ENGLEWOOD, FL (April 24, 2012) – The annual state conference of the New Hampshire Emergency Dispatchers Association (NHEDA), voted unanimously to adopt a uniform standard of training for all state 9-1-1 call takers and dispatchers.  The vote was taken after Denise Amber Lee Foundation President, Nathan Lee, spoke about the tragic story of his wife’s abduction and eventual murder due to mistakes made in his local 9-1-1 center the evening of January 17^th, 2008.  NHEDA President, Paul Bagley, said, “Thanks to Nathan’s presentation we passed the voluntary certification and training standard on a unanimous voice vote!   I cannot begin to thank you enough for attending our opening breakfast and speaking to our organization this year.  Prior to you speaking I was the lone voice in New Hampshire concerning the immediate need for training and certification standards for emergency dispatchers.  Now I have the support within my organization to start moving forward.  Others now see what you and I see.

Your remarks brought tears to literally every person in the room.  Even the hotel staff members present were in awe of your family’s ordeal.  But more important than the story came the understanding of the need for more in-depth training toward an industry standard.  I’m particularly glad you sited the amount of training required to hold a New Hampshire hairdressing or aesthetician license, since both of these life-saving occupations require a level of scrutiny that far exceeds that of the public’s only link to life-saving emergency services.  It is a point that will be made even more loudly in the halls of the State House.”

About the Denise Amber Lee Foundation

The mission of the Denise Amber Lee Foundation, a 501c3 non-profit, is to promote and support public safety through uniform training, standardized protocols, defined measurable outcomes and technological advances in the 9-1-1 system.  Established in June 2008, in response to the murder of Denise Amber Lee, the foundation seeks to use the emotional power of this senseless tragedy to promote and encourage the use of technology, training, and procedures to reduce the occurrences of human error.  The foundation is determined to channel and focus the public outrage of these tragic events to drive rapid change to public policy and procedures.  For more information, please visit www.deniseamberlee.org.

About the New Hampshire Emergency Dispatchers Association (NHEDA)

Founded in 1990 as an organization that would provide free or low-cost training for dispatchers in the absence of any training being provided by the government agencies.  Each year NHEDA provides hundreds of hours of free training.  Meetings with training classes are held at a different location across the state each month.  NHEDA also holds an annual one-day supervisor’s conference in October, an academy each spring that includes forty-eight hours of in-depth training, and a three-day training conference in conjunction with its annual meeting that has 33 different workshops covering roughly 40 hours.  In addition, the conference offers guest speakers, such as Nathan, who have an important message concerning our profession.  For more information, go to www.nheda.org.