Indiana Association of Hostage-Crisis Negotiators, Inc. P.O. Box 441278 Indianapolis, Indiana 46244

Several administrative details have occurred this year regarding your Association. At the beginning of the year during our first board meeting in January, we elected a new slate of officers on your Board of Directors.

H. Christopher Wilson was your Indiana State Police representative on the Board of Directors. During the last two calendar years he has served as your Board’s President. Sam Maldonado was elected at last year’s conference by the then membership to take over as the ISP representative on the Board. As a result of that change, Lt. Wilson will remain on the board as the Immediate Past President.

William “Bill” Searing, Indiana Dept. of Corrections, has been on the Board now for several years representing the South Region. During our first board meeting of the year he was elected President. Robert Martinez, Lake County Sheriff’s Dept., representing the North Region was elected to the position of Vice President of Public Relations to replace Bill who now has new duties.

Kevin Hunter, Ft. Wayne Police Dept. and North Region Representative, will remain as your Vice President of Training. Steven Napier, Anderson Police Dept. and Central Region Representative will remain as your Vice President of Membership and Steven Ferklic, Indpls Metro Police Dept. and an IMPD Representative will remain as your Treasurer.

All of these board officer positions are selected by a majority vote of the Board of Directors during the first board meeting of the year. The Board of Directors are elected during a business meeting of the membership which is conducted annually at the IAHCN-sponsored conference.

Please visit the By-laws page on this website to get a better understanding of how this and other administrative details work for your Association. Feel free to consider how you might help this volunteer, not for profit association. Many tasks need to be completed for this all to come together successfully and your Board of Directors and Association are always looking for help. Look for more news soon, because a lot has been happening!

Be Safe Out there!

Your Board of Directors

Once again it is time to consider attending the IAHCN State Negotiators' Conference which starts September 2, 2009. The Board of Directors is once again putting together an excellent line up of speakers and topics which all of us will find beneficial. For those who have attended, you already know how beneficial this training conference is and for those considering attending for the first time I encourage you to check it out. Fortunately most of us do not get enough hands on training to always feel at our best, so training is critical to keeping our skills polished and ready to go.

We work in an environment that is often reactive to what is dropped at our doorstep and we often don't get a second chance to do it over or turn back the clock. Recent nationally reported events such as the Holocaust Museum shooting, the shooting of two U.S. soldiers in Little Rock, Arkansas, and even the shooting of Dr. George Tiller at his church are all incidents that, had they gone slightly different, might have found a local police officer scrambling to "talk the suspect(s) down" until a professionally-skilled negotiator arrived on the scene.

I, as many of my colleagues around the state, plan to be prepared for such an event should it unfold within our jurisdictions. We can only be prepared if we know and practice what we do and this starts with training and then getting and keeping our heads in the game. For those of you who work in the correctional facilities around our great state you will find these same people in your institutions. They are committed to their "causes" and I am certain will provide many correctional officers with daily challenges regardless of whether they have hostages or are commiting or threatening crimes.

For the price of our three day conference you won't find a better value for your agency's dollars. Registration is open on-line and is a simple process. Your registration will be acknowledged by me and I will prepare an invoice and email it to the provided address within your registration. It is important that each person attending complete the on-line registration form so that we have accurate records. Please feel free to contact me if you have further questions. The necessary information about our conference is at the left on our home page and can be accessed with the various menu choices.

The Board of Directors and I are especially excited about our tenth conference and hope you will join us. See you then!!