IED Awareness Training Update

I’ve got some additional information on the IED Awareness Training that I described in Monday’s blog (see: “Improvised Explosive Awareness Training”). I have some information on the people that will be giving the training. The original piece that pointed me at this training (the ACC web site) said that Oxley Enterprises had the contract ‘to deliver’ the training. I did some research on Oxley and found that they did a lot of government and business training. Unfortunately, their web site doesn’t show any kind of background in improvised explosive devices. This bothered me more than a little. I did some additional digging. Oxley may be ‘delivering’ the training, but they subcontracted the development and presentation to A-T solutions. A quick check of their web site shows that they do have the necessary expertise and experience. This outfit is mainly ex-Navy with experience in Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD), Underwater Demolition, and Special Operations (Seal). And they have extensive training experience, both military and civilian. This looks like it will be a real bang-up course. Actually, with their background, it is something of a shame that this will all be classroom type instruction. I’ll bet they could put on a real good field demonstration. I had heard somewhere that this was going to be adapted for a web based training program. It seems that that was some bad information. DHS does have an option to extend the contract for up to two additional six-class terms. The potential locations have not yet been identified.