteries to provide eight hours of backup energy in areas with a lot of cell phone traffic.

"In urban areas, most of the sites are on rooftops, and those sites weren't built to hold that much weight," Schreiner said.

The FCC agreed in October to exempt cell sites from the rules if the wireless carrier proves that the exemption is necessary.

Companies would have six months to submit those reports and then another six months to bring the sites into compliance or explain how they would provide backup service to those areas through other means.

CTIA-The Wireless Association and several carriers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to intervene, saying the exemptions would still leave companies scrambling to inspect and compile reports on thousands of towers.

On Feb. 28, the court granted Sprint Nextel's request to stay the regulations while the case moves forward.

Verizon Wireless is not a party to the appeal and has a history of installing backup generators and batteries to its cell sites. Most famously, during a 2003 blackout that kept much of the Northeast in the dark for hours, Verizon customers could still communicate.

AT&T, the nation's largest wireless carrier, would not comment on the FCC regulations.

Online Training Site - Free

Free On-line Training Courses for EmComm People

Posted by kn0n on November 30, 2007

This weeks [Week ending 12/01/07] ARRL Letter has a paragraph on the National Fire Academy Online Training site. This is another source for online ICS training and other courses that might be of interest to EmComm folks. The training is available free to anyone.