As the President of the Arizona Tactical Officers Association let me welcome you to the 2010, and our first, annual conference. The ATOA is please to have you as part of our association. We are an association that has been established to advance the education and professionalism of law enforcement officers involved in Tactical and Emergency Response.
Our organization was established just last year, in hopes to serve Law Enforcement Officers throughout the State of Arizona. Are goal, to exchange ideas and information relating to tactics, techniques, equipment and training. In addition, the ATOA is attempting to develop a network which will provide input between law enforcement departments, sworn personnel, and Chiefs of Police and Sheriffs throughout Arizona.
It was just last year that a group of officers ranging in rank from Officer to Commander, all from the tactical community, came together in hopes to develop the ATOA. It was recognized that for far too long Arizona lacked an association designed to assist you, the AZ tactical officer. Yet, just looking around this room it is clear there was a need and more importantly the talent was here in Arizona to make this association work.
Over the last year and a half, the ATOA has been diligently working on building and developing a young association and in that time the ATOA has been recognized by the State of Arizona as a corporation. We were also recognized as a non for profit association and was provided 501.C.3 tax exempt status. There has been the development of our website Aztac.org and the ATOA announced a training coordinator and continues to look to provided low cost or no cost training for tactical officers here in Arizona.
We have had an extremely busy and successful first year, yet we have only begun, and your ATOA board members are already working on developing goals and plans for next year. Some of the goals for next year are to continue to develop and provide training to the tactical community. The ATOA hopes to be able to provide valuable, low cost training, on at least a quarterly basis for 2011 and in the future perhaps have a training class held each and every month somewhere throughout the state of Arizona.
In addition, for 2011, we hope to make vast improvements with the ATOA website. The current site is a work in progress, and for those that have faced some of the website challenges please accept our apologies but we are working on it. We hope that the website in the future will not only provide a forum for information exchange but will perhaps provide you information regarding up coming training and best practices in the tactical community.
Regional Representation… the ATOA is a statewide association and we hope to hold ourselves to the concept. So much so that the ATOA wrote this into our existing bylaws. I am happy to say that the ATAO now has membership from over thirty-five law enforcement agencies around the state. However, in order for the ATOA to remain successful and on track there is a great need for regional representation within the association. The ATOA is asking for your help. If you happen to be from a law enforcement agency outside of Maricopa County and you are interested in being active with the ATOA, please get in touch with one of our board members. You can do this today, by talking to someone in one of the red shirts or by giving us your information on the bottom of the evaluation form. Again, we feel that it is vitally important, for the ATOA to be successful we need representation from the tactical community throughout the entire state of Arizona.
The ATOA hopes to be holding an annual conference each year. As I mentioned earlier, each of you was provided the opportunity to fill out an evaluation sheet. The ATOA values your input and this association belongs to you. It will not be possible for the ATOA to grow and progress without your input. Please be frank regarding your comments. Again, we feel it is vitally important for the ATOA to be a statewide association and perhaps we will be able to have this conference in other parts of the state. Or we can look into having this conference as more than a one day event with breakout sessions. The possibilities are wide open and we are open to all of your ideas. It is important to let the board know what you think and what you would like to see in the future with your association.
It is a very simple recipe, in order for the ATOA to be successful, we need your help. Please pass along information regarding the ATOA to officers you feel would benefit from the programs provided by the ATOA. Give board members input on what you would like to see from the ATOA or perhaps volunteer to serve on the board or as an instructor. Be active it really is up to each and everyone of us to make the ATOA a premier law enforcement association not only here in Arizona but across the county.
