The COML course is based on a three-day, 24-hour curriculum, with two trained instructors leading each class. (Instructor training began last year.) Students who successfully complete the course will receive certificates, with copies also sent to the State Administrative Agency in the student's state of employment. The SAAs can catalog certified COMLs according to their own guidelines and are responsible for identifying potential course-takers, instructors and a process for COML credentialing.

Thirty seats are available for each class, with travel the responsibility of the state or local agency. However, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Grant Programs Directorate allows Homeland Security Grant Program funds and Interoperable Emergency Communications Grant Program funds to be used for COML training travel, as well as overtime and other backfill expenses, and by SAAs to develop and administer the credentialing processes.

Baker says that what the training really amounts to is an emphasis on preparedness and the establishment of good cross-jurisdictional relationships that can be relied on in an emergency.

“Eighty-five percent of the work at the Type-III level is done ahead of time,” Baker says. “It's all in the planning with your neighbors: getting communications plans built ahead of time; getting your templates between the radios with common channels straightened out; determining what frequencies you're going to be on; whether you're going to use gateways, how you're going to use them, who is going to deploy them, and so on.”

As complicated as it may sound, Baker says that developing the course amounted to getting common-sense procedures down on paper so they could be easily taught and reproduced for would-be communications leaders.

“This stuff is all about relationships, about knowing where your resources are and getting them to work,” Baker says. “The most important thing is making sure you have these relationships established ahead of time.

“There are enough variables in any emergency situation,” he continued. “The COML course is about minimizing the stuff that needs to be figured out on the fly, because there will always be plenty of that anyway.”

Dave Plank is a contributing writer. This article first appeared in Urgent Communications.

For More Info

DHS has announced COML Type III training sessions through November in locations nationwide. See www.safecomprogram.gov/SAFECOM/currentprojects/comltraining for specific dates, locations and times.