There’s nothing fancy or even particularly
interesting here. Most of my posts go directly to
The Center
for Messianic Learning. I really enjoy building websites and expressing my
views about almost everything, and needed a “home base” for that
effort and an “umbrella” for the websites I currently manage. I’ve provided a bit of information about myself and some
links to my various web-building projects.
Having retired from actively earning a paycheck in May of 2008, I
find that I now have some “free time” to engage in activities that I
want to do, not that someone else tells me I need to be doing. A few
of my current and previous activities are listed below.
The Center for Messianic Learning
I am the founder and
full-time resident theologian of The Center for Messianic Learning, which is
dedicated to teaching the Torah and its way of life,
HaDerek (the Way),
fully centered on the Jewish Messiah, to all of God's people.
Messianic Judaism starts with the assumption that Christianity was
originally Jewish. Jesus, the apostles, and all the first disciples
were practicing Jews who considered themselves part of Israel and
the Jewish people. They did not envision themselves as the authors
of a new religion; they considered themselves to be a sect within
greater Judaism—a reformation movement inspired by the teachings
of Rabbi Yeshua (Jesus) of Nazareth and by their conviction that He is
the long-promised Messiah King. They belonged to the sect of
the Nazarenes (also called The Way), a first-century Jewish school of disciples centered
around Yeshua. They did not hold Jesus or the gospel message in
antithesis to the Torah (unfortunately incorrectly translated as “Law”) of Moses, but rather held that Torah
is fully compatible with the teaching of Yeshua and the Apostles. We
therefore agree with them that the followers of Yeshua (Jesus)
should, therefore, be considered a sect within greater Judaism, and
not a separate religion.
We also subscribe to the vision and mission of
First Fruits of Zion
and the
Vine of David for the Church to:
• bring the Church back to its foundations;
• eliminate supercessionism (Replacement Theology);
• establish a Jewish understanding of faith in Yeshua; and
• bring the Church into solidarity with Israel.
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Producer and Co-host of The BobCast MOV with Rick and Bob
For many years Bob and Rick have worked both been very concerned that
many of our residents don’t seem to be exhibiting the same level of community pride
they did in the ’50s and ’60s and have been working hard to turn than trend around.
That’s at the very heart of this podcast. Folks just don’t seem to know as much about
our community as they once did, and many are simply far “too busy” to get involved.
We know what “busy” is because we’re busy too. But we believe that a large part of
the problem is that folks just don’t know as much about our community as they once
did, so we’re here to help remedy that situation. Originating from Wood County, West
Virginia, TheBobcast MOV discusses any and all topics of interest to the residents
of the Mid-Ohio Valley, including upcoming community events, local civic leaders,
volunteer organizations, local history, and much more. Visit
our website,
“Like” and “Follow” us on
Facebook, “Follow” us on
Twitter,
“Like” and “Subscribe” to our
YouTube channel.
Parkersburg Police Department
The Parkersburg Police Department serves a city
of 12.35 square miles in — and the county seat of —
Wood County, West
Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers,
it is the state's third-largest city with a population of 29,738
in the 2020 census, down from 31,492 in 2010. Its peak population was 44,797 in 1960. The city is
about 14 miles south of Marietta, Ohio. I serve the department
as a volunteer. From September 2017 until April 2022 I was assigned to staff the
South Substation.
Since April 2022 I have been assigned to the
City Park Substation.
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IT Coordinator, Parkersburg/Wood County Neighborhood Watch
Neighborhood Watch is one of the
oldest and most effective crime prevention programs in the country,
bringing citizens together with law enforcement to deter crime and
make communities safer. The Parkersburg and Wood County Neighborhood Watch Co-op is chartered by the
Parkersburg
Police Department and
Wood County Sheriff’s Office to organize and
coordinate the activities of all the Neighborhood Watch Groups in
Parkersburg and the surrounding unincorporated areas of Wood County.
I am also the Watch Captain of my apartment complex.
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Member, SIRN Regional Interoperability Committee, Region 1
The West Virginia State Interoperability
Radio Network is a collaborative effort by state, county, and municipal
public safety entities to establish and maintain a statewide interoperable
radio network for emergency services. The project is divided into four
Regional Interoperability Committees to assist with governing and
monitoring the implementation of the SIRN and to assist in establishing goals for the betterment of the SIRN.
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Amateur Radio Operator
I obtained my Amateur Radio Technician license
(KG8NKS) in April of 2010, and upgraded to General license (WV8DOC) in
November 2013. I live in a high-rise apartment, so hanging antennas on
my residence is out of the question; I work the 2 Meter and 70
Centimeter bands with indoor antennas leaning up against my living room window. Not
terribly efficient, but since I mostly work emergency communications and
we have a really good amateur repeater network in the county, it
meets my needs adequately.
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Trustee, Wood County Emergency
Communications, Inc.
Wood County Emergency Communications Inc. (WCEC)
is an all volunteer Non-Profit organization, created to provide back-up
and overload communications to all Public Safety agencies in Wood County,
West Virginia and the surrounding counties in WV and OH. Read more in
our Mission Statement to see what we do.
For more information on Emergency Communicators and Amateur Radio read their "Who Are We?" article.
I have been a member since 2010 and a Trustee since 2015.
Amateur Radio Emergency
Service
The Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES) consists
of licensed amateurs who have voluntarily registered their qualifications
and equipment with their local ARES leadership, for communications duty
in the public service when disaster strikes.
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Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES)
RACES stands for “Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service,” a
protocol created by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC Part 97,
Section 407). Many government agencies across the country
train their Auxiliary Communications Service (ACS) volunteers
using the RACES protocol. The volunteers serve their respective
jurisdictions pursuant to guidelines and mandates established
by local emergency management officials. RACES volunteer operators are:
- Licensed Radio Amateurs
- Certified by a civil defense agency
- Able to communicate on Amateur Radio frequencies during drills, exercises and emergencies
- Activated by local, county and state jurisdictions and are the only Amateur Radio operators
authorized to transmit during declared emergencies when
the President of the United States specifically invokes
the War Powers Act.
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Communications Technician, Tyler County Office of Emergency Management
The
Office of Emergency Management is responsible for overseeing and
managing all disasters and major emergencies that occur within the
county. Tyler County OEM has followed the FEMA Whole Community
approach to emergency management. Over the past 20 years a team
has been developed that includes volunteers, government agencies
and businesses. The groups include volunteers from several disciplines
including search & rescue, Medical Reserve Corps, the Tyler County
Commission, mayors of Middlebourne, Sistersville, Friendly, and Paden
City, local public service districts, Tyler County Board of Education,
Emergency Response Team(CERT), cooking crew, Tyler County Amateur Radio
Organization, Project Lifesaver and the technology folks. Tyler OEM
also works with Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD).
We have active volunteers from many counties in WV and the surrounding
area. We are also closely connected to nearly every county in WV through
our friendship with all the other emergency management agencies!
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Electronic Search Technician, Project Lifesaver
Project Lifesaver is a 501 (C)(3) community based,
public safety, non-profit organization that provides law enforcement,
fire/rescue, and caregivers with a program designed to protect, and
when necessary, quickly locate individuals with cognitive disorders
who are prone to the life threatening behavior of wandering. The program is structured in a way that strategically
combined state of the art locating technologies, innovative search
and rescue methods, and community policing courses that educated
first responders about cognitive conditions. The search times for
certified Project Lifesaver agencies have been reduced from hours,
potentially days, down to minutes. Recovery times for Project
Lifesaver agencies average 30 minutes, which is 95% less
time than standard operations without Project Lifesaver.
Citizens enrolled in Project Lifesaver wear a small
transmitter on the wrist or ankle that emits an individualized
frequency signal. If an enrolled client goes missing, the
caregiver notifies their local Project Lifesaver agency, and
a trained emergency team responds to the wanderer’s area. The
first responders will then use the client’s individualized
frequency to locate the position of the individual. The
knowledge given from the community policing courses is best
applied in this situation because the first responders will
know how to best approach the client once found, and allow
them to be brought back to safety.
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Federal Emergency Management Agency, COML and AUXCOMM
The
Communications Unit Leader (COML) is a position under
the Logistics Section of the
Incident Command System (ICS) (see pages 57-58 of the
National Incident Management System [NIMS], which is available
HERE). The COML reports
directly to the Logistics Chief or Incident Commander. A COML’s responsibilities
include developing plans for the effective use of incident communications
equipment and facilities, managing the distribution of communications
equipment to incident personnel, and coordinating the installation and
testing of communications equipment. The COML will supervise other
members of the Communications Unit such as the Communications
Technician (COMT), Radio Operator (RADO), and Incident Communications
Center Manager (INCM), if those positions are filled during an incident. The
COML may also supervise volunteer communicators, if available, such as the
amateur radio emergency communications support team. The
AUXCOMM
is the official name given by Homeland Security to Amateur Radio
operators (RACES/ARES/CERT), REACT members, and others who augment
the paid/trained first responders during declared emergencies.
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W5YI Volunteer Examiner
Amateur radio license testing is conducted under the supervision of Volunteer
Examiner Coordinators (VEC's).
Volunteer
examiners (VEs) are Amateurs holding General, Advanced or Extra Class
licenses who are approved by a VEC may prepare and administer amateur license
examinations to applicants. The examinations are given by teams of three qualified
VEs who volunteer their time to help the amateur service grow. There are 14 FCC
appointed VEC's, but almost 90% of all ham radio testing is conducted by only
two of them, the ARRL-VEC and the W5YI-VEC.
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SkyWarn®
Storm Spotter
To obtain critical weather information, the
National Weather Service (NWS) established
SKYWARN® with partner organizations. SKYWARN® is a volunteer program with between 350,000 and 400,000 trained severe weather spotters. These volunteers help keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service.
Although SKYWARN® spotters provide essential information for all types of weather hazards, the main responsibility of a SKYWARN® spotter is to identify and describe severe local storms. In an average year, the the United States experiences more than 10,000 severe thunderstorms, 5,000 floods and more than 1,000 tornadoes.
Since the program started in the 1970s, the information provided by SKYWARN® spotters, coupled with Doppler radar technology, improved satellite and other data, has enabled NWS to issue more timely and accurate warnings for tornadoes, severe thunderstorms and flash floods. SKYWARN® storm spotters are citizens who form the nation's first line of defense against severe weather. There can be no finer reward than to know that their efforts have given communities the precious gift of time—seconds and minutes that can help save lives.
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Consulting and Website Design
As time and energy permit,
I also provide low-cost or no-cost
consulting
and web design services for startup non-profits that are directly
related to public safety, emergency response, or disaster preparedness.
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Deputy Director, Wood County Community
Emergency Response Team (CERT)
(Served 2010-2014) Wood County CERT was a nationally accredited,
formally trained organization of local citizen volunteers working
with First Responders to help grow and strengthen the public safety
network in Wood County. The CERT
Program, part of the
Federal
Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA), educates people about disaster preparedness for hazards that
may impact their area and trains them in basic disaster response skills,
such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and
disaster medical operations, all in compliance with the
National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the
National Response Framework (NRF). Using the training learned in the
classroom and during exercises, CERT members can assist others in their
neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders
are not immediately available to help. CERT members also are encouraged
to support emergency response agencies by taking a more active role in
emergency preparedness projects in their community. Even
though Wood County CERT members volunteered well over 2,000
hours providing disaster relief during the
2012 Derecho Event that devastated Wood County and
totally overwhelmed emergency responders for over a week,
the
Wood County Commission and the
City of Parkersburg decided (in their infinite wisdom)
that citizen volunteers extensively trained to assist their
neighbors in times of disaster was not in the best interest
of their constituents, and the program was closed down in
April of 2014.
Visit the
national CERT website.
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Treasurer, After The Disaster, Inc.
After The Disaster, Inc. (ATD) is a non-stock,
non-profit 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation established on May
20, 2019 to provide Lovin’ Hands Kits for victims of disasters such
as fire or flood. ATD provides the kits to fire stations to be
distributed by the stations to the affected victims at the scene of
the disaster.
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President, South Parkersburg Unity Plaza
Tenants Association, Inc.
(Served 2014-2019) The Association is a
501(c)(4) Social Welfare Corporation, established in 1984
for the promotion of the social welfare of the 160 residents
of the three-building apartment complex. The Association serves
the residents of South Parkersburg Unity Housing (SPUH) by
acting as a central voice in the affairs of all tenants; by
promote the general welfare of the tenants of SPUH; and by planning,
promoting, and carrying out programs and activities that benefit
the residents.
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