Given the increasing amount of mass violence currently plaguing society, numerous individuals and organizations well-versed in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) are advocating for the application of traditional command theories within unconventional environments, including the critical yet dynamic first 30 minutes. However, as many of our peers have already discovered the hard way, "corralling guests and filling vests," running formal checklists, and relying on conventional communication is not only challenging...but, at times... may hinder operations.

In response to this dilemma, High-Risk Unified Commander (HRUC) was developed to provide contemporary and realistic strategies, tactics, and related information bosses can then use to accomplish their tactical objectives more timely and efficiently. With four of the eight hours of content being interactive (including demonstrations of interior tactics and a tabletop exercise based on past events), HRUC is a fast-paced yet comprehensive training program that offers front-line supervisors unparalleled information in a reasonable amount of time. Participants will learn how to apply lessons learned and resulting recommendations to incidents occurring in urban environments with high operational tempo and rural ones with limited resources.

Jim Etzin is the Emergency Medical Services Coordinator for the Farmington Hills (MI) Fire Department and Oakland County Tactical Training Consortium (OakTac), a mutual aid organization comprised of 40 law enforcement agencies serving approximately 1.3 million people. He is also the founder of the International Tactical EMS Association (ITEMS) and served as a United States Navy corpsman during combat operations in Operation Desert Storm and then as a full-time combat medicine instructor for the 1st Marine Division. After becoming the first Corpsman to ever attend the United States Marine Corps Military Police School and Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) School, he then served as both an operator and medic for the only full-time Marine Corps SWAT team at the time. In the immediate aftermath of the infamous North Hollywood Bank of America takeover robbery and shootout in 1997, two years prior to the incident at Columbine High School, Etzin was the first in the United States to conceptualize what's now known as the Rescue Task Force approach to casualty management within such environments. He has been studying, practicing, and teaching active assailant response and tactical medicine for 35 years and is consequently considered a subject matter expert on not only the history of these events but also how to best mitigate them tactically and medically.