Conference Introduction

For the second year, the Virginia Chapters of APCO and NENA are combining forces with the State Interoperability Executive Committee (SIEC) to present a combined Fall Conference. By combining the Fall Conferences for APCO/NENA and Interoperability, we hope to provide you with a super opportunity to learn and share information.

This year’s conference will be held November 2 - 5, 2009 at the beautiful Hotel Roanoke in Roanoke, Virginia. The main conference is Wednesday - Friday, November 3 - 5; two pre-conference courses will be offered on Tuesday, November 2 and an All Hazards COM-L pre-conference course will be offered Sunday, October 31 through Tuesday, November 2.

We will have an expanded exhibit hall and additional classrooms/tracks focusing on training for all Public Safety disciplines to include education for telecommunicators, technical staff (radio, information technology, and GIS disciplines), management/supervision, and interoperability, as well as lessons learned and best practices in all public safety communications disciplines.

Scholarship funding from the Virginia Wireless Services Board will be available for the Fall Conference. The scholarship funding will cover hotel accommodations and registration up to $1,000 per locality for a primary PSAP.  Primary PSAP means your locality must be eligible for wireless board funding. The $1,000 is considered in its totality and can be extended to several individuals from your locality.

Registration Payment Options

Registration forms provide several options for payment, depending on your registration and/or PSAP Scholarship choices. The preferred method of payment for this conference will be via credit card. The Conference Committee has entered into an agreement with PayPal to process your credit card payments via checkout through the Virginia Chapter of APCO website. This option will be available later this week; in the meantime, please complete your registration forms and make your lodging reservations.

Coming soon…

ATTENTION VENDORS!

We are a combined state conference with the Virginia Chapters of APCO and NENA and the State Interoperability Executive Committee all teaming up to bring one larger conference.

At last year's conference, we had 543 in attendance, which is the largest state conference in our history and just 16 short of the East Coast Regional conference in 2006. There were 80 PSAP's and State agencies represented, and 52 vendor booths filled. Additionally, there were many County Administrations, City Managers, Board of Supervisors and City Council Members, Fire Chiefs, Police Chiefs and Sheriffs in attendance. We've been told by many in attendance and by APCO International, our conference was bigger and better attended than most regional conferences across the nation.

We are hoping to top last year's records and make the 2010 conference even bigger and better!

Virginia Chapters of APCO and NENA, and the SIEC certainly hope we can count on your support in reaching our goals and in having your attendance at the conference.

Conference Sponsorships

Sponsorship opportunities are available for the 2010 Fall conference. Please contact Phil Heins at (804) 365-6142 or email at pheins@co.hanover.va.us for more information and specific sponsorship opportunities.

Conference Exhibits

Booth rentals for the Exhibit Hall are available. Please contact Joe Gately with Gately Communications at (757) 826-8210 or email at jgately@gately.com for more information.

To sign up to work on the conference, to pass along suggestions to make the conference better, or if you have contacts for possible vendor exhibit booth rental or conference sponsorship, please contact the chair or co-chair of the specific committee. To view a list of the committees and contact information, click here.