EP: 67 Hosting ASIM Advanced Course
Episode 67
Published Feb 12, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 39:34
Episode Summary
11 scenarios, 3 days, 60 participants – a $62,000 class you can get for free! Today’s episode breaks down the participants, facilities, and logistics needed to host an Active Shooter Incident Management (ASIM) Advanced class free of charge, funded by DHS.
Episode Notes
Join us today as we delve into the ins and outs of hosting the ASIM Advanced course, covering facility needs and logistics. Discover the value of this training, its participants, and the rewards it brings. Ready to seize this opportunity? Visit c3pathways.com training section to request DHS funding and submit your request!
Watch this episode on YouTube at https://youtube.com/live/VKrSyAIP2jg
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:Our Active Shooter Incident Management advanced course is our three-day, 24-hour premier course. It is my favorite course of the dozen or so that we do. Costs about $62,000, and you can get it for free.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey,
your podcast host. I am seated today with three of our...My fellow C3 Pathways instructor, I got Pete Kelting here from the law enforcement side. Pete, good to have you back in the studio.
Pete Kelting:
Thanks for having me, Bill.
Bill Godfrey:
And we've got Jill McElwee, like myself, on the fire/EMS side. Jill, good to see you again.
Jill McElwee:
Good to see you, glad to be here.
Bill Godfrey:
And Don Tuten, back in the house
Don Tuten:
Yes, sir.
Bill Godfrey:
Back in the house!
Don Tuten:
Back in the house.
Don Tuten:
Glad to be here, thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
Still sporting the...
Don Tuten:
Hey, when you retire, you get to grow a beard,so, good things happen.
Bill Godfrey:
All right. Well, hey, so today's topic is gonna be a fun one
because we're gonna talk about the Active Shooter Incident Management advanced course,
and how our audience can sign up to get it hosted for free at their location. And I'll talk more about this at the end, but just so people
aren't kind of wondering. There is DHS funding for us to go out and deliver these classes.
So, there's a process by which you can request sign up. We'll talk about that again at the end.
And if you get selected, we will come out, lock, stock, and barrel with all the equipment and processes we're gonna talk about and deliver the class in your town, and it costs you nothing. So, with that, let's talk first about the class itself, the scenarios we do, the interaction, the flow of the class, some of the things that you guys each find exciting. Don, why don't you start us off?
Don Tuten:
Yeah, well, there's seven scenarios that we go through over, what, over three days, sorry.
Bill Godfrey:
11 over three days.
Don Tuten:
11. Sorry.
Bill Godfrey:
We do seven over two days.
Don Tuten:
I know, I'm sorry.
Bill Godfrey:
11 scenarios in three days.
Don Tuten:
11 scenarios in three days.Once again, we go back to never do math and try to do numbers on a live podcast. I apologize.The biggest thing for me is this class is geared towards obviously, problem solving around critical incidents, but in addition to that, it allows people to be in multiple different roles and get experience doing multiple, within different roles of a scenario. So, a command role, a tactical role, on the fire side is a triage, an actual a firefighter
going down doing an EMS role. It's one of the few classes that I've been part of in my 35 years of public safety work, where you actually get a chance to see everybody else's roles and understand it, which will help you in turn, when we get to a real live event, to understand what everybody else is doing.
Bill Godfrey:
Jill, what are the...
Jill McElwee:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
What are the things that you wanna throw in
about the class and what, you know, what do you like in terms of the mix and the scenarios?
Jill McElwee:
So, I'll tell you what excites me about this class
and when we all, you know, show up on scene
to wherever across the nation that we've been,
we've been everywhere from sea to shining sea
with this course, is the interaction between our agencies.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Jill McElwee:
The fact that...This is, as Bill said, it's the advanced Active Shooter Incident Management class. And we've learned from most incidents that if there's failures they often happen at that management level. And so, if we collectively as a team can work through the problem set, if I can see what it is that law enforcement is up against, what they're doing, and if they see what we have, you know, our responsibilities are, and, you know, for them stopping that threat, and for us stopping that dying, then together we work. And being able to see this in its totality, it's one of the most exciting courses I've ever been involved in. I'm not just saying it because, you know, Bill's here, but it really is because we have, the course has grown and evolved and we've listened to those students in class. We diligently look at the lessons learned in every incident across the nation. And we've... and it's a great product and for your agencies will be able to see that big picture of how best to respond to and manage an active shooter incident.
Bill Godfrey:
Pete, how about you?
Pete Kelting:
Yeah, Bill, I mean, they've hit the, the nail on the head. And I think that to take advantage of all that, what I like most about our class when we delivered it is it's building relationships, many times for the first time. Going through all the 11 scenarios and so forth with those relationships, and then seeing how each performs in the roles, you start to build trust and confidence so that when, you know, they take our process out to the street and implement it that um, they feel it's gonna be successful. I mean, it's a great, great, great class.
Bill Godfrey:
The, the thing that I love about the course is that...one of things that frustrated me, you know, when I was going to training back in the day, is you'd get a bunch of lecture, lecture, lecture, lecture, and it was very thin on hands-on. There was either no hands-on or it was so little that you didn't really get a chance to understand it, let alone really practice it. And this particular course, you know, morning...it's a three-day course. So, the morning of day one, there's obviously some front loaded lecture in the morning. I think we do about a two-hour lecture block in the morning. And that's the longest lecture that we do. And then we drop into a scenario. And we're using, and we're gonna talk about this more, I assume, a fairly high-end computer simulation system.
Jill McElwee:
Very.
Bill Godfrey:
With, it's like, you know, you've seen kids play "Call of Duty," it's like 40 adults in the room signed into computers playing "Call of Duty," that first person point of view. But we can simulate amazingly well the complexities of an actual event,
with the radio traffic, and the confusion, and the
decision-making, and everything, all of that happening real time. And so, you get to practice it.
And we were talking about this, I think, in another podcast a couple weeks ago. The first one's always a little bumpy.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And I get it. You know what is less bumpy? The second one. You know what's even less bumpy?
The third one, the fourth one. And usually by day two, it's usually lunchtime at day two, it's like there's a little switch that gets thrown, and that light bulb goes on and people go, "Oh, I, I get it. Now I, I get how these pieces fit together. I get what they're trying to get me to do." And all of a sudden, we go from learning to practicing.
Jill McElwee:
There you go.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
And it becomes repetitive practice. Then, in the afternoon of day two, and again on day three. So, this is one of the only classes that I've ever seen where you're running not one, not two, not three, 11 scenarios from dispatch to last patient transported with the full context and complexity of the entire incident. And you're getting to practice and experience that. And when you come out of this class, you've got experience.
Jill McElwee:
Mm-hmm.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
You've got experience that can be directly applied. Not just conceptual knowledge,
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
but actual experience
Don Tuten:
With the stress.With the stress involved.
Bill Godfrey:
Oh yeah.
Jill McElwee:
Oh, yes.
Don Tuten:
And that's the thing. This class by default it puts stress on you. Because you don't wanna fail. You know, you don't have actual live bullets being shot at you, but at the same time, your management skills are right up there where I've gotta make this go away. I've gotta make this-
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.And in front of a room full of your peers.
Don Tuten:
And with dispatchers and a PIO and administration there watching you. So, well-rounded class. I mean, if you guys haven't taken it yet, listen up 'til the end so you'll know how to get this for free.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah, absolutely. But one of the things, and you just hit on what I wanted to make sure we stress to folks is that this isn't a class where you'll hear the word notional a lot. We don't notionalize. In a lot of classes you have to say, "Well, dispatch would do a, you know, they would send out the call."Or, "Well, we would do a press briefing," to your point of those two. No, actually, you're gonna, we all have radios, all of the students receive a radio. Dispatch is sending out that call and then you're in your seat and you go en route and you sit in your seat and it's the longest minute and a half or two minutes or however, we've played it out because we wanna add a sense of realism. If your life will be sitting in that chair waiting for your turn to arrive, when you've arrived to whatever position we've assigned you with the 11 scenarios, you're gonna get to play all of the positions within your discipline as well. So it's built so that it's...there's nothing we're nationalizing. We're actually responding. We're actually triaging patients. We're actually performing treatments on patients with a real-time bleeding model built into where we can, you can slow it down with actions, much like in real life. So it truly is the real deal.
Bill Godfrey:
And, and I'm thinking, Pete, I know you do the tactical coach position a lot. Tactical, triage, and transport. I think that a lot of students think, "Yeah, okay." And, and then they walk up and then the radio starts while they're, you know, trying to figure out where they are on the map. And they're, they have a live view of the scene and they see the contact teams in front of 'em and, and then the radio calls again, and then the radio calls again. And eventually, the fire department or EMS triage and transport officer shows up. Meanwhile, the phone is ringing off the hook. And it's just a little bit overload. I, I actually think tactical's the toughest job in the room. You know what?
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely, Bill. And, and you know, I think our class uh, is a great no-fail environment in a sense also because, you know, just as you described, they're they drinking from a fire hose,
deer in the headlights. But we can, we can practice again. We can practice the next scenario and we coach you to success.
Bill Godfrey:
Yes.
Don Tuten:
That's it.
Jill McElwee:
That's an important part.
Don Tuten:
That's it.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
One, one of the founding tenets of our group
has been, "coach to success." Myself and a couple of the other founders had experiences in training in our career where you'd get a five-minute safety brief told to go run a drill and the drill took 15 minutes, and you listen to somebody who had less experience than you yell and scream at you and tell you what a moron and how badly you did. And then you put your gear back on the truck and you went back out on the street, and having never learned. And we said, "We absolutely..." I abhor that. We will not tolerate, we will not do that. And so we even took it a step further to say, "We won't let somebody fail." Whatever, as much or as little coaching as they need to, to be successful live during the scenario. When they're talking on the radio and people are trying to talk to 'em face to face and the phone's ringing, and you as the coach, you have to find that moment of, "All right, does he, does he know he missed this yet? Okay. I don't, I don't think he knows he missed this. So now I gotta remind him. Okay, that reminder didn't work. He didn't hear me. Let me, let me do it again." All right? And then, you know, up until the point where you finally go, "Okay, stop." I need you to do this, this thing. And is, it is a, I think one of the most powerful things. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody. And we established, I think very quickly, a rapport with the audience on day one. We're not gonna let you get embarrassed.
Jill McElwee:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
Everybody makes mistakes. We're gonna talk about it in a positive way and then we're gonna move on and do it again.
Pete Kelting:
You know, I think we, we pride ourselves on how this class has evolved over the last 10 years, basically. Jill touched on some of it. The technology we've brought to the, to the table um, to be able to coach you through individual benchmarks from our shot reports to team benchmarks, to contact teams and RTFs...
Jill McElwee:
Oh yeah.
Pete Kelting:
...how quickly they get down range and, you know,
and from time to time we'll hear that, "Oh well, if this was real world," well listen, this is real world when it comes to stress that you talked about.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Pete Kelting:
We've simulated just about every real-world experience in this class possible. And um, you know, we see it and we can, we can push you to train your brain. And when that transfers out to the, to the street, when we hear that real world, it's the same decision-making.
Bill Godfrey:
Oh Yeah.
Pete Kelting:
It's just out here now.
Don Tuten:
Absolutely. You get to play the game. You, you're playing for life, and playing for real.
Bill Godfrey:
And the extremes we've gone to, I mean we've got, you want a helicopter? We got one.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
You wanna do it, law enforcement surveillance, call 'em on the radio. What do you wanna know? You need a medevac mission? We got that too. I mean, it, it...
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
The, the levels that we've gone to make that...
Pete Kelting:
Yep. Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
But all right, so let's jump from there to talking about the audience. Who is the audience for this? What's the audience mix? Our attendance participation? Jill, start us off.
Jill McElwee:
So, who would respond to that? I mean, you, I, I would answer that question with a question. Like, who would you need to, to stop that threat? You gotta have your law enforcement partners. So if it's multiple threats, how, you know, how deep is your law enforcement? Does your law enforcement often rely on mutual aid partners to work with you? Then we need them involved as well. Okay? You're, for fire and EMS, does your fire/EMS, are they one agency? Do you have a separate fire department? A separate EMS? If you do, then they both need to be, at the table. 'Cause in real life, you know, those that will respond to an incident need to be there. And then you need to look beyond those ancillary players. We bring in dispatchers. We set up a full dispatch center and we need your dispatchers there because we need...
Don Tuten:
For all disciplines
Jill McElwee:
For all disciplines. Your dispatchers for all disciplines. Good point, Don. Because that's who needs to learn that language, to learn that communication. And if they, you know, the dispatchers, they have the checklist as well. So, you've got the checklist knowing if something was missed, we often rely on our dispatchers to remind us of those things. So, because they've practiced with us, they've gone through those scenarios with us, your audience has got to be as vast and wide as your response would be. You know, those, from the initial call, that first 911 call when the first bullet is fired through that last patient arriving at the hospital and receiving that, that care, that's all of those players in between. And oh yeah, by the way, the public's probably gonna wanna know what's going on as well. So, do you have a PIO that let works with you? Let's have them to the table. You know, so we, every facet.
Don Tuten:
Health department reunification, one of the things that is taught in this class is reunification. So having the partners that you would normally have within your jurisdictions that would assist with that reunification, having them there, making them part of the scenario as well, building upon those relationships. And the other thing, Bill, that you've invited on a lot of our deliveries and you, you highly encourage as community leaders as well, not only is administration within the agencies, but also community leaders to come. And if anything, witness what we're doing and how we're working together to ensure that their community is safe.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. And to be explicitly clear for the audience, we are looking for a total of 60 people. 30 law enforcement officers, 20 fire/EMS, five dispatchers, and as you guys mentioned, covering all the disciplines. So, 30 law enforcement, 20 fire/EMS, five dispatchers, two public information officers, two emergency managers, and one helicopter pilot. And with that team, we can go from a simple single shooter scenario where there's only three people shot. Our bread and butter, simple thing. And all the way up to by the end of day three, a complex coordinated attack where you have multiple attackers with automatic weapons simultaneously attacking multiple sites. And we can manage all of that for across, across that audience spectrum.
Now, let's talk a little bit, because this is, because of the DHS funding, there are some rules about this. So you have to attend 80% of the class and, and we know not to do math in public. That's half the half a day. But I will, I will tell you, you really can't miss day one. If you miss day one, you'll end up in the weeds. But you have to be there for 80% of the class in order to be eligible for a certificate. Now we always tell people, "Look, if you've gotta miss more than that, we understand." We still invite 'em to come back. But you're, just know you're not gonna get a certificate. You've got a pre-test and a post-test. You have to complete the post-test with a, an 80% or better completion score, which generally is not a problem in this class because by the time you've done 11 scenarios over three days, you, you know the answers pretty, pretty doggone well for first, firsthand. The other challenge that we have is that because of the size and scope of the scenarios we're running, we cannot do it with a small class. If you short fill the class, you know, it's a class for 60 people, and there's a reason we got 60, if you put 30 people in the class, we're gonna struggle. We're gonna struggle to do some of the scenarios because we physically don't have enough bodies. And Jill mentioned earlier, notionalizing things. We try not to notionalize tasks or things that we have to do, but sometimes we have to notionalize people because you didn't get'em there in the class.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And, and each of you have experience in doing classes that got
short filled and it's..
Jill McElwee:
Yes.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
...it can be quite frustrating to the very people that are there trying to learn because, you know, fill in the blank reason that we didn't, we didn't public..."Well, I emailed all the training officers." Yeah, okay. So, you read every one of your emails. I don't, you know I'm getting about two and a quarter 250 a day, I don't read 'em all.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah. You wanna, you wanna follow, this is a follow up class. If you are responsible, the point of contact, you want to follow up with those that you've invited. You definitely want to, anyone on your waiting list, you have them ready, ready to attend. Because it's truly something that the quality of training, and we haven't had a single class yet where those that have not been able to fill all the spots, or we get there and it's a short class and you know, we, where they've said they felt regret, those points of contact's like, "Oh, you know, we really should have followed up."
Bill Godfrey:
"If I'd only known."
Jill McElwee:
If I'd only known if it was going to be like that...
Don Tuten:
We would gotten so many more people. If I'd had only known.
Bill Godfrey:
And then there's the inevitable rules about things you can and cannot say, when, when that kind of stuff happens.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah. And, and we all know when we have to fill in as instructors to try to make the class go, then it just, it detracts from us being able to, you know, coach to success.
Jill McElwee:
Coach.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Pete Kelting:
You know, so it's important that, that we have those classes full with a diversity of responders.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, that said, I, I am very proud of the team of instructors that we have that no matter what, they make that class successful.
Jill McElwee:
Oh yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
They do the adjustments that they need to and they make the class successful. And we still make sure that the participants that are there have as positive an experience and a good of experience, so that they get a chance to walk away. We don't shortcut the scenarios. We don't, you know, we don't do things like that in order to get done. We still make it done. But that's a, that's a big one. And I would also tell the POCs, and we, and I believe Steve and our office of coordinates a lot of this tells them as well, "Go ahead and book 65."
Jill McElwee:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
If all 65 show up, we'll, we'll, we'll handle it.
Jill McElwee:
Yes.
Don Tuten:
We'll make it work.
Bill Godfrey:
We'll make it work, it's okay.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
But on any given day with a group of 60 people, somebody's-
Don Tuten:
Life happens.
Bill Godfrey:
-gonna get sick. Life happens
Don Tuten:
Life happens, right
Bill Godfrey:
Somebody's kid sick at school, they gotta go pick 'em up.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
They get called for a deposition last minute. You know, something, something always comes up.
Don Tuten:
Critical incident the night before with one agency or something.
Jill McElwee:
And, and to that point, Bill, no one during the 11 scenarios, there's very rarely a time, maybe that first scenario, 'cause we, you know, you start, it's a little bit of a-
Don Tuten:
Crawl, walk, run.
Jill McElwee:
Crawl, walk, run.Yeah. for that first scenario, but after that, there's no one just sitting like, you guys just watched this one this time. There's no position for that.
Bill Godfrey:
No, there's no hiding.
Jill McElwee:
There's no hiding. We have a position and a place and a role for everyone. All 60.
Don Tuten:
There's opportunity for enhancement by every position, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I always use the example of how many of y'all have been to an ICS class where you sat in the back of the room with your arms folded?
Jill McElwee:
Oh yeah, no.
Bill Godfrey:
- going, "Yeah, it's not the way I'd do it."
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Really? All right, Skippy, let's find out.
Don Tuten:
Show us. Exactly right.
Bill Godfrey:
We gonna know how you do it, 'cause there's no, the other thing I want to mention that's important before we leave audience is the ratio. There's a reason that we have 30 law enforcement and 20 fire/EMS. And that's because there's more work for law enforcement than there is for fire/EMS in these things. So if you, let's say you, you get short on, on coppers and you only got 10, you, you, you can't balance that out by putting 40 fire in the room.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
It, it will not work. You'll have 20 of 'em standing around because we don't have enough cops to put 'em to work. Likewise with the emergency manager positions. And we've seen this happen in other places. They get short and so in order not to come up with less than 60 is they stuff it with seven or eight emergency management positions. And it's always an uncomfortable conversation to say, "Okay, there's eight of you here. Which two are taking the class? 'Cause there's only two seats for emergency managers." So, just be aware that the ratios are there for a reason and they really, really matter in, in how we, in how we do the class.
So from there, let's talk about what we need in the way of facilities. Our favorite topic as instructors. So here's the minimum ask is 5,000 square feet of open space. In other words, EOCs are not a good location. You can't move the furniture out of the way. 5,000 square feet of open space and three 20 amp circuits. 60 amps of power, and we're not kidding about that.
Jill McElwee:
No.
Don Tuten:
Yeah, the technology that's involved in this with the power that's used with the computers and the, and the simulators... We've seen it, we've been to places where
they've told us they had 60 amps and we've had to run extension cords from several of the buildings to keep some stuff from popping. So it's...we always make it work, but we always have the same criteria, too. So, everybody understands the criteria
Bill Godfrey:
Oh yeah.
Don Tuten:
But it, it's...
Bill Godfrey:
And you might as well tell us where your breaker panel is because-
Don Tuten:
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Godfrey:
We're gonna pop breakers.
Don Tuten:
Yep. Yep.
Jill McElwee:
Yep.
Don Tuten:
But, there's so many, there's so many opportunities. And like we mentioned earlier with the community, there are churches that can be used during the week. There are civic centers, community centers, and some hotels that are not using their meeting space that can be used as long as it's five, at least 5,000 square foot, single level.
Bill Godfrey:
Oh yeah.
Don Tuten:
We have run into some, an issue one time where it was-
Bill Godfrey:
Talk, talk about that.
Don Tuten:
Yeah. So, we were actually delivering a class-
Bill Godfrey:
Don't say where.
Don Tuten:
-in a state.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay.
Don Tuten:
And uh, we were, we were given their EOC to utilize and it was not the optimum place. And actually, I think we were told we were gonna be in another location. But anyway, it is what it is. But it was two levels. So one of the senior fire chiefs, and when I say senior, I mean he had 40 plus years, I think, in the fire service.
Bill Godfrey:
He was quite gray.
Don Tuten:
Yes. Was transitioning. So, how we set up our, our, when, when we set these classes up, we have multiple stations and, and we try to utilize some different rooms if possible. But it gives people a chance to actually, a little, it's realism. You're having to move around, you can't see and talk to somebody through. So, part of this by having two levels is, is some of the rooms were downstairs, upstairs obviously. This one person was transitioning downstairs, slipped. It was not a good day. I don't think he returned, which set a rule. So, everything always sets a rule.
Bill Godfrey:
He, he was okay, but-
Jill McElwee:
Returned to life.
Bill Godfrey:
He had to go to the emergency room and be evaluated.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And he was, he was pretty bruised up.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And we had told the host up front, we, we... It was not a good idea.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
It was not.
Don Tuten:
And it had rained that day. That was another thing.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Don Tuten:
I mean, it was a lot of factors.
Bill Godfrey:
And, and sure enough, and that was the first and only time we allowed a class to be done over two levels. And the first scenario out of the gate, he goes tumbling down the stairs. And I just, you know, shook my head and went, "We're not ever doing this again."
Don Tuten:
Yep. So single level. when you go to apply for this class, single level, least 5,000 square foot, at least three 20 amp services, and hey-
Bill Godfrey:
Preferably on the first floor.
Don Tuten:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Who among you have had to do the elevator routines with our gear?
Don Tuten:
Yes.Yeah. So when we, well, I'll let Pete, Pete's pushed a lot more of those carts than I have. So Pete, you can talk about pushing all those carts up.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah, I mean this, this class we come with a lot of technology and a lot of equipment, you know, to make it the most successful class possible for, you know, the attendees. And, you know, talking about it all kind of folds into one thing is, you know, the power in all the facilities, if something goes wrong with it, it takes away from the engagement and the learning process of, of those attending. And we've seen it. we've seen it. You know, folks get really involved in, especially on the computers and so forth, that they're, they're excited that they're learning, they're excited that they're excelling. And if we have a lot of things kind of go sideways, then, you know, it gets frustrating. So for us, rolling in equipment, it helps us for setup. We've gotten a lot better now. We've put a lot of effort into dwindling down the, the setup time so we can provide that class quickly. So yes, you know, the, the ease in and out, ingress and egress well thought out for us.
Bill Godfrey:
And just to, let me set the context. So we're not talking about carrying pelicans of laptops. It is a 30-foot trailer with a quarter million dollars worth of equipment, road cases that are six foot long.
Don Tuten:
We need roadies by the way.
Bill Godfrey:
Six foot high. 30 Inches wide. I'm sorry Don. I couldn't quite make that out. And, and weigh hundreds and hundreds of pounds. So when you tell us that you want to host it on the second floor or the third floor or the fourth floor, our very next question is. Where's your freight elevator?
Pete Kelting:
How's that getting there?
Jill McElwee:
Right.
Don Tuten:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And what is the size of the freight elevator? And we always get the same answer. We have a freight elevator, it's rated for thousands of pounds and it's full size. It's big. Well, give us the dimensions. Okay. Yeah, it's big. It'll fit, it'll fit that, it'll fit that. And we show up, there's no freight elevator and it's not big enough.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Pete Kelting:
Which leads me to the point that having a facility's point of contact for whatever venue you're using is extremely important. On, you know, on the phone right away, I think there was one venue we thought we were like jam up, you know, everything was going great except when we opened up the double doors, the center bar had a lock to it and we couldn't get the lock out 'cause we couldn't get a point of contact to facilities person.
Bill Godfrey:
Oh yeah.
Pete Kelting:
We were stuck.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah.
Pete Kelting:
It, it, you know, so it's little things like that, you know, may not seem, you know, that important, but it's kind of important to keep the flow of the setup going so that we're not delayed getting the class started when it's ready to start.
Bill Godfrey:
And we set up the day before, folks. This is not a, it takes four to five hours for us to set up.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
So we set up the, the day before, the first day of class. And yeah, Pete, I mean I, I actually remember the one you're talking about. You've got, you got the double emergency exit doors and there's this bar that sits in between the two of 'em and you can release it. But without that bar out of the way, you can't get the road cases through the door.
Jill McElwee:
It's a single door.
Bill Godfrey:
It's a, it's a single door that's too narrow.
Jill McElwee:
It's a... exactly. Yeah. And if you're...To, to get a visual of, I mean we've, we look like we're bringing a Grammy award-winning performer when we start rolling out-
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Jill McElwee:
-with the...
Bill Godfrey:
It's like a concert.
Don Tuten:
It is.
Jill McElwee:
And then we're, we're super active on social media. So if you wanna see like, the setup, it's not just the Pelican case. I mean we'll have eight tables that seat 32 with computers at each station with, you know, poles and the, the cabling run across all. So this is a, it's a major operation. This isn't just, we're gonna open up a pelican case and, and throw a counterstrike board, which we do that as well. But that's, you know, by the way, we do that as well. But wait, there's more. And uh... (laughs) But we need that room that, that access and that, those utilities.
Pete Kelting:
You know, and one of the ways we're committed to our host. Bill now is since we trailer our own equipment, right on the point of dropping off that equipment, a lot of the drivers, I know myself, I'm looking for that point of contact to spend a little time with me. I'm doing a little pre-scouting of the, of the venue-
Jill McElwee:
Smart.
Pete Kelting:
-for the next team coming in to try to avoid some of these little pitfalls that we run into because it's, it's so important folks. We, we're so, you know, proud of what we're bringing to you. We want it set up as, as best as possible to be the, the, you know, the nicest venue for your attendees, so.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. And I, I, Pete, I think that's a really good point. So our, one of our instructors after the end of a delivery, one of our instructors is designated to, to drive the truck and the trailer, move the gear to the next site. We're doing pretty much a class every week. So, sometimes we try to schedule 'em close enough so that it's a one-day drive. That doesn't always work. But we, the instructor will take the truck and trailer to the next course site immediately following the, the last one. And so you're there three, four, sometimes five days ahead of the delivery. Drop the trailer off, which we want to be in an enclosed, fenced-in secured space for the reasons I mentioned earlier, and then to go get a peek at the venue and see if there's going to be any logistical challenges that we have, so we have time to fix 'em.
Pete Kelting:
Mm-hmm.
Bill Godfrey:
And then that instructor takes the truck, goes to the airport, puts it in the airport parking lot, that instructor flies home. And then three, four days later, the next team flies in-
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
-gets the truck, goes and gets the trailer and drives in and sets it up. It's a, it is an honest-to-goodness roadshow. We just change out the instructor team every week so that we've got a, a fresh team going in. Anything out about logistics before, I'm sorry. Anything else about facilities before we...Well, I think some of the-I kind of already stumbled into logistics a little bit. Yeah. I think for facilities.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah. I think for facilities, you know, we kind of all know when we arrive on scene we can kind of look at, kind of size up a venue and go, "This is actually gonna be a really good class," based on facility and venue. Certainly, sometimes it's just unavoidable, you know, but larger restroom facilities to get people in and out of breaks quicker. You know, some of the hosts that already have restaurant lists put together. Just little, housekeeping items that make the flow of the class go-
Don Tuten:
Tables and chairs.
Pete Kelting:
Tables and chairs for, you know, the facility's overall experience.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. We don't need a shoot house.
Don Tuten:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
We're, we're not shooting simunitions. We do not need an old out of commissioned school that no longer has working air conditioners or janitorial service.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
No. I guess I probably should say air conditioning's a big one.
Don Tuten:
Air conditioning is a big one. That's turned off during the summer. Remember that class. A delivery, we were in a class scenario and it was raining inside the school building because the school board turned the air conditioners off during the summertime, so. We made it work.
Bill Godfrey:
It was an uncomfortable...
Pete Kelting:
...and you know, and you said we made it work. It's not, it's not that we're complaining for us as instructors.
Don Tuten:
Absolutely.
Pete Kelting:
We will make anything work
Bill Godfrey:
No, it's the experience for the students.
Don Tuten:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
So we kind of stumbled into logistics, talking a little bit about the trailer and that kind of stuff. So, some of the expectations of the point of contact. So, planning for this delivery typically starts about three months ahead of time where we get the date set up and the first priority is for them to pick a venue, obviously. And we've just talked plenty about that. But then to coordinate the registrations, advertise the course locally, fill it, put butts in seats, however you want to do it. Stay in contact with our instructor team. So, at least six weeks out we will assign a lead instructor who will communicate with the point of contact and they'll ask, where are you at on your registration numbers? What's our mix? How many different agencies are coming? Multiple agencies, multiple jurisdictions is a good thing, not a bad thing.
Jill McElwee:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Those classes are so much better than the occasions where we'll go into an area and they stuff it all with their own folks. It's not as good a, it's, it's not as good of experience for the audience as when we have multiple agencies involved. The communicating with the driver. The driver will typically communicate one to two weeks ahead of time to talk about drop off locations and specifics. And again, that driver is an instructor, so they understand the class very well. Securing the thing, being available to us, meeting us day of when we go to do the setup. Being a avail- you don't, you don't have to sit there for the four or five hours, but being available by phone if problems come up. There's little stuff that comes up all the time. What am I forgetting on the logistics side?
Pete Kelting:
Well, we access our training venue at, you know, usually 6:30, 7:00 AM on the first, first day of class, right?
Bill Godfrey:
Oh yeah.
Pete Kelting:
So...
Bill Godfrey:
Instructors are always on....so, class starts at 8:00 AM. Instructors are always there at least one hour before start time.
Pete Kelting:
The, the security of the facility once we're done setting up, you know, that we have-
Bill Godfrey:
That's another big one.
Don Tuten:
And then the last night for breakdown and getting out of there. To have a facilities manager there, somebody.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah. That that breakdown happens after class. Immediately after class.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. After the third night.
Jill McElwee:
We had a, you know, a guy that was like, "How much longer are you guys gonna be?" And you know, it's, "Well, we're gonna be a couple hours, you know." Understanding and, and that's, you know, communicating that not just to the point of contact, but making sure the point of contact communicates that to whoever's gonna be on site there for us.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. And and if you're a high-ranking person and you're going to be the POC, then be the POC. Don't be the high-ranking person who's the POC on paper and delegate it to somebody else today and somebody else tomorrow, because these messages get lost. Now I will say on the tear down after the third day, the third day of class, tear down takes us an hour to an hour and a half. So, setup takes four or five hours, but tear down goes much, much faster. And we usually try to get the timing set up where we can tear down and still get everybody to the airport and get home that night. That's not always possible.
Jill McElwee:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
So we're, we're motivated to move quickly on that, on that last day and get it, and get it torn down. Anything else on logistics?
Don Tuten:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
Alright.
Don Tuten:
Parking. That's the only other thing is make sure there's plenty of parking for the 60 people because we have been in locations also to where the venue was big enough but there wasn't enough parking or ingress and egress, so.
Bill Godfrey:
I, I remember one we hosted at an actual international airport and we were on the secure side.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And boy oh boy, that created some interesting challenges getting everybody through on time. All right, so then our final piece de résistance is the funding mechanism and how to sign up for that. As I mentioned at the opening, this class is funded by the Department of Homeland Security, National Domestic Preparedness Consortium, which is part of FEMA. So it's DHS FEMA, NDPC funded through TEEX and the ALERRT Program. They basically contract with us to go out and do these deliveries for responders. So they pick up the tab and you don't have to pay. The signup will take you about 90 seconds. Go to our website, c3pathways.com and right on the training link, when you click training, they're the, I think it's the very first one says "Request DHS funded delivery". Click on that. It'll pull up a little form. There's about a dozen things for you to fill out. Most of them is very, are very, very quick. It'll, I mean, it'll literally, take you less than two minutes to fill out this form and submit it. And that gets you in the queue. That's the first step. Now I'll, I'll caution everybody, we're funded this year to do more than we ever have been before. So we're funded to do 36 deliveries this year across the country. We have, as of last night, 150 agencies in the queue. And, and that was as last night. We are not going to get to everybody. We can't do everybody. But there's all kinds of rules we have to follow about where we go and how you get selected. It is not first come, first serve. We typically will not do more than one delivery for a given agency or even in one specific community unless it happens to be a very large metro area. In which case we would do one at one end and one at the other end or something like that. And they will typically be spread out by a few years. So, don't be afraid to sign up. It costs you nothing to sign up, it hurts nothing. And when you get the phone call from Steve or whoever in our office that says, well, and here's the other note, we schedule geographically. Aforementioned trailer and truck.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
We try to schedule the next venue to be within 500 miles or less of the last venue. So as we travel the country, we will call to whoever, whatever region we're going into, we'll look at the map, figure out who the hosts are that have requested
and then we'll call them and say, "These are the date ranges where we're gonna be there. Can you do one this date or this date?" And if you say yes, chances are pretty high you're gonna get that delivery. If you say, "Nope, sorry, I can't do those dates." We'll leave you in the queue but you're not gonna get a delivery. So, I think that's the gist of how to do that. So again, c3pathways.com, and Karla, let's put this, put the link the, in the show notes, c3pathways.com, click on the training link and then request DHS-funded training and fill out the form.
Don Tuten:
Now Bill, is there a way for people, if they have seizure money or they have training money and they want to pay for the class outside of free, a free DHS delivery, is there a way for people to do that if they are sitting on some training funds that they want to-
Bill Godfrey:
Yes, there is. And we do that all the time. In fact, we're doing almost as many, what we would call enterprise deliveries that are funded outside of DHS as we are doing DHS deliveries. Just give, give us a call at the office or send us an email. You can send an email to info, I-N-F-O, info@c3pathways.com or just give the office a call and ask for Steve and he can give you the specifics on that and, and talk you through the scheduling opportunities. But that is also a way to do it and thank you for mentioning that. All right. And I think that covers everything and fulfills our promise.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah.
Don Tuten:
Awesome.
Bill Godfrey:
Again, it's a $62,000 class that you can get for free.
Don Tuten:
We'd love to see you.
Bill Godfrey:
For freee.
Jill McElwee:
Worth it.
Bill Godfrey:
Don, Jill, Pete, thank you guys for coming in. Appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the conversation about the ASIM Advanced class. And if you have not subscribed or liked the podcast, please do that. Wherever you consume podcasts or if you're watching this on the YouTube channel, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We're working on increasing our content count, including pushing out some new YouTube shorts. All kinds of great stuff coming. I wanna say thank you to Karla Torres, our producer. And until next time, stay safe.