Newsletter - PresidentsMessage

February 2023

2/1/2023 12:00:00 AM

Greetings members, I wouldlike to wish everyone a Happy New Year and hope that your holidays were full ofjoy and happiness as you celebrated with your loved ones.

I also want to thank everyone whoparticipated in the CAHN elections. Eachvote submitted was beneficial to each of the participating candidates and weall appreciate you taking the time to vote.

Your CAHN Board met mid-January and has alreadybegun the preparations for the next conference to be held at the Hyatt Regency OrangeCounty (Garden Grove).

February 2022

2/14/2022 11:20:57 AM

Resilience- theability to “recover quickly from difficulties”. It’s what is expected of us asfirst responders.

February 2021

2/1/2021 12:33:14 PM

Dear CAHN Members,

Welcome to 2021! Ithink… let’s not jinx it.

As your new CAHNpresident, I am both honored and humbled to take on this new role in servingsuch an outstanding organization. I want to take a moment though and thank ouroutgoing president Arvinder Ginda for his dedicated service to CAHN.

Fall 2020

10/15/2020 11:28:17 AM

Dear CAHN Family,

I hope and pray this message findsyou all well. As we find ourselves going through these tumultuous times,we continue to wonder and question when there will be a moment of relief.

July 2020

6/29/2020 5:25:22 PM

Dear CAHN Members,

I must say that mythoughts and prayers are with each of you. The toll you and your agenciesmust be feeling during these times is unimaginable.

November 2019

11/12/2019 9:00:03 PM

As we head towardsthe end of another year and 30 years of CAHN behind us; I am thankful and honoredto be part of such an amazing organization. For those of you who were able toattend the CAHN Conference in Monterey this year, you attended one of the bestconferences in recent years as remarked by the attendees.

August 2019 PreConference

8/8/2019 2:23:33 PM

Dear CAHN Members,

I hope this message finds all of you well and in goodspirits. It is quite amazing to think we are already into August of 2019;some of us wonder where the time has actually gone.

February 2019

2/24/2019 10:57:41 AM

As weare fast approaching our Annual Training Conference, I wanted to let you knowyour Board is working hard to plan an impressive conference this year. Asmost of you know we are fortunate to be able to return Monterey, CA for this year’sevents.

November 2018

11/18/2018 10:26:10 AM

Iwanted to update you on another wonderful conference that came and went soquickly this year. From all of the feedback we have received from theattendees, I am honored to say this has been one of the best received andhighest rated overall conference we have had in recent years.

August 2018

8/4/2018 4:00:17 PM

I hope all of you are doing well and enjoying your summer. Ialso hope and pray that you were able to get some downtime with your familiesor a vacation from the daily grind all of you have been going through.

August 2018

8/4/2018 4:00:17 PM

February 2018

2/12/2018 12:00:00 AM

Dear CAHN Members,

As we begin thenew year, we begin with a renewed level of confidence knowing that we havesurvived a year of challenges, turmoil and lots of uncertainty in ourcountry. Not to say that this year won't bring its own challenges,turmoil and uncertainty but we can rely on the idea we have survived last yearand are ready to take on whatever comes our way.

November 2017

11/4/2017 12:00:00 AM

Dear CAHN Members

Well we have another wonderfulconference behind us. From everything I have heard so far and fromreading your feedback, the Reno Conference was truly a success and a bighit.

July 2017

7/23/2017 12:00:00 AM

Dear CAHN Members,

As our 2017 CAHN Conference in Reno, Nevada fast approaches, I wanted to reachout and share some exciting news.

As most of youknow this is a very unique opportunity to attend training in the"Biggest Little City" in the world.

March 2017

3/8/2017 12:00:00 AM

First off, I wantto take a moment and thank all of you for voting me into
this position as President of CAHN. I am honored and humbled at the
opportunity to be able to serve such a wonderful organization such as this.

I also want tothank Matt Thomas for a job well done and for keeping the
organization running for the past 10 years.

November 2016

11/11/2016 12:00:00 AM

I hope thismessage finds you all well. With thisnational election behind us we hopefully can begin to focus on the matters athand making our jobs safer than they have been recent months.

I would like totake this time to give a huge thanks to Missy Morris for her organization forthis year’s conference. It was anamazing week of training and hope you all gleaned the information and lessonstaught by our instructors. In reviewingthe comments from the completed surveys, it appears everyone enjoyed their timeboth in and outside of conference. Wehear your requests for not only more debriefs, but debriefs from within thestate. Realize we are constantlymonitoring the news channels about current incidents as they occur and reachingout to agencies within California to bring those incidents to you. This process takes time as most times it hasto wind its way through the court system, then someone has to compose thepresentation and, in most cases get approval from their agency to present theincident. Unfortunately, we have toreach out to our sister associations for new training topics and presentersfrom time to time to bring you quality speakers. The membership has provided some outstandingdrawings/doodles again for us this year, thank you all for sharing your talent.

I know there were some complaints about thetemperature in the room. This is just areminder that in a room that large with a large group, trying to regulate thetemperature is difficult at best. Ourbest effort is to keep the room cool as it is much easier to keep the room coolthan to turn up the temperature and then attempt to reduce the temperatureagain. I also hear you that you wouldlike the coffee service to last longer, an issue that I will be looking intofor the future. There were a couple ofcomments about an offensive t-shirt from the vendor concerning the “blackrifles matter” shirt. Please know it wasnot our intent to offend anyone. Thevendors pay a fee to be at the conference so it is hard to monitor the itemsthat are being sold. Having said that,it was not brought to anyone’s attention on the board that I know during theconference. It was not addressed untilthe evaluations were turned in at the end of the week. If a board member was advised, we would doour very best to see if we could rectify the issue at the time. So please, in the future, notify a boardmember so we can address the problem at the time it is occurring.

The Embassy Suiteshave been a great friend to CAHN, much like the Hyatt has been to us in thepast, and taken great care of us while we have been with them for the past 4years. While there have been someglitches along the way, they have been very attentive to your needs. I would like to extend a thank you to JessicaHaydis, Erica Perez, Stephanie Koch and their staff for taking good care of usduring our time there. We are off toReno for 2017 and looking back to locations in southern California, andhopefully back to a north south rotation. Suggestions are always appreciated.

Lastly, Electionsare coming for several positions, both on the state and region boards. Our board is composed of current, in thefield law enforcement and some are retired from their agencies. I believe all provide valuable insight andassistance to providing the membership with an organization to be proud to be amember of and an organization that strives to provide invaluable training. Having both points of view, I believe, givesour association the dedication and determination to continue moving forward toprovide relevant trainings and presentations. It is also great to see our membership interested in running for theopen positions as it will be good to have some new faces on board. The association is yours and in order tocontinue to provide beneficial training at both the regional and state level,it is important you get involved. Asidefrom running for a board position, voting is the next best way to be involved.

As always, this isyour association, please contact myself, or any other board member with anyconcerns you may have so we may deal with them in a timely manner.

Matt Thomas

President

February 2016

2/25/2016 12:00:00 AM

I would like totake a few moments to extend my condolences to the officer’s families who lostloved ones, 10 since the beginning of this month. One very disturbing loss occurred justyesterday in the city of Vallejo. An offduty City of Richmond officer was killed in his own home by a family memberafter an apparent domestic dispute. Itjust goes to show we can never, never let our guard down. Their families and extended families are inour thoughts and prayers!

Your ConferenceChair is busy putting together another great conference for themembership. We will again be in Anaheimfor 2016. We are searching other venuesas we have reached capacity at the Embassy Suites. I would like to thank Jessica Haydis, EricaPerez and Stephanie Koch for their excellent service they have provided to usfor the past several years. They haveprovided a great venue, good food and entertainment for our conference andmembership.

Your board hasbeen hard at work looking for new venues that can accommodate our group, as itappears to be increasing yearly. Havingsaid that, we have signed a contract for the 2017 conference at the Peppermillin Reno, Nevada. The venue there islarge enough to accommodate CAHN as we grow and provide cost effectiveselections for conferences. We will belooking to going back to alternating North/South so we may be able to serve allof our members. The Peppermill offersless expensive rooms, free parking, and cheaper meeting space. For the administrators out there; theconference room is located on the second floor, where the elevators to therooms are. Soooooo the attendees do nothave to pass the casino floor to access the conference space. I don’t see that as an issue as we have hadDisneyland for the past several years and our members have attended classwithout any problems. Several otherassociations are hosting their conference in Reno this year; CATO and CNOA tomention a few. I think this will be agood experience and location for us for the near future as their costs appearto be more reasonable than what California offers. Stay tuned for more info on the 2017 and 2018conferences. Mark your calendars for the2017 conference dates as they are SEPTEMBER 16^TH THROUGH THE 22^NDof 2017, not the last full week of September.

I look forward toseeing everyone that can make Anaheim this year.

As always this isyour association, please contact any board member with suggestions or input youmay have.

Have a great restof the year and watch your six!

Matt Thomas

President

Post Conference 2015

10/24/2015 12:00:00 AM

I want to start off by saying thank you andcongratulations to Missy Morris, your conference chair, for a very, verysuccessful conference. Missy has done anamazing job over the past several years putting together conferences, each yearsurpassing the last. She is alreadyworking on next year’s conference and has some great speakers already linedup. Our Tuesday night event was a greatsuccess and I hope everyone had a chance to attend. We will look at expanding this next year.

We had over 550 people in attendance at thisyear’s conference, almost 100 more than last year. Please know that we are actively looking fora conference site to return to the north/south rotation. As long as our attendance continues to grow,we will need to find a facility that can accommodate over 600 attendees. You can look to the website in the future tounderstand what hotels require of CAHN to hold a conference in theirhotel/conference center.

For those of you who attended this year’sconference, I want to thank you for your patience with the elevators. We knew one of the elevators was going to bedown for replacement, which should have left three working elevators. Unfortunately, the elevators have been inoperation for the past 15 years and have had over 3 million calls for theirlife. Murphy’s Law took over and ofcourse we lost a second elevator, which was beyond anyone’s control. The part that went out was the drive shaft,which had to be manufactured, not a quick fix. The good news is the elevators should all be replaced by next year. Lastly for the hotel, again Murphy was in thehouse and a water leak occurred. Thehotel took quick action and moved and/or cleaned the rooms in question. We are at the Embassy Suites in Anaheim forone more year. We are actively looking for larger sites for the future.

As always this is your association and we askfor your suggestions or comments. Pleasecontact any board member, State, North or South with any questions orconcerns. We need your suggestions tocontinue to improve our services to our members.

Matt Thomas

President

January 2015

1/29/2015 12:00:00 AM

January 2015

Happy New Year to all. As we mentioned in our last email we had some board members from the regional boards move on to bigger and better things! As most of you know, Russ Moore and Rex Osborn have moved on as your regional directors. Patti Salas and Paul Woodward from the southern region and Chris Stevens a regional representative from the north had also decided to not run again.

November 2014

11/2/2014 12:00:00 AM

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy holiday season. This year has gone by very quickly.

This year’s conference was a great success. Missy Morris put together an excellent conference for our membership this year. Missy faced a lot of challenges while building this schedule. She started with what we thought would be an early finished schedule of speakers but it changed almost weekly and was, with the exception of a few speakers, an entirely new schedule up to a week before the conference started. This, to say the least, was very stressful for Missy. The good news is, for the 2015 conference, we are well on our way to hopefully having a schedule set, keep your fingers crossed. I want to thank Missy for her dedication to CAHN and the conference chair position for the great work she has done and continues to perform on behalf of the board, but more importantly, the membership. I certainly look forward to working with Missy moving forward.

I am in the process of looking for sites in Northern California in an effort to try to move our conference back to the North/South rotation we have had in the past. It all hinges in finding a suitable location. I will keep everyone posted.

Several of your board members have recently retired from their agencies. Congratulations to State Secretary Patricia Larrigan and State Treasurer Penny Anti on your retirements. That does not mean they are leaving the board, their dedication and service to you has been outstanding and I look forward to working with them into the future as well.

Sadly, we are losing our two Regional Directors, Russ Moore and Rex Osborn, after many, many years of dedicated service to our membership and to the board. Russ and Rex, your service has been invaluable to me and will miss your input and counsel. Thank you from the bottom of my heart and you will be missed. Southern Region Rep, Paul Woodward has also chosen not to return to the board after several years of service. Paul your service to the membership and the board was also invaluable and I thank you for you for your participation. You all will be missed, but don’t be strangers.

We have an election looming to replace these vital positions of those who have stepped down as well as those incumbents and several new faces that wish to serve you, the membership. Thank you for everyone who wishes to remain and those new faces who desire to be involved.

February 2014

2/1/2014 12:00:00 AM

Greetings CAHN Members,

Happy New Year! I trust everyone had a safe new year.

As I signed on to Facebook this morning, I was met with the two stars of the Highway Patrol and mourning bands. It seems we are seeing this all too frequently. Two members of the California Highway Patrol lost their lives this morning responding to the aid of another motorist involved in a traffic collision. As they approached the scene, for an unknown reason, were forced to swerve their vehicle and lost control of their vehicle. Let us keep Officers Juan Gonzalez and Brain Law and their families in our thoughts and prayers as we carry on the mission they were working when they lost their lives.

The planning for this year’s conference started almost immediately after last year’s conference ended. I am happy say we have signed a contract for the next two years with the Embassy Suites in Anaheim/Garden Grove. We have been looking for a venue in the North that can meet our needs, but have not had any luck. We are in search of hotel with a good price point for rooms, food and convention space as well as activities for our members to have in the evenings. If anyone has any ideas moving forward please let us know so we can look into those properties for the 2016 and beyond. If you have any questions please contact me via e-mail and I will be happy to discuss what we are looking for in convention space etc.... Having said that, make sure you make your reservations early. If you make a reservation and find you are unable to attend, please do not cancel your room reservation, please let either Patricia or myself know so we can simply change the name and not lose the room.

Missy, your conference chair, has been hard at work and has almost filled the speaker venue with some great presentations, so stay tuned for updates.

This year celebrates our 25^th Anniversary as an association. We will bring back the challenge coin with a new design for 25 years as well as some limited merchandise for the anniversary. We may try to have a sample of the merchandise up on the website, so that you may preorder, stay tuned for further information.

We also welcome our newest board members, Pat O’Brien, Lynette Salazar and Teresa Irvin, who you may have seen at last year’s conference, but are now in full swing with their board duties.

As always, this is your association so we look forward to your input. Please contact any of us on the board by e-mail or phone and will be happy to talk with you.

And to quote Sgt. Esterhaus from Hill Street Blues:

Let’s Be Careful Out There!

Matt Thomas

President

November 2013

11/1/2013 12:00:00 AM

Greetings CAHN Members,

I hope this message finds you all well.

Hopefully, those of you who attended the Conference had a great experience. The Embassy Suites in Garden Grove is a great location. They had several amenities that are hard to overlook when searching for venues. First and foremost the staff at the Embassy was great. They were very accommodating and looked after every need. If there was a problem they were very quick to solve it to make our membership happy. I would particularly like to thank Jessica Haydis (Sales Manager) and Erica Perez (Banquet Manager) for their service to our organization. A great big thanks also goes out to Rick Garcia, the Chef at the Embassy, who oversaw and developed the menus we had for lunch each day. Rick truly cared about our meals and wanted to ensure everyone was happy and well fed. I think he achieved his goal.

Missy Morris the Conference Chair did an outstanding job on organizing this conference. She worked tirelessly early on to secure the speakers and had most, if not all, committed early on to make the rest of her work and that of the conference committee easy. Thank you Missy for a great conference; everything moved along without any issues and very smooth. In fact, I believe Missy has already begun working on next year’s conference so stay tuned. Remember we have limited number of spaces so you need to sign up and pay early to retain your spots.

Let me address the issue of switching from Northern to Southern CA. We are finding it increasingly harder to find a venue in the Northern part of the state for the value that we receive in the Anaheim area. Monterey was a great location; however, they priced us out of the market. San Francisco and Sacramento are very expensive for all costs involved. A member mentioned Santa Clara, however, with the 49er stadium opening and football season in full swing when we have our conference, the cost will prohibitive in that area as well. It appears at this point the Garden Grove area will be our best bet to help keep the costs down and maintain our low registration fees. We have to increase our fees by $25.00 this year from $250 to $275 to help cover anticipated costs. The benefit to the membership of having breakfast included in the hotel is huge as there are no extra costs and having to leave the property. Being able to include lunch is also a benefit for both the attendees and the conference committee as we can feed everyone on site keeping everyone close so we can reconvene and start on time. This also keeps the membership from having to go out to lunch, wait for a table and hope to make it back on time. In short, unless we find a better option, it appears we may stay in that area for the next couple of years. I am happy to entertain any ideas from our membership about any ideas for hotels, other than San Diego. We would like to go back there, however, the prices keep rising making the location cost prohibitive.

I am happy to report the move from May to September has been a positive move for our attendance as it is back up to 450+. I hope this trend continues and we can maintain the attendance as this training is very important.

As always, this is your association, please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail any executive board member with your ideas or concerns.

Matt Thomas

President

Summer 2013

7/31/2013 12:00:00 AM

Greetings,

I hope this message finds you all enjoying your summer months and vacations. We just finished our June meeting just prior to our conference. Missy, your conference chair has been very busy these past few months researching and building the conference schedule for this year. Missy has done a great job and this years’ conference promises to be great. The venue is much better that what we had last year. Last year was a temporary fix for a short-term problem. The Embassy suites hotel system has been very good to us. We have a location in the North, the Embassy in Seaside, which will accommodate us, or we can continue to look for a different location for the North, or the possibility exists that we stay at the Embassy in the Disney area until we find a location for the North. We will keep you posted on where the search takes us.

Thank you to all the team reps that took time to vote. It is important for every team to have a voice and help to maintain our association. As you may or may not know, if there is an uncontested position in for any office, then a vote is not needed and that person automatically is elected and assumes office. Having said that, congratulations to your new Vice President, Mark Azzouni from Santa Rosa PD. Mark replaces, even though we really can’t replace him, Rob Thompson from the Sacramento FBI Office. Rob has been a valuable asset to our association over the years but his position is requiring more of his time as a supervisory agent. I will miss Rob, his guidance and perspective on our association on negotiations in general. When you see Rob at the conference, please wish him luck and thank him for his service as he term ends at the end of the conference. Congratulations are also in order to Patricia Larrigan as she continues in her role as the State Secretary. Patricia is a valuable asset to our association and spends many, many hours during her off duty time performing her duties as the secretary for your association. I am not sure what we would, or I for that matter, would do without her.

Congratulations to the following regional officers elected as well:

Patrick O’Brien (Rocklin PD) – Northern Region Representative

John Gerges (FBI) – Northern Region Treasurer

Lynette Salazar (Glendale PD) – Southern Region Representative

Teresa Irvin (Los Angeles PD) – Southern Region Treasurer

I thank all of those who chose to run, it is good to see some new faces with the desire to get involved and help the great work being done by the board. If you did not win the seat you were running for please stay in touch and involved with your regions and run again.

As always, this is YOUR association and we welcome and look forward to your input, so please feel free to contact anyone on the board with your ideas or questions you may have. If you see or read about an interesting event that would relate to what we do please contact one of your regional representatives and they will explore it to see if we can utilize it in one of our regional or annual training conferences.

Stay safe and keep up the passion for negotiations that you all have.

See you Anaheim,

Matt Thomas

President

February 2013

2/19/2013 12:00:00 AM

Greetings to all,

I hope this message finds you all well, as the Flu has hit California Hard.

It is with great sadness that I must announce our Conference Chairman, Robyn Boersma, recently retired to an on the job injury, has resigned her post. Robyn has had a set back with her condition and needs to concentrate on getting healthy and did not feel she could give the conference planning her full attention. Please join me in wishing Robyn all the best. I will truly miss her planning and friendship with the organization.

July 2012

7/31/2012 12:00:00 AM

President Message

July 2012

I trust that everyone is having a great summer so far. As I write this today, I am reflecting on our profession and the collateral duties we all have chosen to undertake. The recent events in Colorado have reminded me about how things can change in a moment's notice, doing the things we normally would not think twice about doing. While we don't quite yet know the full story of what happened at the theatre, it appears the responding officers handled the situation appropriately for what they were confronted with. Ultimately the suspect was waiting for the police and was taken into custody without incident. While there was not a hostage or barricaded subject at this location, this situation could have quickly become out of control. My thoughts and prayers go out to not only the victims and their families, but more importantly to the responding officers, deputies, fire fighters and medical personnel.

There have been, in recent months in California, numerous shootings and some hostage taking events. If you are a Facebook member and are "friends" to the Texas, Florida and Western States Hostage negotiation associations you continue to see updates about events occurring in their areas. If you are not I would recommend you "Friend" them as the articles posted are not only interesting but continue to provide learning points for all of us. This continues to remind me of how important our jobs as Negotiators are, whether in a large or small agency. This is why any training you can attend, whether it be through CAHN or another agency, it is so important to what we do to be ready and confident in our skills. Our skills are as perishable as are those skills POST requires us to train on every two years.

Your Conference Chair Person, Robyn Boersma, has been working hard to put together an agenda for you to enhance your skills and it looks great. Check the website to see the agenda as it evolves. Remember that Berkeley is a temporary site for us as we look for a hotel venue that can accommodate our group and maybe a multi-year contract. For the 2013 Conference we are negotiating with the Embassy Suites Anaheim South in Garden Grove (just blocks from Disneyland). They are working with us for group rates and transportation to an Angels game and we can work with Disneyland to get group rate tickets as well.....more to come on those venues so stay tuned.

Stay safe and keep up the passion for negotiations that you all have.

Matt Thomas

President