President’s Message

MESSAGE FROM TMA PRESIDENT MORGAN HERTEL, RAPID RESPONSE MONITORING The New President’s Big Plan for TMA

His agenda; what is going to change and why

As with every change in leadership, many of the same questions often come up. What is your big plan? How will this make anything better? It’s a valid and normal thought process to ask and wonder what is going to change and why.

What many people don’t know is that TMA has a very thoughtful and purposebuilt decission process. In my case, I had six years to prepare for the role of president. But, what many don’t realize, in actuality, it’s essential a continuum of leadership. Each presidency feeds off the last one and in turn, is also preparing for the next one. This model allows key priorities to reach fruition in not two years, but in most cases, preparation starts four or six years before each president takes office.

TMA’s Immediate Past President Don Young and I started to brainstorm on initiatives and goals that we both wanted to achieve early on so that he could make sure that the stage was set for me to succeed. This long-term execution, along with the long-range planning working groups, make sure that we succeed over the long term and that there are very few flash-in-the-pan ideas.

All that being said, here are some of the “legs of the stool” we are going to focus on during my term. These are not necessarily just things I want to do, but are in harmony with the longrange planning groups, the Executive Committee, and the Board of Directors. It is a full team effort, for sure. property. This requires that processes are vetted and approved by all of the stakeholders. By doing it this way, we are assured that we all have the same requirements and are all on the same playing field.

We have several new standards projects taking off the ground now and a couple of them well on their way to public comment. As these start to formalize, more details will be shared.

Realignment of TMA: The age-old problem of committee overload is present in all trade associations. Ours is no different in that we have a committee for everything—even committees to make sure what committees are needed. While it sounds funny having this many stakeholders and volunteers in the process, it can take forever and a day to get anything thing done.

We are fortunate enough to have a solid and talented staff. In fact, they’re some of the best in the business. We are going to take advantage of this and morph what we have into more of a working group model. As such, each will have specific tasks and goals, along with staff oversight, to make sure the working groups stay focused and on time.

We want to make use of the volunteers

Standards: As fast as everything is changing, we need a way to make sure that we have a defined way to get from point A to point B. We are in the business of savings lives and protecting in shorter, more defined projects vs. standing committees that have endless meetings. By doing so, projects will be completed more effectively and efficiently. This will also limit the time commitment for the volunteers. The end goal is to have shorter turnaround times, but also have more opportunities for volunteers to participate in the programs with briefer, better-defined timelines. Training: TMA currently has two great online courses aimed at the monitoring center dispatcher. This has served us well, but have not been able to work on training for all the other positions that our member companies need or want. We plan to partner with several other training providers that will allow our members to purchase additional training programs at very competitive rates.

In addition to the online training, we will continue to deliver training for all via the various meetings (both in person and virtual) that we host during the year. The goal of these training sessions is to keep our members up-to-speed on many of the new standards and technologies that are coming our way. These will be very specific educational opportunities that will be required in order for our members to be successful over the next decade and more.

I am very excited about what’s in store for the next two years. Hopefully, we can start having in-person meetings and we can see each other face-to-face. I also want to make sure that if anyone wants to talk or email about anything, my proverbial door is open all of the time.

So, please feel free to contact me.

Morgan Hertel President The Monitoring Association