By Brian V. Bovyn, CEM, Emergency Services Supervisor, Manchester, New Hampshire Police Department

This article is Part 3 of a three-part series on meeting the Professional Contributions requirement of the CEM® application.

Some Additional Professional Contributions

Audiovisual Contributions. Audiovisual contributions are movies, videos, films, radio interviews, training CD-Roms and similar submissions. This category of contribution may be part of a candidate’s regular job functions, based upon the job descriptions provided by the candidate.

No formally defined time requirement has been established in support of this requirement. However, in the past, 10-20 minute short subject videos (pertaining to emergency management activities) have been successfully validated in this category. A PowerPoint presentation does not meet the spirit of this standard.

Adequate supporting documentation must be provided to describe the submission, and supporting letters of attestation from a supervisor, manager or sponsor on official organization stationery must be provided.

Awards. Awards given to the employee by an organization or program external to the candidate’s agency, which rise to a level which exceeds employee of the month or “attaboy/attagirl” letters from internally within the candidate’s organization, can meet this standard. The award must be given to the individual and not a group of employees. The FEMA Professional Development series does not satisfy this requirement. Adequate supporting documentation must be provided to describe the submission, and supporting letters of attestation from a supervisor, manager or sponsor on official organization stationery must be provided.

Examples of this contribution include, but are not limited to, the Eric Tolbert Emergency Management Award, individual state emergency management awards, volunteer agency awards, and Epsilon Pi Phi (National Emergency Manager Honor Society).

With regard to Epsilon Pi Phi (National Emergency Manager Honor Society) and the Gold and Silver Award levels, this may be acceptable as an “award” contribution. However, if the candidate chooses to pursue this contribution, the individual requirement’s supporting documentation cannot be re-used by the candidate to satisfy other CEM® application requirements, such as emergency management or general management training courses or professional contributions. That would be considered a double-dipping scenario, which could be a violation of the IAEM Code of Ethics.

Research. Conducting comprehensive emergency management related graduate level research (professor supervised) or extensive comprehensive emergency management research for IAEM (or a similar emergency management organization) typically meets the requirement for this contribution. Being an interviewed subject, being a single part of a research project, or completing regular homework or essays do not meet the requirements of this standard. Adequate supporting documentation on official stationery from your professor or college administration, samples of the research conducted, and photos and other key research documentation with the candidate’s validated participation described within, typically meet the validation requirement for this contribution.

Other. Other is the “wild card” of professional contributions. This category is broad and generalized by design to afford the candidate the maximum range of flexibility in citing his or her contribution. An example would be an assignment on a disaster response in another jurisdiction. Another example might be significant involvement in a comprehensive emergency management project. Adequate documentation typically includes letters from supervisors, managers or supporting organizational heads on official agency stationery that explain or describe the work completed or that the candidate was involved in. Photographs, radio sound bytes, video segments and newspaper articles also may validate the candidate’s participation. In order to receive credit for the professional contribution, suitable documentation must be present, not just a telephone number.

Author’s Note: Thank you to Daryl Spiewak, CEM, TEM, TCFM, for contributing to this article.

March 2011, IAEM Bulletin