NTS recently enlisted a few of its advanced instructors to provide on-site training for their most challenging students yet—law enforcement officers employed by the U.S. government.

The Federal Protective Service (FPS), a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, sent 12 officers to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) in Georgia for advanced security training from NTS. Over the course of several weeks, the officers trained extensively in intrusion, video surveillance and access control. The NTS training prepared the students for their next call of duty: providing security for federal buildings as physical security specialists.

FPS plays a critical role in DHS operations, protecting thousands of federal facilities and safeguarding millions of federal employees, contractors and civilian visitors each year. In 2011, FPS conducted more than 2,000 criminal investigations and made more than 1,600 arrests. The unit confiscated more than 700,000 weapons, dangerous objects and contraband, and performed more than 13,000 K-9 sweeps for explosives.

"Federal Protective Service students are not your average students,” said ESA Education Committee Chairman and NTS Instructor LJ Lynes of Stanley Security Solutions. "Almost all of them are well-versed security and law enforcement professionals. They put instructors to the test with questions, scenarios and field experiences they have had.”

Lynes and three other senior NTS instructors – Dale Eller of ITZ Solutions, Joseph Hayes of All County Security and Joel Kent of FBN Security –traveled from across the country to lead the training efforts. They developed a specialized curriculum for that utilized several core NTS classes, including Certified Alarm Technician Level 1 (CAT-1), Advanced Intrusion Systems (AIS), Electronic Access Control (EAC), and Video System Technologies (VST). These courses allowed the students to think about and react to problems on a more technical level.

"The goal of the training is to help our nations’ protectors become more technical and aware of everyday security issues that they are faced with,” Lynes said. "They have a tremendous job and if NTS can offer any assistance, we are glad to do so.”

All parties agreed that the FLETC training was a huge success, and will have a lasting impression on NTS and on ESA as a whole. ESA’s Vice President of Training and Certification Rick Sheets said he looks forward to working with agencies like FLETC in the future.

"NTS loves having the opportunity to train law enforcement agencies like FLETC,” Sheets said. "It really helps them understand our industry and see first-hand the effort we put into training our members.”