EDITORS: SHEILA HALL AND TERRY SWANSON

MARCH 2005

LEARNING MORE ABOUT OUR TEAM MEMBERS

BRENT M. HARTLEY

Brent M. Hartley has been an Ohio licensed Funeral Director and Embalmer since 1988. He attended the University of Findlay, before receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in Mortuary Science from the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science.

Mr. Hartley is co-owner of Hartley Funeral Home in McComb, Ohio. For many years, the funeral home was owned and operated by Brent and his father. Following the loss of his loyal associate in 1998, Brent found another dedicated partner to share in the family business – his mother. Their remarkable working relationship has allowed Brent to be an active member of DMORT.

Brent is also involved in organizations within his profession: he has been a longtime member of the Ohio Funeral Directors Association Mortuary Response Team, and he is currently serving as their Vice-Chairman; he is on the Board of Directors with the Ohio Funeral Directors Association, where he serves on eight different committees in the Association; he is on the McComb Village Council, and he will soon be campaigning for a second term.

From an early age, Brent has possessed a strong interest in disaster response. When he was ten years old, his family’s funeral home serviced the families of four victims from their community, who were involved in a Colorado plane crash; Brent was profoundly impressed by the care and reverence given to the victims’ families.

Brent joined DMORT Region V in 1992. He has been deployed several times: Comair Flight 3272 Crash (Monroe, Michigan), 1997; Korean Airlines Crash (Guam), 1997; Del Rio Floods (Texas), 1998; World Trade Center Tragedy (New York City, New York), 2001; FEMA Deployment Following the Florida Hurricanes (Atlanta, Georgia), 2004. Besides his deployments, Brent is an energetic participant on DMORT: he is a Certified Trainer for the “Mass Fatality Train the Trainer Course”; he is also the Treasurer of the DMORT Region V Associates Corporation.

When he is not preoccupied with work, professional organizations, or DMORT, Brent enjoys boating and fishing at his home on Lake Erie; he also has a passion for golf, which he claims is his second profession. On the subject of second professions, before attending college, Brent was the owner and sole chef at B’Michaels – a local restaurant renowned for its prime rib and barbeque ribs. Brent remains an avid cook, hoping that his culinary skills will attract the future Mrs. Hartley.

Brent is definitely a “fine ingredient” to our Region V Team!

NEW DMORT FORUM AREA

There is a new area on the DMORT website which allows everyone (team members, leadership, and the public) a chance to keep up with what is going on within the teams and leadership of DMORT. Although these forums will allow public membership, we are asking all team members to become registered users of the system in order to utilize all of the features and functions. At this time, public members will be allowed to read, post messages on the public forum. We now have a private team area that is NOT open to the public. We need ALL team members to be registered users in order to obtain permission to enter these restricted areas.

To interact fully with the forms on dmort.org, please do the following:

1. Go to www.dmort.org
2. Click on the link that says Check out the New DMORT Discussion Forum. This will take you to the main page for different forums. Currently, you will see only one forum, the General Forum. Once you become a verified member of DMORT, your membership status will be changed to allow you access to the private forum. When you logon with your registered and approved name, you will then see the Private DMORT Forum listed. This will allow you to read and post items to only DMORT members.
3. Click on the Register link in the upper right side of the screen.
4. You will be asked to accept the terms and conditions. Click on I Agree to these terms….
5. Fill out the information request. All fields marked with * are required. Please set your website field to your regional team site, if you have one. You may leave all other settings on the page as they are, or modify them to your preferences.
6. Click the SUBMIT button at the bottom of the page to complete your signup.

After signing up, you will be taken to a screen that states your account has been created and approved. You may then go to the main forum page and use the Login link in the upper right part of the screen to gain full access to the system. Logging in will enable you to access the Private DMORT Forum, which is not available to the general public.

After this, you will be able to read, post, and interact fully with the forum(s).

Most Forum issues are discussed in detail at http://www.dmort.org/bb/faq.php (from the FAQ link on the forum main page). Please consult this manual BEFORE requesting assistance.

If at any time in this process you need access assistance, have comments, or want to make suggestions for improvement, please email forums@dmort.org.

INDIANA MORTUARY RESPONSE TEAM

Donald W. Simpson and Dave Hunt

Since 1994, the Indiana State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) has continued to examine its ability to respond to various types of disasters. A complete state team, along with an inventory of essential equipment is required in order to meet this need.

Dave Perkins - Director of Operations for SEMA- has been working diligently with numerous agencies, including the Indiana Funeral Directors Association, Region V DMORT Mortuary Officers (Donald W. Simpson, Kelly P. Cessill, and Dave Hunt), Indiana Coroners Association, Indiana National Guard, Indiana Forensic Dental Team, State Law Enforcement, and the Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) Team to form and equip a state team.

An initial cache will be purchased, with the helpful assistance from Shannon Dotson (Region V DMORT and DPMU Teams) of Penn Care Medical Products Inc. The cache will be owned by SEMA, and a Disaster Management Team will be selected to oversee its operation.

The cache will be utilized for in-state deployments, training exercises, and assisting neighboring states. The entire portable unit will be designed to integrate with the federal system, and be adaptable to all incident response personnel, either within or outside of Indiana.

Team structure and composition are currently under development; however, it is very certain that it will be modeled after the NDMS/DMORT system.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

The Region V Annual Training Session will be held in Columbus, Ohio on June 3-5, 2005. More details will follow as they become available.

Funding for our Region V Training has finally come through!!

Our training exercise will be held on June 3-5 in Columbus, Ohio. Training will involve classroom sessions on Friday and Sunday as well as a full scale drill on Saturday, including site recovery, morgue operations, FAC and IR operations. The drill will take place at Rickenbacker Airport and Air National Guard Base. Participants will include DMORT, OFDA-MRT, Airport Operations, FAA, TSA, Franklin County EMA, American Red Cross, local fire, EMS and SWAT teams, among others. This will be an excellent opportunity for “hands on” training with many agencies.

Currently, final details are being worked out with FEMA and the hotel. As soon as those details are complete we will be e-mailing you registration information. This WILL be a uniformed training. YOU MUST BE IN UNIFORM TO PARTICIPATE. If you need uniforms, contact Bubba (Bob Stevens) at bubba@dmort.org and he will assist you with everything you need.

Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, registration will be limited to 100 people. So when registration begins, FOLLOW ALL INSTRUCTIONS CLOSELY, and give Sue ALL the information she asks on your first reply. Not doing so could hurt your chances of being part of this training.

One last note, DO NOT MAKE TRAVEL PLANS UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED AS ONE OF THE 100 REGISTRANTS. Additional hotel and travel information will be sent to you at that time.

More news to come soon!!

Mike Gedert, Region V Training Officer

Breaking News!!!

Your Editors, Sheila Hall and Terry Swanson, have been scooped by Frank, Bob and Brad, who take great pleasure in announcing that Terry and Sheila have been awarded the COMMANDERS’AWARD FOR MERITORIOUS SERVICE TO REGION V!

For some time now, these two Team members have been doing a great job as our hardworking V of V editors while also making certain that the National Newsletter was reaching all of DMORT. All of this in addition to serving as forensic odontologists as needed.