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AV Systems
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A home for Howard County
New facility offers training for police, fire personnel
Feb 14, 2008
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by Nancy Caronia
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Since 9/11, police and fire and rescue operations throughout the United States have expanded training in order to encompass the growing demands of homeland security. Multimedia applications such as digital signage play an important role in sharing information with personnel in the field, but just as important is a central location for personnel, including new recruits, to receive up-to-date training in a timely manner.
In Marriotsville, MD, training for the Howard County Police Department and Fire and Rescue Services Department recently moved into a 45,000-square-foot building that houses 16 administrative offices, 14 interactive multimedia classrooms, a 235-person multi-purpose conference space, and a fitness room within the $35 million James N. Robey Public Safety Training Center. The 38-acre site had housed the Howard County Police Department's firing range for more than 20 years, but has been redesigned over the last seven years to provide police and fire and rescue training at one dedicated facility.
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| The James N. Robey Public Safety Training Center offers a permanent facility for the training of police and fire personnel in Howard County. |
Commuting And Conflicts
Previously, police and fire personnel had to commute to three separate facilities -- most times outside Howard County -- to receive training. Not only was this time consuming in terms of travel, but the longer training periods meant that the departments had to make numerous compromises in schedules. In fact, until the center opened its doors last October, Howard was the only county within the state that didn't have a public safety training facility.
According to Gary Jones, Howard County Fire Department battalion chief in charge of support services, members of the fire department were sent off-site for practical training, while classroom training was done partly in county-owned properties and partly off-site. "Sometimes we had a room at a community college, and 10 years ago we were actually working out of a site that had some portable classrooms on it, but the property was sold and we had to move. We took over an old school building built in the 30s or 40s. It gave us nice classrooms, but anything with hands-on training, we had to travel to other jurisdictions.
"The police had a similar history," he continued. "They even held some of their training in a county office building, which meant they were sharing space with office workers. We train in a paramilitary environment and that is not something we like to do."
Since the center opened, Jones estimated that the fire department has cut down training by two weeks due to the elimination of travel and scheduling conflicts with other jurisdictions. "We're in a metropolitan area," he explained. "If we called to schedule a classroom, we were often told, 'We have a class going then. This is what we have available,' which meant we had to juggle our schedules."
AV On A Budget
Jones was the point man in the multimedia design of the classrooms and now manages not only multimedia issues, but also serves as a sort of facility manager for the center. "The entire facility, when it's done in July, will have an additional seven buildings," he said. "Even though this main building gives us most of our functionality, we won't be 100 percent until these other buildings are up and running."
Named for state Senator James Robey, a former Howard County police chief and county executive, the center is in its third phase of construction and will eventually include a pump house and drafting pond, structural fire fighting tower, police simulation buildings, fire and rescue trainers, and a K-9 training building and grounds. Additional areas will allow for exposure, confined space, and trench rescue training, a driving skills pad with vehicle extraction area, and fire grounds building.
The main building had been built when the Baltimore-based Kipp Visual, which had previously helped with the fire department's internal digital signage system, was asked to assist with the design, implementation, and installation of the classrooms and conference room. The budget for the center was tight -- costs needed to be kept to under $18,000 per classroom -- and the county wanted an all-in-one multimedia system that both police and fire personnel could use with ease.
"Technology has changed so much," noted Jones. "The way I learned is not the way younger people learn. Kipp Visual helped us to create an end-user friendly environment."
"They got an awful lot of bang for the buck," said Mike Levine, Kipp Visual audio visual sales engineer who worked closely with Jones. "It is possible to design a system that has very little bells and whistles, but is reliable and gets the job done."
The entire installation took Kipp Visual approximately 45 days. "It was a tight schedule so we kind of condensed the installation," said Levine.
Hitachi 15-inch touch panels were installed in Da-Lite multimedia lecterns and 70-inch Hitachi whiteboards were put on the front wall of the classrooms, so instructors could easily move back and forth between the two. The lecterns were also outfitted with Extron MLC 104 controllers, Panasonic DVD/VCR recorders, and small Audio-Technica microphone pre-amps for the one fixed and two wireless Audio-Technica mics. A trainer just needs to clip on a microphone, press a switch, and the system boots up. While the 15-inch monitor and the whiteboard start up simultaneously, instructors can plug their own laptops into the system for use with the whiteboard. The rooms also have Sanyo PLC-WX55 projectors.
Save It Or Share It
Jones noted that it's simple for him to record a training session in the facility classrooms and repurpose them for later use. "Recently, I videotaped one doctor's training session," he offered, "and by the time he was finished packing up I had an edited DVD of the presentation. I recorded it to hard drive and burned a DVD. It gives the instructor rapid rewards, but I can also repurpose it and send it out to the fire stations so everyone can benefit from it."
Every classroom is linked to a central control center. There are Panasonic CCTV cameras in the back of each classroom, which are fed into an Extron matrix switching system and JVC recorders, so Jones can edit training sessions or send each segment right to archive.
AV signals can also be distributed throughout the building through the Extron switcher and an RF distribution network for display on four 50-inch Panasonic plasma screens that are outfitted with Scala digital signage software. In addition, there are 20 LCD television monitors scattered throughout the building that tie into the RF system.
The conference room is actually two rooms that can be repurposed into a larger space that will hold 235 people. Due to its size, a full ceiling audio system complete with Atlas speakers and Rolls amps was put into place. The audio was zoned so that it could be operated separately in two rooms or the one larger space.
Between paramedics, EMTs, police, and firefighters, the center can have as many as several hundred trainees pass through its doors each day. In addition, outside agencies have approached the center for special classes and meetings. Jones noted that the building is usually open about 16 hours a day, because there are 500 volunteer firefighters (in addition to its 250 salaried firefighters) who can only attend training sessions during the evening.
MORE INFO
Adobe adobe.com
Atlas Sound atlassound.com
Audio-Technica audio-technica.com
Da-Lite da-lite.com
Extron Electronics extron.com
Hitachi hitachi.com
Howard County Government howardcountymd.gov
JVC jvc.com/pro
Kipp Visual kippvisual.com
Panasonic panasonic.com/broadcast
Rolls rolls.com
Sanyo sanyo.com
Scala scala.com
BOX
@Head:How much training?
@Body:With the added sophistication of DVD and online training, Howard County trainees have more options than ever, which is helpful since it can be difficult to keep volunteer firefighters once they realize they'll need to go through 200 hours or more of federally mandated training each year.
Profile: Gary Jones
Gary Jones of the Howard County Fire Department is the only full-time multimedia staff person at the new training center. He became involved in training about 10 years ago when he was still working "typical" firefighter shifts.
"I asked our training people what we had in terms of video equipment, but they told me that we didn't have anything," he recalled. "We purchased six VCRs and I had a Canon and taught myself everything about video production. Five years ago, the fire chief put me in a position to run with this full time."
Jones said the new facility was worth the wait. "I've never worked so hard in my life," he said. "It's like having 10 houses being built and there's always something going wrong. Not just technology -- there are landscaping issues, doors not closing properly, but any building process is long and drawn out. Ultimately, it's been a rewarding experience and it's paid off."
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