President Bruce Isaacson
As the newly elected President of the Rocky Mountain Hostage Negotiators (RMHN), I would like to welcome everyone and thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I will try to express the intent and focus of RMHN as succinctly as possible. RMHN was established as a joint effort by many people, too many to name here, to provide a means of exchanging information and meaningful training for negotiators. The men and women who have put countless hours into making this association a fact are listed under the Board of Directors link on the home page.
The association began coming together in the spring of 2000 when Sgt. Wilkes of the Aurora Police Department invited all interested negotiators to meet and discuss various issues involving hostage/crisis negotiations. There were about twenty-five people at the meeting and all were very interested in organizing an association. Several of us remembered that a few years ago, area negotiators gathered together irregularly to discuss recent negotiator situations. The meetings were valuable but the scheduling was sporadic, attendance fell and the meeting faded away. To avoid this same fate we decided to form, for lack of a better word, a group to keep negotiators informed of new techniques and more importantly provide appropriate training for negotiators.
RMHN is quickly becoming an entity of its’ own. The Board of Directors met on several occasions and numerous decisions have been made. Those decisions included setting up the association as a non-profit corporation with the state of Colorado, adopting By-Laws, opening a checking account, producing business cards, establishing a topic/message phone line (303-795-4991), creating an Internet home page and a lot of minutia. Trudging through the details has resulted in great decisions.
First of all RMHN will meet four times a year. There will be a conference lasting three to five days at the last quarterly meeting starting in 2001. Membership will be $20.00 per person for one year and will include training at the first three quarterly meetings and a discount at the yearly conference.
Currently Carl Higbee, our Southern Representative, is sponsoring a contest with his art students to produce a unique emblem for our association. When the finalists are selected it will be the members of RMHN that will decide what emblem will represent us.
RMHN is already known internationally and is beginning to obtain a reputation of professionalism and integrity. As the elected President, I will assure that our reputation exceeds expectations of our members and that all who choose to become members of the association will be proud to be members.
Our mission is dedication to promoting professionalism and continuing quality training for hostage/crisis negotiators.
Sincerely,
Bruce Isaacson
