By Rick Goldstein
The Second General Business Session of APCO 2026 on Tuesday in the Henry B. González Convention Center selected a new executive committee, reviewed the association’s annual progress, passed a bylaws amendment and featured five federal and industry public safety communications partners.
President Jack Varnado announced election results and introduced the new Executive Committee lineup. Jennifer Reese, running unopposed for first vice president, received 823 yes votes and 28 no votes, and Brian Lamonica, running unopposed for second vice president, received 774 yes votes and 37 no votes.
The 2026-2027 APCO Executive Committee is now set. Michael O’Connor assumes the presidency, Reese becomes first vice president, Lamonica becomes second vice president and Varnado becomes immediate past president as Stephen P. Martini rotates off the committee. The executive committee will be sworn in Wednesday evening at the Connect and Celebrate Dinner.
The assembled APCO membership passed a resolution adding two at-large representative seats to the Board of Directors. Unlike regional representatives, at-large members will not need prior service on the Executive Council. The change expands pathways to board leadership. The vote passed without audible dissent.
APCO CEO and Executive Director Mel Maier delivered the annual State of the Association report for an association that now totals 45,158 members.
Maier highlighted signature events on wellness and workforce, and AI.
The Wellness and Workforce Summit drew 185 attendees and 12 sponsors, both records. Sessions moved past traditional wellness approaches. They addressed recruitment, retention, culture, leadership and wellness together. He said wellness must be built into public safety careers from the start, not added later. “It’s not a bolt-on function,” Maier said.
The AI Summit drew 260 attendees and 14 sponsors. Sessions covered AI’s role in training and the ethical and legal questions it raises for emergency communications centers. “AI is exciting,” Maier said, but the person under the headset still determines how well the job gets done.
Maier also announced the Public Safety Innovation Summit Featuring 5×5 and taking place Dec. 1-2 in Orlando, Florida. He encouraged members to attend to assist in the development of innovative ideas that will advance public safety communications.
The 9-1-1 Impact Awards marked their second year. Attendance nearly doubled from 2025. The event added a new partnership with the NG9-1-1 Institute and eight more sponsors than last year. Winners were U.S. Reps. Troy A. Carter Sr. of Louisiana, Neal Dunn, M.D. of Florida, and Richard Hudson of North Carolina; FCC Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau Chief Zenji Nakazawa; and Major County Sheriffs of America Executive Director Megan Noland.
APCO Institute launched a pilot program bundling courses for Public Safety Telecommunicator 1, Emergency Medical Dispatch and core-discipline instructor-level training. Four courses got new editions this year, including Emergency Medical Dispatch, 5th Edition. A new track was added to the Illuminations Program for supervisors and managers.
APCO IntelliComm added e-book guidecards with offline access, single sign-on and performance upgrades. Meanwhile, AFC, APCO’s spectrum management arm, posted a banner year across frequency coordination, engineering, licensing and microwave services. APCO Consulting Services grew its subject matter expert network from six to fifteen and added health and wellness assessments to its offerings.
Four federal officials addressed the session. David Furth, deputy chief of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, traced the agency’s partnership with APCO back to 1935, a year after the FCC’s founding. He said more than 2,400 emergency communications centers are now covered by NG9-1-1 transition requests. Phase 2 of that transition remains the harder work, he said, and requires interoperability across jurisdictions and vendors. Furth also cited a June FCC order requiring ESInet operators to detail their interoperability plans and a federal court ruling that clears the way for selection of a 4.9 GHz band manager.
Billy Bob Brown Jr., executive assistant director for emergency communications at the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), praised APCO’s response to nation-state cyber threats. He said the convergence of AI and quantum computing will be a turning point for public safety. “We don’t want to be afraid of technology,” Brown said. “We want to master it.” He called for unity across agencies and jurisdictions, describing resilience as neighbor helping neighbor.
Matthew Plaster, senior advisor for strategy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), announced a new NTIA video series profiling emergency communications centers using AI. The videos and report are available at NTIA.gov. Plaster cited a recent federal assessment estimating that $5.8 billion is needed to modernize 9-1-1 systems nationwide. Plaster noted that FirstNet reauthorization has passed the House and said the administration would work to make the reauthorization law by the end of the year.
Brian Tegtmeyer, coordinator of the National 9-1-1 Program at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), said all 9-1-1 calls affect roadway safety because responders use those roads to answer them. He cited nearly 41,000 annual traffic deaths, with 43% of victims still alive when first responders arrive. Tegtmeyer touted the innovative use of prehospital blood transfusions that he said could save 37% of trauma patients with severe internal bleeding. San Antonio is among the first cities piloting the practice. Tegtmeyer also highlighted First Responder Incident Advanced Reporting (FRIAR), an NHTSA reporting tool for reporting dangerous vehicle defects.
The federal officials were followed at the podium by Whitney Doll, CEO of The Monitoring Association (TMA). She delivered an update on the ASAP program, a partnership between APCO and TMA that transmits alarm information directly from monitoring centers to dispatch. Doll said the digital exchange takes place in seconds and cuts down on phone calls and transcription errors. She said the reduced workload for public safety telecommunicators and the added situational awareness for responders support a more efficient response when seconds matter. Doll stressed that TMA shares APCO’s priorities, including the protection of critical spectrum and the proper classification of public safety telecommunicators.
