NBFAA Leaders Gathered for Annual Meeting

NBFAA’s 2008 Leadership Summit was a great success. More than 90 association leaders, their spouses, volunteers and staff met in Irving, Texas to discuss important association matters and to receive tips, tricks and insights to running and leading a successful association. It was not all work though, as attendees were treated to several receptions and a dinner at one of North Texas’ finest wineries. The week was rich with socializing, networking and information.

Here are some of the major news stories from the Summit:

Virginia Burglar & Fire Alarm Association is Back!

Emil Wengel, VBFAA past president and Beth Cain, VBFAA vice president enjoy dinner and drinks at Farina’s Winery in Grapevine, Texas during the NBFAA Leadership Dinner.

The NBFAA Board of Directors unanimously welcomed the Virginia Burglar & Fire Alarm Association (VBFAA) back as a chartered chapter. The VBFAA Board of Directors voted at the end of 2007 to rejoin the chapter alliance, and NBFAA made it official at the board meeting in Dallas.

“We’re very glad to be back,” said VBFAA Past President Emil Wengel. “It was a long, hard up-hill climb, but our membership was behind us and when it came time to vote, it was unanimous.”

The entire board offered a warm and sincere “welcome back” to Wengel and VBFAA, vice president, Beth Cain, who were both in attendance at the Leadership Summit in Dallas.

NBFAA Announces New Standing Committee Members

Members of the new Apprenticeship Committee were announced at the NBFAA Board of Directors’ Meeting.

The new committee will begin holding meetings by the end of the month. Members of the committee include:

• Chairman - Ron Petrarca, New York
• Danette Tizkowski, Pennsylvania
• Ray Jones, Ohio
• Mike Latty, Georgia
• Ron Foreman, Louisiana

Art Webster, apprenticeship program consultant, will also be working with the committee and Dale Eller, NBFAA director of education and standards.

The committee will work on marketing NBFAA’s nationally-approved, four-year apprenticeship program to its chartered chapters and encourage them to consider implementing it in their own states.

“I’m honored to lead this new committee and I look forward to the challenges and successes to come,” said Petrarca.

It was the experiences of New York and Louisiana, two states actively engaged in implementing the program, which led to the creation of the committee.

“There’s a stigma among industry professionals that an apprenticeship program is associated with a union, and that’s not true in this case. We need to eliminate that thinking and begin a more appealing marketing program that highlights the benefits of apprenticeship,” Petrarca said.

Petrarca added that those benefits include a well trained and established workforce and greater customer trust.

New and Improved Level I Training Announced!

The NBFAA Education Committee has recently completed work on updating and revamping the "Certified Alarm Technician (Level I)" training course.

Members of the education committee hold a working meeting to discuss the creation of the "Servicing, Maintaining and Troubleshooting in the Security Industry" training course.

“The new course,” said Paul Baran, chairman of the committee, “addresses new technology such as Internet Protocol (IP) networking, and is more relevant to today’s workforce.”

The committee has been working in conjunction with a course developer to update the course since September 2007 and has spent more than 2,000 man hours in weekly meetings.

The new course will also feature the NBFAA branding that will soon be carried over to all NTS courses. This branding, Baran explained, will allow students to recognize an NBFAA-created training course more easily.

The course is currently in beta testing and is slated to be launched to the general population sometime in March.

Baran also mentioned a new NTS offering in the works titled "Servicing, Maintaining and Troubleshooting in the Security Industry." This course, he explained, is being created due to new mandates by the state of New York, but has great value for the entire industry, so the Education Committee decided to make it part of the school’s core curriculum.