Share, Challenge, Steal
This one reads a little different than most issues. It's a recap, not a deep dive into one concept, this time from the 2026 ALERT conference in Atlanta. But the reason I keep going back to conferences like this one is the same reason I write this newsletter at all. You don't sharpen your skills as an instructor by staying inside your own building. You do it by stepping outside your own ecosystem and seeing how someone else does the same job.
I heard the phrase that titles this issue from a speaker at GPSTC, the Georgia Public Safety Training Center: share, challenge, steal. That's what a good conference does. You share what's working, you challenge what isn't, and you steal whatever anyone else has already figured out that you haven't.
It started Sunday night with the ALERT board, before any of the sessions or the vendor displays went up. Good food, better conversation. Different board members got into discussions on simulators, on due regard, on where ALERT needs to go from here. Nothing fancy, just the kind of conversation that only happens when you're in the same room.
Monday was long, mostly registration and getting the floor ready, but full of good conversations with attendees, some of whom had read the newsletter or wanted to talk through a training concept. The evening was harder. This year's social was named the Karl Smalley Social, in honour of Karl, who passed away this year. Karl stood about 6'5", and you never missed him walking into a room. He was always positive, always the first regional rep to respond to an email, and he showed up to every conference I attended, including the one he hosted himself back in 2019. He appreciated every event he went to, and he said so, every time. The Gentle Giant will be missed, and many of us in the room felt it.
By Tuesday, the work started in earnest. Brett Cowell and I presented for the National Policing Institute, and it went well. It's clear that hazard perception and commentary driving still aren't top of mind for a room that's mostly cone course and track trainers by background, but there were good insights in the room about how to apply it, and standing in front of people who don't already think the way you do tells you more than a room full of people who agree with you ever could. A session on generational learning was excellent too, covering cameras, drones, and positive reinforcement, and how the newer students actually take in information. Worth stealing. But honestly, my best takeaways that day weren't from either session. They came from hallway conversations with people trying to build a case for their own agencies, either to get more training approved or to start evolving what they already have. If that's you, keep reading, because that's where this issue is headed.
Out on the track, there was a Firestone tire comparison, Polaris UTVs, Pure Forge brakes, an agility course, and a collision avoidance course. The real value was standing around them talking to other agencies about what's actually working for them. The agility course also turned into a little competition among attendees for the best time, bragging rights plus a genuinely solid prize from a sponsor, a full training course. Quite the payout for a few runs through some cones.
The final day brought "Brighter isn't always better," a thorough presentation, honestly a bit over my head in places, but the core message landed: brighter red and blue in daylight, dimmed at night, synchronized flash patterns between vehicles on scene, with a calming effect on approaching drivers. The ambush presentation was strong too. The line that stuck: the body cannot go where the mind has never been. At the banquet, the 2027 host was announced: TEEX in College Station, Texas. A large training facility located in a cool college town. Next year should be great!
Here's why all of this matters if you're building a case for conference attendance, whether it's ALERT or anything else. This isn't theoretical for me.
Push bars are now on every one of our front-line cruisers, and a lot of the research and best practices behind that came straight from within the ALERT membership. Our light bar committee got the research and the contacts it needed when we were shopping for our current system through conversations with other agencies in that same network. We're not in the market for a new one right now, but that groundwork is what's in place today.
Last year in LA, I experienced the Grappler police bumper system firsthand, something I never would have come across staying inside my own agency. I've been quietly working that file ever since, and last week, while I was in Atlanta, a demo unit went onto one of our training pickups. Looking forward to putting it in front of senior command and making the case to purchase them.
I've also audited programs at FLETC in Georgia and taken multiple courses through the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, OPOTA, both off the back of relationships built at this conference. None of that shows up on an expense report. All of it shows up in the training your officers get.
Here's the part most people miss when they're asking for approval. Risk managers and senior command don't think in terms of cone courses and track time. They think in terms of the agency's own stated goals. Pull up your department's strategic plan. Somewhere in there is language about officer safety, road safety, liability reduction, employee professional development, or community trust. My own agency's plan has a goal to foster an inclusive, engaged and progressive workplace, and under that goal are objectives to support the physical and psychological well-being and safety of employees, and to support their continued growth through resources and development opportunities. That's not driver training language. That's my agency's own words, and it's exactly what I point to when I make the case for sending people to this kind of training. Yours almost certainly has something just as usable, sitting in plain sight.
Push bars, light bars, a Grappler system, FLETC, OPOTA. Every one of those came from stepping outside my own ecosystem for a few days a year, not from anything I could have found sitting at my own desk.
Don't ask for training. Ask for the thing your agency already said it wants, and show them conference attendance is how you get there.
The whole ALERT membership is an email away now. That's the actual return on investment.
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Hugh Anderson EVOC Trainer | Author of Emergency Vehicle Operation Instruction: 5 Steps to Enhancing Your EVOC Training Grab the book on Amazon
