Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2015 |
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It's here! SART 2015 Planning Meeting
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It’s here and it’s time. The theme for the 4th Florida SART Planning Meeting is SART – Turning Visions into Action. Conference speakers, seminars and opportunities to
get-to-know other responders and response agencies have been cast in concrete. Registration is complete and now it’s time to get to know your fellow responders. The meeting begins at 1:00 pm on Monday, January 12th and concludes at noon on Wednesday the 14th. The host hotel is the Embassy Suites, Lake Buena Vista South, 4955 Kyngs Heath Road, Kissimmee, FL 34746: (407) 597-4000. For last minute conference related questions contact CMC & Associates (850) 224-7775 or jchapman@cmc-associates.com.
Monday, January 12
1:00 Call to Order – David Perry, FDACS/SART Co-chair
Welcome – Stephen Watts, Director, Osceola Co. Emergency Management
Greetings – Dr. Lisa Conti, FDOH
1:30 SERT Program – Bryan Koon, Director, FDEM
2:00 Brevard County Large Animal Plan – Lacie Davis, Coordinator, Brevard Co.
Emergency Management
2:30 New Animal Courses
LECALE: Dr. Matt Hersom, Dept. of Animal Sciences, UF
Animal Emergency Sheltering – Operations Level: Consie von Gontard, SARC
3:00 Break
3:15 Social Media in an Emergency – David Merrick, Director, Center for Disaster
Risk Policy, FSU
6:00 Attendee Gathering
7:00 Adjourn
 | Stephen Watts is a Certified Emergency Manager with more than 25 years of experience in emergency management, homeland security, fire/rescue and other life safety programs. He is experienced in all phases of comprehensive emergency management including: plan development, procedures and operations; development and delivery of training programs and exercises; management of homeland security related grant programs; coordinating multi-agency responses to a myriad of disasters and emergency events; management and direction of Emergency Operations Centers. |
Tuesday, January 13
8:00 Announcements – David Perry, FDACS/SART Co-chair
8:15 Radiological Planning – John Williamson, Administrator, Bureau of Radiation
Control, Florida Department of Health
11:30 SART Awards Luncheon
1:30 Radiological Planning
with John Williamson, continued
5:00 Adjourn
Wednesday, January 14
8:00 Breakout Session: Invited IFAS and FDACS staff
personnel – Dr. Mike Short
8:15 “Don’t Pack a Pest” – Denise Feiber, FDACS/DPI
9:30 Lee County Animal Decontamination Workshop
John Haven, Director,
College of Veterinary Medicine, UF
10:30 Break
10:45 Federal Partner Reports – USDA
Dr. George Chambliss, Moderator
Dr. Cris Young, Veterinary Services
Dr. Allan Hogue, Animal Care
Rick Dantzler, Farm Service Agency
Dr. Ty Vannieuwenhoven, U.S. Dept. of HHS
12:00 Adjourn
Fancy name for "dog catcher" … or not?
 | Times change. Vocabulary changes. The recognition of a public need and the subsequent funding to address it evolve over time. When your Editor was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, animal control specialists were referred to – in a general manner – as “dog catchers.” It was not a particularly respectful term, but times change … Today’s “dog catcher” is a skilled animal control specialist, a man or woman who is interested both in animal welfare and that difficult intersection of human-animal contact that is often difficult for most pet owners to understand. The animal control task is a mixture of love, dedication, public service |
and training, and the skills are often practiced in the spotlight of public critique. Not a job for the faint of heart.
The Florida Animal Control Association, Inc., (FACA) was originally organized in 1961 as the Florida State Animal Control Officers Association. In 1984 the Association was reorganized and chartered as the Florida Animal Control Association. In 1994 the purpose statement was changed to include “protection” as well as “control.”
FACA’s mission is:
- To cooperate with public agencies dealing in animal control and protection.
- To provide assistance to local animal organizations through supporting disaster planning and post-disaster operations.
- To promote justice and equity in enforcement of local and state laws and regulations.
According to its web site at http://floridaanimalcontrol.org/, “Through this mission, [FACA] hopes to improve the methods and standards of the animal control and protection profession while informing the public of the importance of work performed by these professionals.
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"A non-profit organization, FACA is composed of individual, organizational, related associate, and corporate members. Membership fees, voting privileges, and other requirements of membership are delineated in the Constitution and Bylaws of FACA and policy-making is vested in the Board of Directors."
Relief Organizations Need to Think Long-Term
“We need to rethink the way we respond to disasters. We need to rethink the approach that basically says you come in, do good deeds for a little while and then you walk off and leave the problems with the people that are still there. It’s easy to go in and do good deeds for a short period of time. What’s hard is sustainability.”
Glenn Morris, Director, Emerging Pathogens Institute, UF
You can read Julia Glum’s summary of her interview with Dr. Morris
in the Fall 2014 issue of Explore: Research at the University of Florida online at http://research.ufl.edu/publications/exploremagazine.html.