NENA 25 National Convention - Long Beach

Once again, I haven’t written in a long time. I know Bad Dr. D! I have not been as diligent as a blogger as I would like to be. So now that my mea culpa is out of the way, let’s proceed to the next step in this blog, actually discussing information.

Last week, I was out in Long Beach, CA at the NENA 2025 Annual Convention at the Long Beach Convention Center. It was a bit of an “old home” week for me. I used to live near the convention center over 20 years ago. Obviously, some things were completely differnt while some things have not changed. In a way, it was nice to be back in the area. I was able to take the old Green Line and the Blue Line to get down to Long Beach from the airport.

However, once the convention started, I found myself a lot busier than I expected I would be. I had two presentations to give. I knew that going in. What surprised me was the number of people who walked up to strike up a conversation. I am sitll not used to that one. My wife tells me that she doesn’t know why I am so surprised, I’ve been working on so many different things for the City and the community that I shouldn’t be surprised that people want to get a piece of my brain. I also had some really interesting and substantive meetings with several people. That helped me get some good directions for future research.

Ironically, one of the best meetings during the week had nothing to do with the convention. I was contacted by a colleague from private industry regarding a topic that has become a passion for me. I’ve started working on trying to build new staffing models for 9-1-1 centers. To that end, I lead a working group that is working on developing a new staffing model workbook. So, I have been talking to