OTC adds emergency management course to spring lineup

Ryan Nicholls, director of the Springfield-Greene County Office of Emergency Management, will teach the 16-week course, titled “Real Disasters: Understanding and Managing the Consequences.”

“We couldn’t have a better person teaching it,” said Shirley Lawler, associate vice president for academic affairs and work force development at OTC. “Ryan works in that background, and he’s in the trenches.”

The course is intended to help current and future emergency management personnel prepare for disasters. Topics include writing emergency plans, putting the pieces back together after disaster strikes and fighting terrorism with Homeland Security.

OTC spokesman Joel Doepker said the course would likely grow into an emergency management systems degree program for the school.

“We would like to offer a college-credit program in emergency management for professionals in the community, and we hope to cross different agencies, from the police to the firefighters to emergency management, hospitals’ key personnel … and we would hope that all of those agencies would come together and that there would be individuals who would want that emergency management training,” Lawler said.

Lawler noted that many programs under OTC’s work force development banner are for continuing education but not college credit, whereas this program could be both.

“There are people working in those areas that I mentioned that perhaps don’t have bachelor’s degrees, or even associates’ degrees, and this would be a way to advance professionally and obtain the skill set they need to work in emergency management,” Lawler said.

OTC’s emergency management systems course will meet 6–9 p.m. on Thursday evenings. Registration is available online at www.otc.edu, or at the school beginning Jan. 7. The semester begins Jan. 14.