The Texas Association of Emergency Vehicle Technicians formed in 1992 with the intent to provide low- or no-cost training and adequately support the needs of fire departments across the state.

TAEVT has 248 active members, mostly from Texas, but also from six other states. The current TAEVT mailing list contains nearly 1,200 entries. Of those on the list, only 365 are from Texas.

TAEVT meets on a quarterly basis in Ft. Worth, Houston, College Station and San Antonio, where we hold a two-day mini-conference. The organization currently is considering expanding meetings to five times per year and adding a meeting in the Texas Panhandle.

TAEVT meetings begin with a short business meeting followed by a half-day of instruction. There is no charge to TAEVT members to attend training, conducted by factory reps or other subject-matter experts.

At each meeting, there also is a special EVTCC test session. Currently, combined with the two special test sessions conducted during the Southwest EVT Conference and the two national test dates offered by EVTCC, Texas EVTs have the opportunity to test eight times each year. With the planned expansion of our meeting schedule, Texas EVTs will have the opportunity to test on 10 occasions throughout the year.

Texas currently has 329 certified EVTs, including 43 master fire, 23 master ambulance and 7 are master ARFF techs. Additionally TAEVT member Thomas Price was the first EVT in the country to obtain all EVT certifications offered through the EVTCC.

Perhaps the most popular annual TAEVT event is the mid-Summer meetings in College Station, which always draws a large crowd. The meeting is held in conjunction with the Texas Engineering Extension Service's two-week Fire School event. TAEVT’s Saturday meeting is held in between the week-long Industrial Fire School and the weeklong Municipal Fire School which are held on the grounds of Texas A&M University's Brayton Field.

Combining resources, TAEVT and the Oklahoma Association of Emergency Vehicle Technicians host the annual Southwest EVT Conference. The 2010 edition of the Southwest EVT Conference is set for March 01-05, 2010 in Fort Worth, TX. A variety of courses will again be offered in 2010, including Ambulance, Apparatus, Police vehicle and more. The site of this year's event is the world-famous, state of the art Tarrant County College Fire Service Training Center. Host hotel is the Holiday Inn Hotel Ft Worth North-Fossil Creek. As previously mentioned, a pre-conference EVTCC test session will be held on Sunday and a post-conference EVTCC test session will be held on Friday following the event. For more information please visit www.taevt.org or e-mail info@taevt.org.

For more information on the Texas Association of Emergency Vehicle Technicians please visit www.taevt.org. You may also direct questions to TAEVT President Gary Morrison, by e-mailing gmorrison@taevt.org.